Approach With Caution

Lost in the US - eleven Egyptian young men ranging in the ages from 17 to 22. The bulletin released from the FBI to all law enforcement agencies nationwide includes their pictures, their names, and visa information.

"At the present time there are no known associations to any terrorist groups. Approach with caution," the lookout bulletin states."

They have only been missing since July 29, 2006 after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. They were part of a group of twenty students traveling on visas to attend classes at Montana State University. Three of the twenty students were not permitted entry and six actually did arrive and checked in at Montana. Where the other eleven are is anybody's guess.

The names released by the FBI of the eleven missing are:

• El Sayed Ahmed Elsayed Ibrahim, 20

• Eslam Ibrahim Mohamed El Dessouki, 21

• Alaa Abd El Fattah Ali El Bahnasawi, 20

• Mohamed Ragab Mohamed Abd Alla, 22

• Ahmed Refaat Saad El Moghazi El Laket, 19

• Ahmed Mohamed Mohamed Abou El Ela, 21

• Mohamed Ibrahim Elsayed El Moghazy, 20

• Ebrahim Mabrouk Moustafa Abdou, 22

• Moustafa Wagdy Moustafa El Gafary, 18

• Mohamed Saleh Ahmed Maray, 20

• Mohamed Ibrahim Fouaad El Shenawy, 17

Pictures would be nice, but I would imagine that because they are only "unaccounted for" the ACLU would have a field day with invasion of privacy issues if the pictures were issued. Where are our rights? It's bad enough that we are fighting an influx of illegal aliens crossing our borders to the south, but to encourage possible trouble by maintaining student exchange programs with countries producing terrorists (al-Qaeda's dead al-Zarqawi was Egyptian) is almost mind boggling.

Here's a thought. Instead of teaching them, it's time we learned a lesson ourselves. Shut down these programs now. Save our tax-payers millions of dollars in trying to sort out the good guys, from the bad. Save our citizens from harm - shooting Jews and running over fellow students with a rented Jeep may seem like isolated incidents, but it only takes one to kill many. How many more of these small scale attacks need to happen before it escalates into the numbers of lives lost in the 9-11 attack?

Twenty started out, three had their visas revoked. Why were those three stopped? The plan of 9-11 was to have twenty in the air. It was accomplished with ninteen. Am I the only one who doesn't like the numbers game here? Six appear to be legitimate students, but how can anyone in Montana sleep peacefully knowing that they were part of a group accepted by the state university that has had three turned away at the border and eleven now missing? I am not discriminating here - I am suspicious, as anyone in their right minds should be under the circumstances.

"We do want to talk to them. But at this point there's no reason to believe they pose any criminal or terrorist threat," said Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Julie Myers, who heads Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Yeh, right. I am sure that eleven guys smart enough to be accepted by a state university, are not smart enough to know that once here they could take off to parts unknown and not be missed. Obviously, they were willing to take that chance. We aren't talking spring flings here with young men suddenly finding themselves in a situation of no supervision that have decided to sow their wild oats. We are talking about a group of intelligent individuals who have come from most likely educated and affluent families who no doubtedly were very aware of the requirements expected of them once they hit our soil. This is not a move of thoughtlessness, it is an act of calculation.

Why burden ourselves with having to "find" them? Obviously, they should never have been here in the first place. "At the present time there are no known associations to any terrorist groups. Approach with caution," the lookout bulletin states." Enough already. A simple resolution to this and similar potential problems is to approach anyone for any reason wishing to enter our country with extreme caution at this time. We have quotas for new citizenship - lets limit our liability to that number until the world proves to us that their citizens are safe and desirable. Instead of us teaching these young men, it would appear that they are in the process of teaching us all something. We can only hope and pray that it doesn't involve a lesson steeped in death and destruction.

Election time is looming upon us - who you vote for should be approached with the utmost caution. It's time to close our borders and put an end to our universities being exploited as a pass key for potential problems.

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