Why are we staging major operations to protect the Iraqi/Syrian border while leaving ours wide open?
U.S.-Mexico border security is a controversial issue and I think it deserves its own thread. Suffice it to say that I think it is much more complicated than some think.
The terrorists who behead American contractors and kill American soldiers are not coming from Mexico, but from Syria and Iran. WMD may have gone to Syria and the Syrian-controlled Bekaa (this is based on public statements of US officials, not Debka). And Zarqawi is getting support from Syria just as Sadr is from Iran.
True, some of the current infiltration is coming from Mexico this time rather than Canada or ports (as it has before), but it has been other routes in the past, and the central issue is not which one of the many points they could come in, but where are they coming from (the original source).
If you don't go to the source, you will never solve the problem because they will *always* find a way in - - where there is a will, there is a way.
The incipient revolution in the news today in Iraq is being fueled by Iran and its strategic ally, Syria. That has implications not only for the entire ME, but for global peace and stability. Mexico is child's play and a sideshow compared to that.
They (Syria and Iran) also harbor and support Hezbollah and elements of al Qaeda, who are planning attacks in the US. Recall we just had to throw out (another) Iranian diplomat last month for taking pictures of potential targets in (guess where?) - - New York City.
As the President said, we are fighting them there so we are not fighting them here.
As many cells that might be here at the moment, imagine how many would be here if we were not pinning them down and killing them over there.
Yes, I know how bad it is. But despite what the "experts" say, there is no easy solution. And the Canadian border is a huge problem as well. What you do for one has to be done for the other or you just shift the problem.
Doesn't matter if we had the troops to seal off the southern border (and we don't - - we don't even have enough NG left in the US to deal with certain WMD scenarios). They would find another way in. Guaranteed. And if we "sealed" the border in the way some advocate (walls, mines, troops), Mexico would become a "pressure cooker" and destabilize. If we cut off Canada, they would find a way to survive, Mexico would be a different story.
If Mexico were to collapse, it would risk over the next decade becoming a narco-terrorist state that has left the US sphere of influence and begins to gravitate in much more dangerous orbits. A Cuba/Venezuela of 100 million sharing a 2000-mile border.
And there will still be people getting across, no matter what measure you take. People come in and out of North Korea and Iran all the time. There is no such things as an impervious border.
Not saying we should not do something. But anything (even if there was a good solution, and there is not) would take years to implement, and we don't have the luxury of time. Just saying folks need to cut the President a little slack on that issue. He knows what he is doing, and he is not an idiot.
You cannot win this on the defense. You don't draw the line in the sand here.
You draw it there.
"Defense in depth"