http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/neuendorf/060216

Militarize the Mexican border


Dave Neuendorf
Dave Neuendorf
February 16, 2006


While President Bush continues to promote his "non-amnesty" guest worker amnesty proposal, our border security continues to deteriorate. Most recently, Mexican soldiers — or criminals in Mexican army uniforms — have been making armed incursions into the US. They have boldly confronted Border Patrol and local law enforcement officers without a peep from Mr. Bush.

According to a Department of Homeland Security document obtained by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, there have been 216 such incidents since 1996. The incursions occurred in California, Arizona and Texas.

In one recent case, sheriff's deputies chased three SUVs hauling several tons of marijuana back to the border in Hudspeth County, Texas. At the Rio Grande, armed men in Mexican uniforms confronted the officers and the Border Patrol. The Mexicans had set up heavy machine guns 200 yards inside the US border to cover the vehicles' escape. They also used a military Humvee equipped with a 50 caliber machine gun to assist the vehicles across the river. The officers prudently declined to challenge a military unit armed with heavy weapons, so the intruders were able to return to Mexico.

There is no reason to believe that the situation on the border is going to improve soon. Neither the Border Patrol nor local police are going to beef up their manpower, training or equipment to the extent needed to deal with military incursions. These incidents constitute a military invasion, and require a military response.

Further, it appears that the problem will persist and worsen in the future. Mexico has always had corrupt governments. The trend is for those governments to become more friendly toward our enemies, most notably communist Cuba. The nations south of Mexico are becoming increasingly radicalized, with Castro and his friends in control in at least Venezuela and Bolivia, for example. These far-left ideologues have been cozying up with the terror-sponsoring government of Iran. It isn't hard to imagine an increasing flow of radicals of various stripes across our border from points south.

Our military typically maintains bases near trouble spots. With our own southern border becoming as much a trouble spot as any, it stands to reason that we would place some bases along that border. It is important that the military be able to apply overwhelming force anywhere along the border within minutes of an incident.

The likely response from the administration to such a suggestion is that it would be an insult to our great friends and partners south of the border. Surely our diplomats will be able to negotiate to get the Mexican government to police the border for us. All we have to do is keep them happy by accepting unlimited illegal Mexican immigrants, pay for the health care, education, retirement and other needs of those immigrants, etc.

Controlling our border is our own responsibility, not that of the Mexican government. Even if they were really such good friends, it would be wrong to delegate part of our national defense to them. If it does bother a neighboring government for us to guard our border diligently, we should question what kind of friends would be offended by that.

It is past time for the US Army, with Air Force support, to set up shop along the Mexican border. If manpower requirements demand that we bring troops home from foreign interventions to accomplish this, so much the better.


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Dave Neuendorf of Aurora, Indiana, is a software development consultant with a lifelong interest in history and politics. He has been writing his biweekly column from a Christian, conservative/constitutionalist/libertarian perspective since 1994. It is published by his hometown newspaper, the Aurora Journal-Press. An archive of Dave's columns may be found at http://www.neusysinc.com/columnpublication.html