Interesting pair of letters to the editor in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Militarization of Minnesota's northern borderlands
Last week the Coast Guard fired live ammunition on Lake Superior, despite a request for an extended public comment period. Soon the Great Lakes will become periodic firing ranges, endangering recreational boaters and fishermen, while sinking large amounts of lead to the lake bottoms.
This week the people of Grand Marais will learn where a new 34,000-square-foot Homeland Security Facility will be built; on the hill above Grand Marais or at another undisclosed site somewhere close to the Gunflint Trail. This building will include three, 700-square-foot detention cells and a helicopter pad. Fifty Border Patrol agents will soon be parked at boat launches inside and outside of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, as well as patrolling the border lakes by canoe, snowmobile, motorboat and helicopter. By contrast, the average number of detentions at the Pigeon River Crossing is one person per month, most commonly for lack of proper identification.
And soon, George W. Bush's "Secure Borders Initiative" will reward a government contractor billions to install sensors and remote detection devices all along the Canadian border.
The target date for the completion of all of these objectives is the end of 2008. While intercity neighborhoods in St. Paul and Minneapolis struggle with the lack of local law enforcement, border communities are watching the purposeful militarization of Lake Superior and the wilderness borderlands. I implore the newspaper to speak out against the militarization of the Canadian border and instead demand a focus on rational security, and keeping our home-soil friendly.
STACI L. DROUILLARD, GRAND MARAIS, MINN.
The mayor of Duluth needs to get real. When the Coast Guard uses its weapons it will be on the water not on land. You train for the environment you are on.
LYNN WIEBE, BOYD, MINN.
http://www.startribune.com/563/story/682577.html
Posted by Dave at September 17, 2006 08:41 AM