Posted on 06/01/2005 5:48:11 AM PDT by Happy2BMe
U.S. Border Patrol agents say they are the victims of escalating violence. The problem is getting so bad, the Border Patrol says numbers of assaults against them are up almost 50% from where they were last year. Agents in the Tucson sector are patrolling a total of 261 miles of border, but some are doing it from the confines of a cage. The vehicles are called 'war wagons', literally designed to protect against rocks and boulders thrown by illegal smugglers. But the metal caging won't protect agents from a problem that's gaining even more momentum. "When our agents try to do a vehicle stop, criminal element try to run over our agent to evade arrest," says agent Jose Garza, from the Tucson sector. So far this fiscal year, the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol has reported 163 acts of assault against agents, compared to a total of 118 for the entire fiscal year of 2004. National reports say vehicle rammings are up 188%, shootings are up 122% and cases of rock throwing are up 23%. Garza says, "They're getting frustrated because we're out there. We're encountering them more times." Agent Garza says he knows, with more manpower and resources, will come more encounters with criminal activity. There are no reports at this time of deaths or serious injuries to agents. Garza says those on patrol are constantly being trained about the dangers along the international line.
In our war on terrorism, our two most susceptible target cities for a terrorist nuclear device are outside our jurisdiction, but would wreck extreme havoc on many US cities, and major military installations. Those cities are Tijuana and Juarez, Mexico. No border wall can protect the vast areas that would be affected. Major US cities affected would be San Diego, Phoenix, Tuscan, El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, and depending on the seasonal wind currents, possibly many more Gulf cities.
We need a solution that will end the pilgrimage of illegal aliens across the border, ends the tyranny of Mexican corruption that makes our southern border cities so vulnerable, and offers a real long term solution. The pilgrimage will stop, and our security will be strengthened only when these people have within Mexico what they seek here.
I believe the truth must be told, and let the chips fall where they may.
As much as I would like to round up all of the 10M or so illegal immigrants in this country and send them back to their country of origin. Some realpolitik is in order.
Immigrants in Mexico send some $30B US back home every year. This is Mexicos second greatest source of cash(foreign exchange). Link: http://scyllacharybdis.blogspot.com/2005/05/even-banco-mexico-counts-20-billion.html
We must realize that an election is coming soon in Mexico and with Mexicos inefficient economy unable to provide enough good jobs for its own people there is ample scope for a leftest populist such as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, this guy is a leftest in the same strain as Hugo Chavez.
If the US was to abruptly shut off the flow of dollars going south this would impact President Foxs reelection chances and possibly cause him to loose the election.
The idea of a leftest such as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador with close ties to Chevezz and Castro would not be allowed to pass, but the methods to stop such an outcome are much more costly to the US than the toleration of 10 - 20M illegal mexicans.
Info on Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador:
Link: http://www.publiuspundit.com/index.php?cat=78
http://www.answers.com/topic/andr-s-manuel-l-pez-obrador
http://www.mexidata.info/id196.html
How the heck do you end the mexican corruption? Annex mexico, and send generals to run it for awhile?
I believe we have met the enemy, and he is us.
Their corruption succeeds only because corruption on our side enables and abets it.
"Excuses are like As$%^&**s, everyone has one, and they all stink." Navy Boot Camp DI, Summer 1993.
Thanks a lot for linking that article!
That's essentially along the lines of an answer that will offer long term solutions. But simply annexing the area leaves some other matters that we would need to address. We would need a quick and dramatic increase in US Marshals to help bring law and order to this area. The Mexican states would have to adopt constitutions that adhere to our federal constitution, and our existing Congress would have to approve each of these. Programs like Social Security would have to be altered so the new citizens would pay according to established law, but benefits are slowly integrated over a period of 25 years or more. This must be so we do not repeat the problems encountered when East and West Germany were reunited.
