[Nuke'm Glowing]

"Is being shot by a Mexican smuggler somehow more injurious than being shot by a Harlem junkie?"

You are missing the bigger issue. A Federal law enforcement officer was shot by an invading enemy force (drug smugglers). The Mexican army has been documented to be escorting those smugglers into our country. Why the hell we do not have a squadron of Cobra choppers blowing them to hell on a daily basis is beyond me. In any other nation of the world, this is an act which dictates deploying military forces. In our country it dictates political correctness. We need to deploy 4-5 divisions along our border permanently. It's time to end this idiocy. Unless W is happy to turn a blind eye to the drug and illegal immigrant smuggling to help his re-election chances. And that would be a shame if that's true.

[Luis Gonzalez]

You are playing semantics, a drug smuggler is a drug smuggler, not an "invading enemy force", regardless of what you say.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"The Mexican army has been documented to be escorting those smugglers into our country."

Documented? Not even Tancredo claims that:

""They are reporting that they see people coming through with guns. The concern is that there are people coming through with arms, M-16s, protecting drug carriers," said Mr. Tancredo, who has proposed using National Guard troops at border areas."

"The concern" is hardly the same as documented, and I don't see Tancredo mincing words when it comes to his main, get-out-the-vote pet issue.

Or we can even take the word of those working the border:

""These situations can be very difficult," said Keith Weeks, a patrol agent and vice president of Local 1613 of the National Border Patrol Council in California. "We are outgunned in these instances. They have automatic rifles, and we have handguns." He said that military assistance for drug running in Mexico is "a definite possibility."

"A definite possibility" doesn't say documented to me.

If Mexican authorities are chasing a smuggler in the dark, over unmarked terrain, they may inadvertently cross over into US territory.

Each and every one of these incursions, that happen both ways BTW, are discussed at lenght between the two governments, and dealt with at a local level.

I suggest better communications between US and Mexican Border patrols are needed, rather than gunships to start an idiotic and not needed border war.

Are there crooks in the Army? Probably on both sides, but they should not dictate policy, nor be the cause of a border war.

[Flint]

Hell's Bell's in the 1920's they put US Marines on railroad mail cars because someone was robbing the mail. They mounted water cooled .30 machine guns on top of the cars. From the day the Marines were deployed till they stood down there was not one piece of mail stolen from a railroad postoffice. If we can do that we can protect our border!