Article 4, Section 4 of the United States Constitution mandates that the federal government protect the states from "invasion." According to the Department of Homeland Security, since 1996, there have been at least 250 incidents of alleged Mexican troops illegally crossing our border, and in some cases, firing upon our grossly outgunned Border Patrol Agents, who are as handcuffed by a lack of firepower in their arsenal as they are by a lack of will from the Washington bureaucrats, who by policy, grossly and unacceptably restrict the agents' ability to protect themselves, let alone us. Our Constitution is being ignored, our national sovereignty impugned, and our security compromised, yet as shots ring out on the boisterous border, not a peep is heard from the bumbling Beltway.
The recent skirmish in which Mexican troops held a Border Patrol Agent at bay by gunpoint for four minutes is but a blip on the radar screen, compared to some of the actual shootings that have occurred against law enforcement by high caliber weaponry, too often answered by a retreat to safety for created and unnecessary reasons of practicality. Fortunately with the latest incident, no shots were fired, and already, the Mexico/Washington excuse factory is blaming the incident on the Mexican troops not realizing they had crossed the border in an area of Arizona that was supposedly unmarked. One agent, speaking on the Glenn Beck Show on behalf of the association representing the Border Patrol agents has disputed that "fact."
Even if this incident was accidental, it is inexcusable. Mexico's southern border with Guatemala is secured by armed troops, and we don't hear of any problems with geographical confusion there. It is amazing how a pointed gun so quickly and clearly muzzle can remedy a fuzzy navigational sense of direction.
Police Officers are not intended, nor trained, nor equipped to do battle with military troops. Presently, the US military cannot take on much more responsibility. It is short staffed, overworked and stretched thin, with burned out troops, active and reserve, being recycled into additional tours to a near-breaking point. As I write this article, Russia and Georgia are in battle. Israel is acquiring more planes, presumably to soon be used against Iran, China is continually building up its military, courtesy of our trade deficit, and on the list goes, from skirmishes, to battles, to outright war, to genocide and threats of wars around the globe. Meanwhile, we fight on in Iraq and Afghanistan. We still defend an ungrateful South Korea that bristles at our support, a Japan that takes advantage of our permissive trade policy, and a Germany, that stabs us in the back at the UN. Iraq is already signaling it wants us out, Taiwan goes back and forth between bristling at our (admittedly double talking) defense promises while occasionally sticking her finger in China's eye. Why are we defending friends that are fair weather friends at best, if at all, and why are we still present in now supposedly friendly counties in which the wars once fought against them ended decades ago?
It is time to bring the troops home, where they belong and to stop policing the world. As my sage mother, the personified encyclopedia of clichés always says, "Charity begins at home."
The illegals crossing into the US can be stopped by the Border Patrol if we allow that noble agency to do its job as intended. Already existing domestic laws against employers hiring illegals simply need to be enforced. Criminal charges need to be brought against such business owners, as well as any municipal or state official who blatantly uses his power to usurp federal immigration law, which aids and abets illegal immigrants and creates so-called "sanctuaries." Likewise, all government entitlements for illegals, barring interim necessary and humane services of public health and public safety, should be stopped. This action alone will prompt many illegals to self-deport before being caught. For the rest, as they themselves have multiple aliases, often have violent criminal histories and proclivities, and intentionally or unintentionally provide cover for terrorists to infiltrate our country, they should be deemed a national threat and a national emergency and be rounded up, imprisoned, and deported forthwith. The naysayers who say it can't be done only need revisit our history from the 1950's during the Eisenhower administration, when roughly one million illegals were deported under "Operation Wetback," led by retired US Army General and INS Commissioner Joseph Swing, and with only a fraction of the law enforcement officers we have today. And we must be committed. The demise of Operation Wetback was political in nature, a decrease in funding because of an increase in whining, from open borders advocates and enemies of US sovereignty on both sides of the Rio Grande. And, we need to stop the lollygagging and finish construction of a fence to secure our border and to eliminate any further "confusion" of the international boundary.
The small attachment of National Guard troops working presently on the border is doing so in an unarmed capacity and in a behind-the-lines role of administrative assistance. In essence, these fine warriors of our own domestic soil are being utilized as clerks in camouflage. That misuse of this valuable resource also needs to end. Those National Guard troops need to trade in their pencils for rifles, be placed on the front lines, be backed up by regular Army troops if necessary, and as with any other country with any semblance of sanity, be allowed to shoot to kill armed and hostile invaders in uniform, or for that matter, out of uniform, if fired upon.
Ah yes, the uniforms. Whether military or civilian, an enemy combatant found in uniform in another country is considered a spy, and dealt with accordingly. The massive excuse factory on the Potomac that incessantly defends the debacle on the Rio Grande tells us that some of these alleged Mexican soldiers might actually be rogue troops, or possibly even Mexican civilians with stolen Army uniforms, supplying cover for their crossing "mules" (the two-legged kind) for the lucrative international drug trade. I don't care who they are. If they're wearing a uniform, and carrying or firing a gun, they should be presumed to be Mexican soldiers and then be shot dead by our National Guard or Army troops. If they are dressed as civilians and carrying or firing a gun, OK, fair enough. Let the Border Patrol agents shoot them. I don't care if they're dressed like drag queens or cheerleaders. If they cross the border with a gun, take any hostile action, and /or refuse to comply with commands when stopped, somebody should ice them, and I won't lose any sleep over who does it, so long as our border is secured. Now, what's the problem?
How tolerant would Mexico be if our "troops," regular, reserve, rogue, imposter, or otherwise, crossed the border into that country and started shooting up the landscape and taking pot shots at the Federales? This is an invasion, and it needs to be treated like one. For the past 12 years, all our spineless, inept government has been doing is documenting these events with a paper trail that leads to nowhere instead of answering these events with substantive action and trailing the perpetrators to Hell. Even the pseudo-pacifist, then President Woodrow Wilson, sent General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing into Mexico with 10,000 troops in the "Punitive Expedition" of 1916 to go after Pancho Villa and his gang with a vengeance and mop up the dessert with them for their raids into the US. Despite his liberalism, at least Old Woody knew how to take care of business when he had to, despite the irony of Pershing's later alleged claims that Wilson's micromanaging by restrictive policies impeded the mission. (Does that assertion sound familiar?) What's happened to our national resolve (and pride) since then? When foreign bullets are fired at my fellow citizens, I'll take confident cahones over "compassionate conservatism" (whatever the hell that mindless, vacuous, double talking drivel is), any day of the week, and twice on Sunday! A border should have meaning, and for hostile invaders, it should mean a point of no return; an eternal "adios!"
2009 portends to be a year and then some with a Democrat-controlled Congress in both chambers, and a President named either Obama or McCain, and which it is does not at all matter with most issues, and certainly not with this one. We all know what needs to be done. Yet as with our sadly elected officials now, the coming wave of bought-and-paid-for liberal, globalist elitists taking and bastardizing their Constitutional oaths in January are not inclined to do anything about the situation, other than possibly exacerbate it. They make up the stubborn horse that is leading this cart of ours astray, and against our wishes.
It is now time for we, the people, to shut off the supply of oats and start introducing the whip, often, consistently, unabashedly, and with zeal.
Doug Wrenn
