On Wednesday, December 3, at 6:30 p.m., UD YAF hosted former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, combat veteran and Chairman of the Dallas County Republican Party Lt. Colonel Allen West. West spoke on foreign threats to American security.
As a soldier in the 1980s, West witnessed governmental overreach in East Berlin. He said, “I saw people who didn’t smile. They didn’t even want to look at you for fear of being picked up by the Stasi secret police.”
Such experiences motivate West to conserve American freedom against foreign threats: “I never want to see that come to my country,” he said.
West spoke of the dangers posed by unlawful combatants who represent no legitimate state, wear no uniforms and commit acts of terror. An example, West said, are the Venezuelan drug cartels – “narcoterrorists”– which were recently attacked by the United States. In response to criticism of the American action, West said, “It’s pretty funny when people say we’re out there shooting fishing boats. I never realized that fishing boats can go 180 mph.”
“In the past four years,” West said, “the United States of America has lost 250,000 plus people just to fentanyl.” He noted that this death toll is far greater than that of the entire American loss in the Vietnam War: 55,000 service members.
Expanding his focus, West noted that before it reaches the United States via the narcoterrorists, fentanyl is manufactured in China. China aids the Venezuelan cartels both in this manner and by purchasing Venezuelan oil.
West said that the threat posed to the U.S. from China has expanded significantly in the decades since the close of the Cold War, in particular via Western commercial support of the Chinese regime: “In 1986, when we granted most favored trade status to China, that’s what set us on the path we’re on now.”
West noted that since the 1980s, China, which formerly possessed no aircraft carriers, has built three. Conversely, the United States has reduced its naval capability: “Much like the Romans, we are outsourcing so much of our production to China because we got hooked on what? cheap goods.”
Further, West spoke of the danger Chinese power poses to American interests in the Western hemisphere. By funding North Korean troops in Ukraine and purchasing Russian natural gases, China is aiding Russia in prolonging the Russia-Ukraine war.
Pivoting focus again, West turned to the Middle East. He addressed the ongoing conflict in the Holy Land, noting that the charter of Hamas calls for the eradication not only of the state of Israel, but also of all Jews worldwide.
With regard to calls for Palestinian statehood, West said, “People want to create something history has never had.” The term “Palestine,” he noted, originated when the Roman Empire, in an effort to humiliate the Jews after a failed rebellion, renamed the province of Judea “Syria Palaestina” after the Philistines. Far from being the original inhabitants of the Holy Land, West said, “The Philistines trace their ancestry back to Greece.”
West expressed concern over the significant number of college students who support Hamas, many of whom, he said, are unable to identify the geographical locations indicated in their common chant ‘from the river to the sea.’ “If Israel goes,” said West, “that’s the canary in the coal mine, because then the sights will be turned on us.”
Lastly, West addressed the topic of illegal immigration and its dangers. He cited examples in Dallas-Fort Worth of active radical Islamic and Tren de Aragua terrorists. He said that although the Guarantee Clause of the Constitution ensures the protection of every state from invasion, “That’s what we have going on right now.”
West made clear that he is in support of legal immigration, his own wife being a legal immigrant. but clarified his stance on illegal immigration.“If you’re doing it illegally, number one, you’re violating the laws of this country [. . .] We have to have people that respect our national sovereignty,” he said.
In conclusion, West noted what is at stake in threats to American security. “America is the embodiment of John Locke and natural rights theory,” he said. “No other nation was founded on the premise that the individual is sovereign because your rights come from a sovereign God.”
After West’s speech, students had the opportunity to ask questions.
To one student, who asked West’s opinions on acts of terror supposedly committed by Israeli forces, West said that Hamas propaganda is very influential. He recalled that in his own experience in the Middle East, no other military, including the American, is as conscientious as the IDF in warning civilians to evacuate before attacks. He also recalled a case in which Israel purportedly bombed a hospital: dozens of pages into the report on this case, it was revealed that the bomb was the work of a terrorist organization.
Junior classical philology major Bethany Kaufman asked West’s opinion on birthright citizenship. She said, “I appreciated his answer to my question because he showed extreme personal conviction in his views while still providing a thorough, concise and understandable explanation.”