There would be other benefits too. Mexican fugitives from justice would suddenly find themselves unable to elude justice by simply walking across a border. The southern border we would have to defend would shrink to barely half our present southern border, and with no major southern cities outside our jurisdiction. We had ample time to teach many of the illegal immigrants our American way of life, and they would be eager to return home and help instill these ways in their communities. Our nation would be much less dependant on oil from the Middle East. Our economy would expand beyond anything we've ever dreamed. We would uncover the truths of which of our citizens have willingly participated with the corrupt Mexican elite in such treasonous ways that have wrought great ill upon our society. Family issues like abortion and marriage would be decided with a Congressional determination that no court could overturn. We would crush the drug cartels. NAFTA and more recent proposed accords would become non-existent.
I don't believe our Manifest Destiny ended at the Pacific shores. I don't know that we are a people of such fortitude that brought expansion when Manifest Destiny was embraced in the youth of our nation.
Interesting. I have to get offline for awhile. I'll be back with questions later.
I don't think we have the high calibur (honest) people in govt. that we'd need, to pull this off, so that the American taxpayer doesn't lose out more than they are, now.
fuego de la lucha con el fuego
==================================
"You know what? I don't feel sorry for the BP at all! They can defend their sorry a$$es anytime; just mow the dastards down! But of course not, take the easy way out; complain and ride in chicken cages."
esto es una guerra de la gama
Fight fire with fire.
"But simply annexing the area leaves some other matters that we would need to address."
Ever read Thomas Sowell's "Race and Culture," "Migrations and Culture," and "Conquests and Culture?"
One thing Mexico doesn't have, and this could make your plan unworkable, is what Sowell calls "human capital."
I'm not talking only about educational standards, but about worldview.
As Michener points out, not just Mexico, but every former Spanish colony suffers from political corruption. This is a way of life introduced because the Spanish colonial governors were corrupt. Even the Philippines, which had a century of American supervision and a half century of "democracy," still practices corruption as a way of life.
For them, corruption is a part of the nature of things, not an evil to be eradicated. To say that government is corrupt is like saying that the sky is blue or water is wet. That's the way things are and ever shall be, in saecula saeculorum.
The rejection of corruption in government as an absolute moral evil was one of the things that were so special about the American Revolution, and part of our legacy from George Washington. Mexico has never had that. Ever.
I doubt if you could find two people in all of Mexico who both (a) are capable of holding a high-level government position, and (b) would not practice corruption in office.
Three of the things that you absolutely must have to build an America-like state are:
Freedom (which would be possible for Mexico);
Private property rights (ditto); and
Government of laws and not men (which means that corruption must be minimized as it only can be when there is a broad consensus that it is anathema).
That last one is a deal-killer, I think.
To bring Mexico into the United States, the high government officials in the former Mexican areas would have to be Mexicans. The Mexican people would not accept the wholesale import of gringos to rule them, nor puppet governments with gringos pulling the strings.
That means that government in those areas would be corrupt to a degree that would make Tammany Hall look like a nunnery. That, in turn, means that instead of things getting better in the former Mexican areas, things would get worse in the original United States.
In addition, the new states would have to have representation in the legislature along the same lines as the original states. That would mean an influx of congenitally corrupt third-worlders into congress and the senate.
A tyrant with absolute power *might* be able to pull it off, but it would require thousands or tens of thousands of executions, the suppression of the leftist press and the permanent internment of large numbers of leftists under conditions we would consider sub-par, and the machine-gunning of demonstrators in the streets.
Sometimes I have the same sentiment. Much of this is brought on by the agents themselves. Our worst area is just outside of Calexico, Ca at a place called Rocha's Truck Lot. My shift has the most aggressive agents. We take our war waggons down to the fence and let them throw rocks then jump out, hammer them with OC spray and pepperballs. We dog them like a pack of hyenas near the All American Canal and chase them till they puke. Needless to say we don't have very many problems on our shift. The other two shifts continue to get schooled by the smugglers because they have this mindset that they can't do anything. They never get a plan together. In these politically correct times, you have to be smart in taking out the trash. Unfortunately we have far to many scaredy cats in the Patrol.
How come when I see Pres. Bush answering questions from the press, I never hear a single thing about illegal immigration? If only I was a reporter.................
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