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 Editorials | Opinions | January 2007 
What We Need is a Troop Surge on the Homefront
 James Pinkerton - PVNN
| | An unidentified man shows an identification tag given to him by the U.S. government after his deportation from the United States to Honduras in Tegucigalpa, Friday, Jan. 12, 2007. According to the US Costumes and Border Protection more than 28.000 Hondurans were deported in 2006 from the United States. (AP/Edgard Garrido) |
So American troops are surging in Iraq and withdrawing along our own border. What's wrong with this picture? Nothing, say the journalistic and political elites.
Wrong. What we really need is a surge of troops on the U.S.-Mexican border, which is a lot closer to home than Baghdad.
On Jan. 6 The Arizona Republic reported that a small team of National Guard troops "abandoned their post near the border southwest of Tucson as four gunmen approached from Mexico." American authorities assured the newspaper that this was all fine. It seems that the National Guard, which President Bush sent to the border with great fanfare last year, is on guard only to perform administrative and logistical work.
In the supposed-to-be-soothing words of Border Patrol spokesman Mario Martinez, "There was no attack" against the Americans in uniform. Why not? "In order to not be detected, they moved to a safer location," Mr. Martinez cooed. "That's exactly what we want them to do." That's one way to avoid confrontation: Just keep retreating. Works for a while.
Amazingly, this border incident, or lack thereof, has received almost no attention from the Mainstream Media. The New York Times, for example, has not mentioned it. The Washington Post ran a 42-word item on the Tucson non-incident.
In fairness to the Mainstream Media, the journo-establishment probably would cover this Mexican invasion of America – the larger story, of course, is the millions of illegals traveling across the border every year – if it were ever to get the signal that the American government took this under-covered onslaught seriously.
In a different era, the American commander-in-chief took seriously his constitutional oath to "preserve, protect and defend" these United States. In 1916, after the terroristic forces of Pancho Villa crossed into American territory, President Wilson sent John "Black Jack" Pershing and the U.S. Army into Mexico on a punitive retaliatory expedition.
That's how a country convinces outsiders that it cares about its own national sovereignty. But, in contrast to the 28th president, the 43rd president seems to be preoccupied with Iraq, not Arizona. Extra U.S. troops are going to go 7,000 miles from home, even as our own homes are unguarded.
Indeed, Mr. Bush and the Democrats who now control Congress seem to agree that there should be less enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border. So in 2007 we can expect a cancellation of the once-promised border wall. We also can expect a guest-worker/slow-motion-amnesty deal. Bush and his new best friend forever, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., are eager for such a deal to show the D.C. establishment that they can work with Democrats at least some of the time – even as they seek to jam the Dems on Iraq.
But, of course, both parties in Washington are experts at the game of selling out ordinary Americans – in the name of foggy abstractions such as "bipartisanship" and "nation building."
What Americans on the southwestern border need is political leadership that will stand up for them, not ignore them. And soon enough, as the immigration invasion continues, all Americans will figure out that they, too, need border protection.
And one day, even the Mainstream Media will realize that the impending demographic transformation and dissolution of America is a big story. Maybe.
James P. Pinkerton is a syndicated columnist. His email address is pinkerto@ix.netcom.com. |
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