{"id":582937,"date":"2010-05-28T09:20:28","date_gmt":"2010-05-28T13:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.southernstudies.org,2010:\/\/5.12283"},"modified":"2010-05-28T10:01:19","modified_gmt":"2010-05-28T14:01:19","slug":"voices-obama-sends-in-the-border-troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/582937","title":{"rendered":"VOICES: Obama sends in the border troops"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Melissa del Bosque, Texas Observer
<\/a><\/p>\n

While conservatives have already started blaming President Obama
\nfor not allowing the National Guard to construct gun turrets on top of
\nthe 18-foot border wall and start blazing away, it’s actually those
\nsissies at the Pentagon that want to make sure the 1,200 additional
\ntroops don’t engage in law enforcement duties.<\/p>\n

According to CBS News<\/a>: “Pentagon officials, worried about perceptions
\nthat the U.S. was militarizing the border, argued that the National
\nGuard could only be used for particular duties. Military leaders said
\nthey did not want National Guard troops to screen vehicles at border
\npoints or perform any law enforcement duties, and said the program
\nshould be temporary and not tied to any existing program that could get
\nextended.”<\/p>\n

So, if the Pentagon doesn’t think the border needs troops, what’s
\nthis all about you ask?  Quite simply, like everything else in
\nWashington D.C., it’s about money and elections.<\/p>\n

That’s right. As I’ve said before It’s mid-term elections, folks. So,
\n batten down the hatches and get ready for the National Guard. I
\nRemember back in 2006,  President George W. Bush stalking through Yuma
\nwith his shirtsleeves rolled up and backed by an impressive phalanx of
\nborder troops. Back then the Republicans needed a bump in the polls
\nduring mid-term elections. So we got Operation
\n Jumpstart<\/a> a deployment of 6,000 soldiers. Border security (i.e. the
\n hordes of unwashed masses) and gay marriage helped ratchet up the voter
\n fear level to Red Alert.<\/p>\n

And by God if it doesn’t work every time. Nothing gets voters to the
\npolls faster then a good dose of fear coursing through their synapses.<\/p>\n

Back then Senator “complete that danged fence” McCain was actually
\nworking in a bipartisan effort to solve our broken immigration system
\nwith Senator Kennedy. Ah, those were the days. We were so close back
\nthen – we even had 20 Republicans supporting reform – but now, alas
\nthings have deteriorated considerably.<\/p>\n

McCain is clutching onto his Senate seat with all of his strength.
\nAnd the mighty anti-incumbent wind whistling through Congress is about
\nto blow him right out of it. Is it any accident that as McCain’s polling
\n numbers go down<\/a> in Arizona the Senator asks for more troops for
\n the border? First it was 3,000 in his McCain\/Kyl  secure border plan.
\nThis month it’s 6,000.<\/p>\n

Is it any accident that two of the Republican Governors<\/a> (Perry and Brewer) asking for National
\nGuard troops on the border are currently running for re-election? The
\nother two (Schwarzenegger, a Republican and New Mexico’s Bill
\nRichardson, a Democrat) have reached their term limits. This year,
\nSchwarzenegger didn’t deploy the National Guard as he did in 2006. In
\nMarch, Richardson announced the deployment of New Mexico National Guard
\ntroops to the border after the shooting death of an Arizona rancher in
\nlate March.<\/p>\n

Border law enforcement have said<\/a>
\nconsistently that they have the threat from drug cartel traffickers
\nunder control. They frequently say they can always hire more officers
\nwhich can be funded under the federal Operation Stonegarden program.
\nWhat they don’t need is military troops.<\/p>\n

The National Guard is political window dressing, folks. A decision<\/a> made by the Obama Administration after a
\nclosed door meeting with Republican leaders yesterday. The Republicans
\nwill not lift a finger to work on comprehensive immigration reform until
\n after elections in November. By being increasingly hawkish and
\nimmovable as stone, the Grand Ol’ Party is betting everything it has on
\nimmigrant bashing this election season. “Secure the borders first,” they
\n say. “Then we’ll talk.”<\/p>\n

They said the same thing back in 2006 and 2007. The last deployment
\nof the National Guard by Bush in 2006 was to strengthen border security
\nwhile more Border Patrol agents were hired. We’ve now doubled the number
\n of border agents from 10,000 in 2004 to 20,000 in 2009. And according
\nto a March 2010 press release<\/a>, Homeland Security has “doubled the number
\n of personnel assigned to Border Enforcement Security Task Forces;
\ntripled the number of ICE intelligence analysts working along the
\nU.S.-Mexico border; quadrupled deployments of Border Liaison Officers;
\nand begun screening 100 percent of southbound rail shipments for illegal
\n weapons, drugs and cash–for the first time ever.”<\/p>\n

If you’ve been anywhere near the Texas-Mexico border these days
\nyou’ll see the skyline dotted with surveillance towers and an 18-foot
\nwall. Not to mention swarms of Border Patrol SUVs. All that’s missing at
\n this point are the military tanks.<\/p>\n

The states and the Pentagon have been bickering for nearly a year
\nover who should pay for this latest deployment of guardsmen. Their
\nbickering over the deployment is because the Pentagon brass knows the
\ndeployment is not warranted. This time, I think elected officials should
\n pay for it out of their campaign accounts.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Melissa del Bosque, Texas Observer While conservatives have already started blaming President Obama for not allowing the National Guard to construct gun turrets on top of the 18-foot border wall and start blazing away, it’s actually those sissies at the Pentagon that want to make sure the 1,200 additional troops don’t engage in law […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7186,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}