Posted on 08/02/2010 11:24:42 AM PDT by La Lydia
SAN DIEGO — No boots were seen tromping in the desert sand on Sunday. No commanders were heard barking out orders to their troops. The National Guard, which officials had announced would turn out en masse along the United States-Mexico border over the weekend for sentry duty, was nowhere to be found. It turns out it will take weeks longer to select, screen and train the 1,200 National Guard troops the Obama administration had said would be deployed on Aug. 1 along the border from California to Texas.
Administration officials explained that the announced date was always a starting point, the beginning of the process of deployment and not the day camouflaged soldiers would begin amassing at the boundary line with their automatic weapons, high-powered binoculars and filled-up canteens. As a sign that things have gotten under way, Jack Harrison, a National Guard spokesman, said Sunday night that about 140 troops have begun working in recent weeks on the "command and control" of the mission.
“Full deployment will take place over succeeding weeks,” Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, said in an interview. “It won’t be 100 percent showing up all of a sudden.”...
Of course, there is a political dimension to the deployment, which comes as the Obama administration faces fierce criticism, particularly in Arizona, for not doing enough to seal off the borders from illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.
“It’s for show,” said Tony Payan, a political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who studies the border. “It’s the kind of climate we live in today, using war lingo, military jargon, using the National Guard, it seems like we’re being more effective, being serious. It sounds impressive, but it’s just 1,200 people.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Are they going to be tromping in the desert at all? Or are they going to be "assisting" behind the lines, running xeroxes and such?
Didn’t Obama (or was it Napolitano?) promise that these troops won’t actually be doing anything?
This is total nonsense. These people are such criminals.
Another day, another Obama lie exposed.
To cynically use our troops as mere political artifice is INSULTING, and makes me more mad than if they weren’t used AT ALL.
George Bush made it policy that if they encountered armed narcos they were to simply RUN, and they did that twice.
How must more stupid will it be THIS time?
But Bush not getting boots on the ground IMMEDIATELY for Katrina was a horror.
Governor Blanco kept him from doing so. Had to wait for her request (by law) and it came too late.
I can get 1,200 high school cheerleaders to a conference/competition faster than these jackasses...
Rule number 1 of large scale disaster planning, earthquake, hurricane whatever.
You are on your own for the first 72 hours.
ANY help that arrives before then is a miracle.
How about deploying the militia until the Guard is ready? Since they won’t have restrictive ROE to follow, they should be pretty effective.
The Coast Guard was pulling people off their rooftoops in the tail end of the hurricane. They had to wait until the winds dropped to 45 MPH so that they could control the choppers.
The whole meme of “Bush wasn’t there for the people of NO” is a complete fabrication by the MSM. Blanco wasn’t there, Nagin wasn’t there, the Police weren’t there. Those are the ones who are the first responders.
Administration officials explained that the announced date was always a guideline...
Nappy has spoken.
Currently there are nearly 35,000 troops stationed at Fort Bliss on the Mexican border. NONE are being used to guard the border.
The US can send tens of thousands of troops around the world to someone else’s country, war plan engagements against other countries, but cannot get a relatively few people to our own borders.
The military was able to find WACO soon enough.
Just deputize local militia groups.
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