The war on terror has made President Bush popular—proof that Americans like presidents who stick up for their country.

Liberals are upset. They believed they had besmirched patriotism with "McCarthyism," jingoism, and xenophobia, thereby destroying patriotism as a political force.

Patriots themselves were intimidated by liberals and driven to operate behind materialistic concepts such as "national interest" and to cover even this motive with UN or NATO approval.

We can thank Osama bin Laden for shutting up the liberals. I haven't seen so many American flags since a July 4 celebration in 1949.

But is the war on terror the right war? Why is bombing Muslims in Afghanistan more important than defending our borders from a silent invasion and defending equality in law from race and gender privileges?

On both of these war fronts, the Bush administration is failing abysmally. Even the U.S. armed forces have become bailiwicks of discrimination against white males.

Earlier this month, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth declared unconstitutional the Army's officer promotion policy on the grounds that it "undeniably establishes a preference in favor" of women and nonwhites while passing over qualified white male officers. [Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Saunders v. Thomas E. White (Secretary of the Army) Read the decision in PDF.]

Think about that for a moment. White males laying down their lives in defense of a country that intentionally discriminates against them.

That is patriotism run amuck: "My country right or wrong, but my country."

Terrorists in Afghanistan can do us no harm. It is the ones in the U.S. who are dangerous. A suicidal immigration policy has filled the U.S. with al Qaeda "sleeper cells" and a multi-million Muslim population in which they hide. Here is where the war on terrorism should be focused.

The U.S. has ordered 314,000 illegal aliens to be deported, but law enforcement cannot find them. If President Bush has his way, we would not be able to deport them even if we could find them.

President Bush wants something to take to Mexican President Fox when he goes to Mexico on March 22. The gift he has in mind is for Congress to pass a Section 245(i) extension that, in effect, institutionalizes illegal immigration by allowing an illegal alien to pay the INS $1,000 for a green card.

How can this right be granted to a Mexican illegal alien but not to one from the Middle East?

Congress is likely to look at Bush's 82% approval rating and give him what he wants.

Once the U.S. is a Mexican province, bin Laden will have achieved his goal of destroying the U.S. by focusing us on the Middle East while we are overrun by a silent invasion aided and abetted by President Bush.

Things have gone a lot further than we realize. Are you aware, for example, that for the first time in our history, a debate between the two candidates for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Texas was conducted in Spanish?

The two Democratic candidates, Dan Morales and Tony Sanchez, acknowledging demography to be destiny, campaign for the Texas gubernatorial nomination in a foreign language.

If this isn't reconquest, what is?

The war on terror is the wrong war and one badly fought. We seem headed for an Orwellian National ID card. The card's advocates want it to contain fingerprint and retina information, to serve as a mandatory travel pass, and to contain a record of travel patterns and medical, criminal, tax, child support and financial information. The card would also serve as a means of payment in lieu of cash, be linked to all federal agencies, and be capable of being instantly disabled at the government's discretion, thus rendering its holder unable to travel or make payments.

Such a card, together with bureaucratic foulups and the rapidly growing tendency to criminalize misdemeanors, would result in a large number of Americans finding themselves unable to function in society. Life in the U.S. would become more oppressive and arbitrary than in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Our collective insecurity would be far greater than terrorists could inflict.

We cannot be safe unless we protect our constitutional rights and our borders.

Paul Craig Roberts is the author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.

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