Tuesday, June 29, 2010

More smoke and mirrors from the administration on securing the border


Obama to send 1200 National Guard troops to the border.

The Texas and Arizona governors criticized the Obama administration's border security plans Monday, saying not enough National Guard troops are being deployed to their states.

"What we heard wasn't anything what we hoped to hear," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer told reporters after a 90-minute briefing by federal officials sent by President Obama.


Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican like Brewer, said the deployment to his state was "insufficient to meet the needs of securing the Texas-Mexico border."


A White House statement said plans to deploy 1,200 additional National Guard soldiers along the U.S.-Mexico border would "complement the unprecedented resources and additional efforts already devoted by this administration to securing the Southwest border."


I am always antennae up and all ears any time my government gives me figures to support their position on anything. So here we have 1200 National Guard troops being deployed to our border with Mexico by president Obama? And that represents what? "1.6 troopers per mile of the 1969 mile border." Yep, that ought to do it Barack. So how you gonna spread these assets?

Oh! I see now.....

Arizona would get 524 National Guard troops, Texas would get 250, California 224 and New Mexico 72, officials said. Another 130 would be at a national liaison office


Wow.....I'm impressed. That certainly ought to do it. I mean at least until we can get more civilians trained to take their place. Right? And I wonder? What is the numeric value of civilian Border Patrol officers to their military NG equivalency? Two to one? One to one? Or are we gonna be talking fractions of people?

Jan Brewer and the governor of Texas are right, this is insufficient and a pitiful response to the problem by this white house. But something that is overlooked, at least in my opinion, is who and where these resources are coming from.

The article says that Obama is deploying 1200 "National Guard" troops. Excuse me? But the National Guard is the home guard. They are immediately answerable to the people of their state and their governor. So why is Jan Brewer or Rick Perry standing by and allowing Obama to deploy them and then bitching about it?

The reality is, Brewer and Perry should have already deployed their own NG forces to their borders and told the president that those troops would remain there until Washington figured out a way to secure the border. If Obama should be sending anything to the border right now, it should be 'regular Army' troops and not NG units.

Here is where the problem and the reality lies IMO. Jan Brewer has rightfully chastised this president for not doing his job and not securing the borders. But she has failed to do her part IMO, by not already placing her NG on her border. There are 8000 members of the Arizona Army NG and another 19,000 over in Texas.

Both of these states have deployed at least half of their NG resources to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which IMO? Means it's long since past time for some reciprocating from the US Army when it comes to defending our own damn borders. Screw defending the borders of Afghanistan. We have our own problems here and now.

Some people say that we have to fight terrorism in Afghanistan to prevent having to fight it on our own soil. I wish someone would explain to me how that works when every day our borders are leaking like sieves and allowing not only illegal Mexicans but hundreds if not thousands of terrorists into this country unchecked and unabated.

The time has come for the governors of these border states and the other states to stand up and put a stop to this nonsense.The time has come for the American people to say enough is enough. And personally? Waiting until the November elections is just a cop out.

1 comment:

XtnYoda said...

"Some people say that we have to fight terrorism in Afghanistan to prevent having to fight it on our own soil. I wish someone would explain to me how that works..."

I would like to hear that explained after you get it Lo... I would seriously like to hear that answered... I would have liked for Bush to have answered how invading Iraq should have done the same.