Border War
Nov 29, 2011
BY Herschel Smith
We have previously discussed the adoption of military style tactics, techniques and procedures by the Mexican cartels, the increasing corruption of the U.S. border patrol, and the recruitment of large numbers of High Schoolers by the cartels. After observing that the use of the National Guard is problematic for a number of reasons (including the lack of training, the lack of appropriate rules for the use of force, etc.), I recommended that:
? we view what is going on as a war against warlords and insurgents who will destabilize the state both South and even North of the border. I have further recommended that the RUF be amended and the U.S. Marines be used to set up outposts and observation posts along the border in distributed operations, even making incursions into Mexican territory if necessary while chasing insurgents (Mexican police have used U.S. soil in pursuit of the insurgents).
While militarization of border security may be an unpalatable option for America, it is the only option that will work. All other choices make the situation worse because it is allowed to expand and grow. Every other option is mere window dressing.
We now know that gang members are being recruited by the cartels to do street-level jobs, and the loss of border security has wreaked ecological disaster.
?I have learned to live with trash,? said fifth-generation Arizona rancher Jim Chilton.
He saw his once-beautiful ranch, just a few miles from the border with Mexico, is now dotted with clusters of crushed trees and cactus, whole hillsides have been turned into charred eyesores, years worth of his award-winning conservation projects obliterated ? and the whole thing is littered with trash, tons and tons of trash. And some of the trash was dead bodies.
Chilton had the misfortune of settling in the path of what would become a dangerous drug- and human-smuggling route on the U.S.-Mexican border, parallel with the notorious Peck Canyon Corridor.
?I?ve got 30,000 to 40,000 illegal aliens coming right through the ranch every year, and the Forest Service says each one leaves about eight pounds of trash. That means 100 tons of trash. Some cows eat the plastic bags and about 10 head a year die a slow and painful death. At $1,200 a head, that means we lose $12,000 a year to trash.?
Chilton saw southern Arizona not as the headline-grabbing political flashpoint of the Justice Department?s failed ?Fast and Furious? guns-to-smugglers tracking project, but as the land-grabbing opportunism of Obama?s resource management agencies and, sadly, the failure of the U.S. Border Patrol to secure that bloody line separating the United States from Mexico.
The land-grabbing chapter of the trash story has gone largely unnoticed, but surfaced last year when the Bureau of Land Management proposed to shut down target shooting on 490,000 acres in the Sonoran Desert National Monument ? and in large swaths of other public lands as well.
The reason? Monument manager Richard Hanson claimed shooters were leaving trash at the shooting sites, an outrageously trumped up excuse, but Hanson?s claim couldn?t be refuted at the time.
The BLM had closed 400,000 acres of publicly owned, national monument lands across three states to recreational shooting activities in 2010, labeling recreational shooting as a resource-harming activity and a public safety threat.
That was a clear signal showing that the SDNM move was just another step in Interior Secretary Ken Salazar?s obnoxious ?lock-it-up-and-kick-?em-out? plans that have drawn the ire of Congress.
If it seems that the administration is taking an un-serious view of border security (intentionally conflating the trash left by illegals with shooters), then this report shouldn?t surprise anyone.
Federal agents trying to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border say they?re hampered by laws that keep them from driving vehicles on huge swaths of land because it falls under U.S. environmental protection, leaving it to wildlife ? and illegal immigrants and smugglers who can walk through the territory undisturbed.
A growing number of lawmakers are saying such restrictions have turned wilderness areas into highways for criminals. In recent weeks, three congressional panels, including two in the GOP-controlled House and one in the Democratic-controlled Senate, have moved to give the Border Patrol unfettered access to all federally managed lands within 100 miles of the border with Mexico.
While the cartels develop intricate intelligence networks and adopt military style tactics, the U.S. prohibits access to lands controlled by the Bureau of Land Management due to EPA regulations, and blames trash at the border on shooters. It?s no wonder that insurgents have gone hunting at the border ? not hunting for animal game, but human game.
Five illegal immigrants armed with at least two AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifles were hunting for U.S. Border Patrol agents near a desert watering hole known as Mesquite Seep just north of the Arizona-Mexico border when a firefight erupted and one U.S. agent was killed, records show.
A now-sealed federal grand jury indictment in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry says the Mexican nationals were ?patrolling? the rugged desert area of Peck Canyon at about 11:15 p.m. on Dec. 14 with the intent to ?intentionally and forcibly assault? Border Patrol agents.
Commenter Scott Wilson recommends the following:
They should take the 7th Army (and the Ghost of Patton), and all its subordinate units, and move it lock, stock & barrel to Del Rio, TX. They can then patrol the banks of the Rio Grande with Bradley?s, Apaches & Cobras. Then, let?s see how much success these border insurgents, armed with the semi-auto AKs have against that.
Germany has the strongest economy in Europe. It can afford to defend itself from Russian aggression. If it can?t, then we have PLENTY of military contractors that can sell them the weapons that they need. Europe needs to stand on its own. Our resources need to be protecting our borders, not Germany?s.
This sentiment is certainly in line with my own, but unfortunately, roving the border with Bradley Fighting Vehicles won?t work. This requires combat outposts and Marines (or Soldiers) on foot patrol. Infantry ? not mechanized infantry ? is the order of the day.
But it will require more than that. As long as we continue to treat the border as a law enforcement endeavor, with agents subject to rules such as those outlined in the Supreme Court decision in Tennessee versus Garner, with criminals imprisoned or sent back to Mexico to try it all again, we will continue to lose the war at the border. Imprisonment of drug traffickers and illegals won?t work any more than prisons work in counterinsurgency. Prisons are a costly ruse.
Make no mistake about it. This isn?t a war against drugs, or a war against the drug cartels, or a war against illegal immigration, or even a war against human trafficking or Hezbollah fighters entering the U.S. at the Southern border. This is a war for national sovereignty ? a border war.
Law enforcement cannot do the job when people are afraid to call them for fear of retribution and are being told to wear body armor to work out in their own fields.
Only when we militarize the border with combat outposts and shoot all trespassers will we even begin to wage the war on the enemy?s terms. In spite of claims that the Posse Comitatus Act applies, this war is against non-U.S. citizens, and it is a fight for the survival of what defines America. Presidents in both parties have seen America as an idea rather than a location with secure borders.
If America is an idea and the Southern border is to be just an imaginary line, then we have already lost. If America deserves defending, then we must do what is both uncomfortable and necessary to effect its security.
