The US military is not a defensive force at the tactical level… By doctrine, defensive operations are to be used only as a transition back to offense, not as a means in and of themselves.

Placing military forces on ‘defense’ – particularly border-guard duty – results in steadily deteriorating morale, degraded combat skills, and opens the door for corruption & graft.

If you want to see everyone worth retaining leave the service as soon as their contract is up, make their primary mission border-guard duty. You’ll keep the folks with too many years invested (the ‘PT Sock Inspector’ corps), and some of the new recruits… But most of your fighting troops will be gone faster than you can say ‘ETS’.

Defending the border would solve the whole problem. In fact, many people (in the tens of thousands) in Mexico have been killed because we haven’t controlled our border. If there were no other reason to seal the border, the inhumanity of allowing the killing because we don’t have the will to seal and control our own border makes wars elsewhere seem well, not so vital. So why don’t we?

I think the slave masters have lost their ready slave labor force in America-because our labor is treated so well-so they use their power and money to keep a steady flow of second class non-citizens flowing. This is disgusting and obviously costs lives. For humanity’s sake lets seal the border.

Whether we call the southern thing a war or not, it is wrong and it is relatively easy to fix. Seal the border. Allow only legal applicants to enter.

For those leaving the service who are interested in border duty (or a career in federal LE, period – USBP is seen as a ‘gateway’ to a career as a federal agent in other parts of the government)…

For those of us not leaving, you won’t find many who want to volunteer for permanent full-time guard-duty… It’s one of the most hated details in the Army (Even over here, where you might actually get in a firefight while on tower guard)….

Several historical parallels to other failed regimes and failed States…

Mew

It would probably cost as much – if not more – than operations in Afganhistan. The manpower and support infastructure required would be huge.

And we’d still fail.

Border-focused thinking is the one reason we haven’t made any progress on the issue of illegal immigration – it sets up an impossible-impasse between ‘amnesty now’ and ‘seal the border’ – neither of which are workable. Change ‘seal the border’ to ‘enforce the law inside the US’, and you’ll have a winning proposal.

Once you accept that the border will always be porous – as it has for our entire history due to the amount of border and the terrain involved, we can actually get to work on reducing illegal immigration and drug crime through interior enforcement.

There’s no enemy army, no hostile intent, no attempt to seize territory…

The thing is, I would personally be fine with every single immigrant presently here being here, IF ONLY they had all complied with the law & gotten the proper papers.

The problem to me, is entirely the ILLEGAL part and in no way the immigrant part.

The US needs the population that immigration provides & the economic activity it generates, we just need them to respect us enough to come here with papers.

So, the solution is not to call it an invasion & complain about immigrants, it’s to focus on the ILLEGAL part – to create a ‘secure society’ where only those who are here legally can participate in commerce, while simultaneously increasing legal immigration immensely, we’ll end the market for illegal immigrant labor (the ‘stick’ – use audits, smartcard-ID, and heavy fines/penalties – IRS style – to close off the economy to illegals), and our illegal population will self-deport, then come back legally (the ‘carrot’ – thanks to innocent-until-proven-guilty, if you leave & stop being here illegally, you can still come back with papers later)….

It’s a perfect solution for the problem – one that all but the most polarized partisans can agree on – one that doesn’t involve amnesty, and doesn’t waste trillions building a ‘maginot line’ on the border….

Take a look at Mexico, at what’s really going on there, and tell me you don’t see a civil war on the horizon.

Better to figure out how to defend, and where to put the refugee camps now….

Don’t like that reality? How about this one – “permanent jobs program”?

Mew

Whether you want to talk illegal immigration OR drug smuggling, a focus on the SUPPLY side is now, always has been, and always will be a failure.

Unless their is a decrease / elimination in the demand for illegal workers by business or drugs by the general public, it’s a lost cause.

My point was to find and booby trap some tunnels, and maybe people won’t be quite so willing/anxious to go into other tunnels. Probably just as effective to have the “mine” explode with the dye they use for bank money bags. Makes those folks pretty conspicuous, eh? And eliminates all that racial profiling b.s., “red handed” so to speak.

p.s. I am fully cognizant of the demand side of the argument. My town is now well over 70% hispanic and it’s an open joke about the illegals and what they’re doing here.

have a use. GPR works pretty well on flat ground but seismic sensors are much more effective and improved versions are available to be deployed. I remember attaching tripwires to claymores in the 70′s – no command detonation required – FWIW. Boots – be they Homeland or military and sensors – and to a limited degree fences – are the way to stop the foot traffic. Acat mentioned earlier the us of Reserve / National Guard troops and that is probably the best solution involving the military – though two weeks is not long enough – 90 to 120 days would be better. I found that they were dedicated and they did not tire of monitoring a position. Rotation, proper training and total intergration with the Homeland troops is key.

The other than foot traffic inolves more effective use of VACIS and better VACIS. Customs always had issues with the amount of cargo that could be inspected. The fix there is more better equipment, more boots and vastly expanded examination areas. It will not stop the problem but it could result in cutting some of the supply. The commitment from executive and congressional branches has really never been there except possibly with President Reagan and Bill Bennett days and that was too little, applied poorly.

I agree that reducing demand on the human and drug side are the ways to go – I think we can likely get to a solution for people – not so sure about drugs. There is no U.S. national will and there has been no successful engaging of the Mexican government that I have seen. Read about Operation Casablanca – get in the weeds – if you want to know why the ‘drug war’ will never be a real war or winnable.

I suspect that the drip drip drip of the Breitbart works will paint the very same true picture of Obama before the next election. I just want Breitbart’s releases, whoever is releasing them, to hit every media outlet possible. We know the leftist TV channels won’t touch this stuff, so it will be be to all of us to pass around in every avenue we can. It would be a wonderful honor to Breitbart if someone here would do front pagers every time more facts are released.

where it belongs