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Thursday, May 27, 2010
Troops At The Border: Are They There
To Keep Them Out Or Us In?
Barack Obama ordered 1200 National Guardsmen at the US-Mexican border. John McCain wants 6,000. Other GOP members want more.
Considering that our problems are so great and that the world is like a lit fuse getting shorter by the week, what will happen if WW3 is triggered?
No, not from a sealed border, but from other events. North Korea and South Korea are a time bomb. Barack and Hillary are pushing a reluctant China to put North Korea in check.
Hell, we owe a fortune to China. Why would they get in the middle of a new Korean war to fight on behalf of our interests?
To save the dollar? Possibly, but I think not, because we're flat azz broke, and unlike them, produce little in the way of tangible goods to earn money. We are a nation of consumers and spendthrifts.
For oil deals with Iran and Iraq? Maybe, since they have invested billions in Iran's energy programs. However, if they can nudge us out of the way, they'd save a bundle, and geographically, they're closer to the oil fields.
No, they might think hard about playing peace maker with the Koreans since a war with them could go nuclear and tie up their manpower and resources.
And speaking of oil, a bad hurricane season will spread the oil and dispersants far and wide. This will undoubtedly put a strain on US relations with affected countries whose seafood industry will be damaged.
Then there are the Russians. We've been quite busy this century surrounding their country with our 2nd level allies. Patriot missiles arrived in Poland this week and will be pointing at the Ruskies, who also have huge investments with Iran.
And last month, Barack said we were "weeks away" from placing sanctions on Iran. I guess he dismissed their leader saying long ago this would be considered an "act of war".
In the middle of all this, we're right smack dab in two wars. Number of soldiers: 92,000 in Iraq, 94,000 in Afghanistan. Cost since the wars began: $1 Trillion Dollars. Number Americans reported killed as of today: 5,456. Double or triple this for the number of serious disabilities and suicides by service men and women.
There is also now a highly secretive, "systematic and long term" cladesdine war program authorized by General Petraeus. Oddly, he did not need the President's approval for this. It includes sending drones to bomb Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia at a huge cost of life to civilians there, and any good will toward us.
We are in a major "recession". All this looks and feels like the Great Depression II and a prelude to bigger wars to me. The last time this kind of shit happened, WWII was the remedy - and for the Nazis, mass exterminations the solution for Jews, and for the US, internment camps for the Japanese before they nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So this brings me to troops at the border. All it would take is for one mushroom cloud over one American city, and within hours folks would running like roaches for the Mexican and Canadian borders.
Canadian border spots are already tight as a drum: Bush & Co, the greatest warmongers in recent times, ensured that you need a passport to enter. Not true for Mexico.
The official story is troops are being placed there to keep out illegal aliens.
What if the real deal by the powers that be is they anticipate a major war on American soil, and they don't want us abandoning our country - particularly men eligible for a new draft?
So I ask you again, will the troops be guarding the US-Mexican border to keep them out, or to keep us in?
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The Korea thing is strange.US-SKOR war games going on, Four Aegis-equipped ships didn't notice a NKOR sub come into 30 meters of water, sink a ship then sneak back out? weird.
ReplyDeleteI hate that term illegal aliens. Like Martians coming here to take all the cool slaughterhouse fruit picking toilet cleaning jobs from good decent White folks exercising their constitutional right to hate Brown people.
Nice post. Hadn't thought of the "keep us in" angle.
You might be right. The GOP wants to treat the problem at the border like a "surge", complete with military drones and dig this - possibly shoot to kill orders. Rep. Gutierrez would fudged that question. See my post. Right now they want to keep them out, but they'll be set up for keeping us in if the SHTF.
ReplyDeleteThe national guard situation is suspicious. I don't take the Korea situation that seriously. I don't know why. But they are preparing for civil unrest and this could be why. http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/04/us-said-to-ready-special-armed-forces.html
ReplyDeleteJay, I read Jesse's link you gave. The problem with her article is her source, the Newark Times article (4/2010), which recycled an Army Times article (9/2008) that the Combat Brigade Team was preparing for "civil unrest" and rioting, and they implied this is in response to new problems.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the Army's timing came the sane approx time as Lehman Bros went under, AIG and other "too big to fail" entities were failing, banks closing and the Bailout Bill being introduced.
While the Combat Brigades were formed for "the possiblity of terrorism on US soil", it's clear they already had a head's up on the economic crash, as well as anticipated rioting over Barack assuming office in Jan 2009. I think anticipated far more aggressiveness from the American Couch Potato than they got.
I wrote about that here here on 10/01/2008. They are, however, still in existence and are a scary substitute for the normal police response in any serious internal problem.
