So says MSNBC in a breathless article on terrorists swarming in South America.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States …
From its Western base in a remote region divided by the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina known as the Tri-border, … Hezbollah has mined the frustrations of many Muslims

Oh, no. Not frustrated Muslims! Anything but that! Over here? Not over there, where they can be safely bombed in a completely unterrorist way? Say it ain’t so!

An investigation by Telemundo and NBC News has uncovered details of an extensive smuggling network run by Hezbollah

Really? Then how come I’ve heard about this hotspot for years? I don’t even remember where I first heard about it (Juan Cole’s blog, Informed Comment?), but it’s nice to know that NBC is capable, given enough time, of finding its backside with both hands.

U.S. officials fear that poorly patrolled borders and rampant corruption in the Tri-border region could make it easy for Hezbollah terrorists to infiltrate the southern U.S. border. …[I]t is easy for potential terrorists, without detection, to book passage to the United States through Brazil and then Mexico simply by posing as tourists.

Wow. Brazil has a border with Mexico? I never knew that. Scary. Wooooo. Oh, wait, if they’re going by land, they’d have to cross, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and then they’d reach Mexico. If they fly, they could — this is even worse, but we have to face facts — they could fly straight from Brazil to the You-nited States!

It is surprisingly easy to move across borders in the Triple Frontier …. A smuggler can bike from Paraguay into Brazil and return without ever being asked for a passport

And by the time he’s finished pedaling the whole Pan-American highway, he’s a solid mass of muscle and completely unstoppable.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Hezbollah militiamen would raise no suspicions because they have Latin American passports, speak Spanish and look like Hispanic tourists.

Someone, quick, get me a field guide to the Hispanic Tourist! I mean, what if I missed one because he looked like Javier Perez de Cuellar?

“People … have planned terrorist attacks from [the Tri-border],” said Luttwak, who has been a terrorism consultant to the CIA and the National Security Council. … “Our experience is that if you see one roach, there are a lot more,” said Frank Urbancic, principal deputy director of the State Department’s counterterrorism office

At this point, I’d had it. If you want to find out what the rest of the article says, you’ll have to read it for yourself. I quit there. In the unforgettable words of Barbara Bush, I don’t want to pollute my beautiful mind.

Technorati tags: terrorism, Tri-border, Triple Frontier, Hezbollah, current affairs