1,200 for the entire border, are you serious. He half asses things better than anybody. Hopefully they’ll have ammunition and a real roe this time:rolleyes: so they don’t have retreat when being fired upon.
I have an idea how to use what’s rest of the stimulus. Ask for volunteers for any prior service vets, I am sure there are plenty that are unemployed, start a new unit that’s a cross between the Border Patrol and National Guard…a little bit of training and getting reacclimated to the system and voila we can really secure our borders.
Question I have always had if we were actually serious is, why not mine fields? Seriously, they are inexpensive, last a long time, etc, etc. allows a small number of troops to to deny access to large areas of land, etc.
And I don’t mean the type placed cause maximum damage due to being intentionally hidden, I mean the set up with fences, and huge signs saying “warning, mine field in place, do not cross this area” and so forth.
I know, I know, drug smuggler ignores signs, goes over/through fence, and converts to red mist, and there is an international out rage and all that.
Seems if we are serious about denying passage (North Korea, et al) it can be done, but it appears we really are not all that serious.
If they were all engineering units and he was going to give them materials, 1200 would make a heck of an impression dealing with the Mexican incursions. Too bad it isn’t going to happen that way.
What do you expect the National Guard to do at the border? They cannot patrol the border, posse comitatus applies. They cannot enter onto private lands to patrol the border, that falls to CBP-BP only. National Parks? Even CBP-BP’s access and movement is restricted there.
What the National Guard can do is take over non-patrol/non-law enforcement functions and free up Agents to work the line. The National Guard can send engineer units for fence repair and maintenance, mechanics for fleet service, graders for road repair, etc.
For the most part, these National Guard deployments to the border are purely symbolic, like moving the fleet into the Med when Libya acts up.
I’m a rancher here in New Mexico, and have fellow rancher friends with properties along the border in the Animas and Peloncillo Mountains in this State and Arizona. It’s rugged country with little access for ground vehicles. Just in that area alone you would need at least a battalion of ground pounders, to join some of the horseback mounted Border Patrol. 1200 soldiers for the entire border is a joke.
What is not being discussed are the Mexican Army units that have been absorbed by these cartels and now run coordinated efforts with the coyote human smugglers, acting as decoys while the drug runners drive across private land bringing in the contraband. We’ve sat at night on desolate hillsides watching all the activity. Border Patrol would be involved with a group of 30-50 illegals in one area while a pickup truck full of narcotics cuts through the barbed wire on private land, the occupants sometimes firing a shot or two at a ranch hand while heading for the nearest county road.
Even the Bush administration was not really serious about this. We used to watch National Guard units back in 2006 driving around the back country, carrying unloaded M4s. If it came to a shootout, I’m sure the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department would have to come to their rescue. It was a sad and discouraging waste of military manpower.
Time to get serious about this and put some well armed assets on the border. Unfortunately, Chairman Obama has a whole different agenda for the United States.
It is worse than that! They national guard troops will not be alllowed to engage in any ‘law enforcement activities’ such as repelling foreign invaders!!! They will drive trucks and stuff instead.
It’s a token gesture, no more. As Charles Krauthammer said tonight, the Guard comes, and the Guard goes; and nothing changes.
Obama, being the arrogant twit that he is, will try to massage the situation and find himself with a tiger by the tail. This whole situation is going to get out of control, and it will not be good. :eek:
No, what sux is that the minute our boys begin to defend themselves from a foriegn threat (gun fight in the desert) their going to get strung up by the very people sending them there!
Politics folks…just the lates play in the greatest show on earth…
BHO meets with Republican leaders to “openly” discuss idea after forcing via votes body lines and now wants to play oneway comprimise…didnt bother to mention to them that he would do this right after the meeting.
F’ it. We know what it is all about…who the fuck does he think he is kidding…
I find quite a bit of irony in many of these post. For a bunch of staunch Constitutionalists the general theme of posts in this thread is all about suspending the Constitution along the border. You all realize that what it takes to send armed National Guard troops to the border, right? Posse comitatus, are you familiar with what its implementation entails? I doubt there is a single rancher along the border who is willing to take a division or two of armed Guardsman mowing down his fences and livestock to “secure” his ranch from the dangerous hoards of Mexicans crossing the line, the cure would be worse than the problem. Most hate just having the Border Patrol do it Jeeps and Tahoes, let alone 19 year old troops in Bradley APC’s and Humvees. Want a 120,000 troops on the border, where are you going to put them? Where are you going to find them? How are we going to pay for them? We couldn’t secure the border between Iran and Iraq during a war with liberal rules of engagement, we sure as hell aren’t going to secure the much longer border between the gulf coast and the pacific ocean militarily with more stringent rules of engagement. There is no military solution to border security. Want to cure our border ills? Drag Mexico into the 21st century, fix their unemployment, fix their government, raise their standard of living.
So what your saying is take more of my hard earned tax money and fix someone elses country? I dont even like fixing the countries that we have already volunteered to fix now your saying dig deeper into my pocket and fix another one??? Yep, thats the solution! Now, your right that we dont have troops to just spare to this particular issue but come on, if we’re going to fo fix the issue we shoudl just take the country and call it ours. Or theirs again… However you want to look at it!