Mr. P., Yeah, on The Ed Show, Rep. Gutierrez's verbal response (implied agreement) on shoot to kill orders didn't match his body language (faux disagreement), that's for sure.
It bothers me that this militarization of the border will look like we're at war with Mexico.. Walls, fences, troops, drones... like Israel does Palestine. It's peculiar since the killings by Mexican drug gangs is Mexico's problem, not an Arizona or Texas problem. It's also unwarranted and ridiculously expensive, making me wonder if the real reason is to keep us in if SHTF, or since Mexico has oil, could their be a planned war with them in the next 5 or 10 years? Far fetched, indeed, but our quest for domination over nearly every country with oil is mind-boggling.
Oso, The Korean thing is a peculiar incident, and China is treading carefully and doing their own independent investigation.
Re: bigots and "their Constitutional right to hate brown people". Well said.
You might be onto something, and living so close to Canada its interesting that I now need a passport to go over the boarder. Granted in Maine the boarder is not nearly as hard to penetrate as Canada.
ReplyDeleteSigh...right now everytime I look at what's going on in the world I just want to get back in bed. Great post as usual.
I don't think it's as deep as you presented, but the possibilities cannot be dismissed. I think the deployment of troops was symbolic and done with political expediency.
ReplyDeleteThe truth is, there is no way 1,200 troops can or will even be able to properly seal off a 2,000 mile stretch. I think comprehensive immigration reform is coming (next year), and this deployment was strategic as far as securing votes.
But what you laid out about China?
ooooooweeeeeeeeee!
P.S. check out my latest post and see the "new talk" about the border and Somali and Middle Eastern terrorists with alleged connections to Al Quada.
Rippa, In your current post, you show O'Reilly insulting Marc Lamont Hill, but Bill O. also said he wants to send 10,000 - not only 1200, to the US-Mexican border.
ReplyDeleteRippa, Mexico has oil. In your previous post you mentioned Somalia; they have oil too. We already have drones flying over and bombing Somalia.
Now the push is to militarize the Mexican border under the guise of keeping out illegal aliens. I think there's an inner circle of deciders who instruct the media pundits and lesser politicians which position to take, especially in the GOP, but may not be telling them why. These people are corporate for hire PR workers in essence, and say and do what they are told. They do it with ease when there's an element of racism.
With all our addiction to oil, I think we're laying down groundwork for future war with Mexico if it becomes determined as "necessary". The walls, barbed wired, and troops will be in place at the border, making it easy, and also making it impossible for American draft dodgers to leave this country.
Yesh, I know there's no draft now, but after the 2012 election, it's a foregone conclusion unless Barack keeps our word to pull soldiers out and de-escalate in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was supposed to have done this Iraq this month. Nope, there are more troops over there and Afghanistan, and they're considering war with Iran. And it's all over oil.
Very informative read.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I gathered from this read and basically from all else that I have concluded about America - she keeps herself in some ish.
I remember reading as far back as two years ago how America had began to borrow monies from China. I knew then it would be only a matter of time before a recession followed. True enough. If our great military power was removed, it would be safe to say that America is hardly a Super Power, in the overall scheme of things.
I wonder if there is any logical reason why troops are still in Afghanistan and Iraq? Well, besides trying to protect America's "investment."
Not sure what are the intentions of Kim Jong, but I hope no one gets into an altercation with his country and ends up setting off a Nuclear War. Unlike Saddam Hussein, I doubt very seriously if the world will be able to laugh at his punchline.
I didn't see this post when I was writing about Korea for BlogHer or I would have linked to it. Sorry I missed out as the post was submitted yesterday and went live this morning. Good points here. I hope you'll drop by there and comment.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go read more about his Mexican border militarization right now.
1200 troops........that's just silly.
ReplyDeleteNo one's concerned about the northern border, we all know that this is about brown people.
I know there will come a time when the only way to get out of this country will be to smuggle ourselves out. It will take cold hard cash and courage. I keep hoping it will happen a long, long time from now but really, who knows? You've offered a very plausible reason for why it would be hard to leave this country. It's kind of surreal and the mother in me can't help worrying about my children.
ReplyDeleteChi Chi The O.W., Thank you. There's just too damn much going on right now and this country is getting crazier by the day. As I mother, I share your concerns.
ReplyDeleteReggie, Well, Obama gave it the green light and they're doing it.
Nordette, I emailed you a couple days ago, but thank you here, too.
Don, Yep. A NK-SK brawl would be a nightmare. China, and now Russia, are doing their own independent investigations to figure out what really happened.