I have written before about something that fills me with a profound sense of unease. Armed members of the Mexican Army routinely violate our borders, apparently acting as hired gunmen for gangs of drug smugglers.
The latest happened just a few days ago. Two members of our National Guard directly observed six armed men wearing strange uniforms on our side of the border.
Consul-at-Arms asks a good question. Why in the world are our National Guardsmen serving unarmed on the border?
There is no way for me to know. Maybe the powers-that-be don’t want our troops to, you know, shoot some invading members of a foreign military? Because that would be my first guess.
Should we allow the Guard to be armed while on the border? That all depends on whether or not you think it is a good idea to keep corrupt foreign military units and their murderous drug smuggling paymasters on their side.
(Hat tip to Bear Creek Ledger.)
We need a wall. We need a real border perimeter. Our Border Patrol, and any Guard units patrolling should be armed. The fact is that the smuggling of humans and other stuff is run by criminal gangs. Our people should have the means to arrest such interlopers, and to kill them if they put up armed resistance. If the Mexican military is so corrupt and stupid that it is sending people in uniform into the USA, then it is time to put a stop to it.
A profound sense of unease indeed.
I say all this while being sympathetic to Mexicans who want to come here to work, and in favor of high levels of legal immigration, and the reform of our own INS and Border Patrol so they can (1) keep people out who have no legal business here, but also (2) be efficient and professional and swift about letting in the many people who do have legitimate business here.
But foreign troops across our border is absolutley unacceptable and should be stopped, if necessary by the application of military-scale violence against any such intruders. This message must be loud and clear.
What Lex said.
. Why in the world are our National Guardsmen serving unarmed on the border?
Because if they were serving armed in a police function they’d be violating the Posse Commitatus laws.
Next?
If the Mexican military is so corrupt and stupid that it is sending people in uniform into the USA, then it is time to put a stop to it.
Actually, I think it is more a case of poorly paid soldiers accepting bribes in exchange for using their military equipment to provide security for criminal gangs. I doubt the Mexican government is giving the green light to this sort of thing.
James
I agree that the military should not perform law-enforcement functions. However, isn’t securing the border against armed intrusion a legitimate military activity?
I am not an expert on the Posse Comitatus Act, but it looks like the Guard could be armed if they were acting under the direction of the governors of their states, or pursuant to an Act of Congress. The former should be easy to obtain, by I suppose the Gubernatorial equivalent of an executive order. The latter, could be simple legislation and would probably be possible to get if it were phrased in a limited fashion. But I have to think that going the state governor route would be easiest. So, if the Guard troops aren’t federalized, and the governors authorize their use for border patrols, then the PCA does not look like it would be an obstacle.
To put a slightly different spin on the subject, we need only go as far as theagitator.com to see there is little compunction at any level of gov’t with using heavy arms on our own citizens in our own neighborhoods in the war on drugs.
So I find it strange that there is so much reluctance to use those same weapons, in the same war, at a place where they’d be many miles away from any US neighborhoods and be almost gauranteed not to come in contact with law abiding US citizens.
Funny, aint’ it?
What about Chicagogirlz? Not needed?
Oh, and isn’t that an Indian flag up there? I wonder that’s the significance/relevance?
To follow up on the question of corrupt vs. stupid…
In some cases you have a commander who has been bought off and his troops are used to help the traficantes. I think this is more common in the interior in providing protection to the big drug dealers (places like Guadalajara) and in assisting and protecting at drop off points (in the yucatan.)
What is more recently a problem is a group called the Zeta’s. These guys are special forces caliber mercenaries. They are assumed to be ex-mexican special forces, but some of them may have been recruited directly into the group without first being in the mexican military.
Mexican soldiers are notoriously young and yokel. If it is the real mexican army escorting drugs across the border for a few bucks, it would be easy to stop.
My guess is it’s the latter making these border excursions. In fact there is also speculation that the Zeta’s (some of whom may be us citizen’s) are even carrying out drug hits inside TX as far as Dallas. This makes the importance of an armed force at the border all the more important as I’d much rather we get into firefights with these guys on the border than at the corner of Inwood and Northwest Highway.
What can the mexican gov’t do about it? They probably feel a bit conflicted. If we really guard our borders we’ll cut off illegal immigration AND drugs, 2 of Mexico’s top 4 sources of income. The understanding I get is that as long as the interior is stable, the Mexican gov’t will sacrificce the border towns. Mexico’s elite, i think, will tolerate the status quo until they can’t.
Ergo, we have two very fine ChicagoGirlz, Ginny and Helen. So, I don’t know what you mean whey you say “what about ChicagoGirlz”. The expression Chicago Boys was used to describe the economist who were trained at the University of Chicago who advised governments in Latin America to liberalize their economies. The Z is a stylish variant.
The Indian Flag went up at the time of the terrorist attack on Mumbai, as a gesture of solidarity with our fellow democracy which is also at war with Islamic terrorism.
The National Guard are there as a PR exercise, in order to convince the public that something is being done about illegal immigration, so that the political pressure won’t rise to the level where something REALLY has to be done about illegal immigration. This requires that they be unarmed for two reasons:
1. If they were to be armed, it more or less would require them to be there under the command of state authorities, and the state governments might order that they stop people from illegally crossing the border. And the point of their being there is to avoid that.
2. If they were armed, they might get into a firefight with Mexican forces, which would be impossible to cover up, and which would, again, make it politically impossible to avoid actually securing the border.
Everything Bush does on illegal immigration makes sense, if you just remember that he actually is in favor of that immigration, and doesn’t want to do anything to obstruct it.
Thanks for the mention. I’ve linked to you here: link name
The NG units being deployed to the border are under the respective State’s control, working with the Border Patrol. Each Governor and that State’s chain of command, and to some extent the Border Patrol leadership, is making the decision about whether the units are armed or not. There are no laws preventing the arming of the troops. Texas, for example, is sending it’s deployed soldiers through refresher small arms training and arming soldiers in certain capacities on the border.