Nat'l Guard "On The Border"

Bush proposes stationing thousands of Nat'l Guardsmen on the Mexican border to help seal our porous border (until the Border Patrol can double in size). The Mexican gov't, the far left, and even the far right are harping. As usual, the national media only emphasizes the sensational, the wrong, and the overstatements -- seldom the calmer truth.

WHAT YOU HEAR -- "The military's nat'l guard only knows how to blow things up and kill people. It's crazy and dangerous to have them do police duty."
TRUTH -- These are the same complainers who blamed Bush for not sending the same Nat'l Guard into New Orleans sooner after Katrina. They were delayed by three things: 1) Bush's team obeying national law (see "posse comitatus" and the "Insurrection Act"), 2) the Louisiana governer and New Orleans mayor refusing to perform their own disaster plans, and 3) the governer's and mayor's refusal to let FEMA and the Guard take over early enough to do some preventive good. Once on the scene, we saw with our own eyes the Nat'l Guard and Coast Guard do wonderful police, rescue, and medical jobs for civilians. Far left is wrong, as always, about the military -- does the media ever point that out?

WHAT YOU HEAR -- "The Nat'l Guard is spread too thin to help at the border."
TRUTH -- The Governers and their Nat'l Guard units were asked and they answered ... "Sure, we'd like to stay home, but, yes, we can show up at the Mexican border and do that job. Sure beats going to the Mid East." So, who knows better; the I-hate-anything-Bush-says crowd, or the professionals in the Guard?

WHAT YOU HEAR -- "Don't militarize the border."
TRUTH -- Borders are supposed to be militarized.
- Whether you personally see the military or not, border control of a sovereign nation is and should be a military matter. I've crossed countless national borders, and, believe me, it's a mililtary operation. Uzi, AK-47s, H&Ks, M-16s, constatino wire, special holding and questioning rooms -- these aren't social workers at any country's border.
- If in doubt about the control of the American borders, please refer to the Constitution.
- The Border Patrol is in many ways just as military as the Nat'l Guardsmen on the way. They have handguns, bigger guns, and guns bigger yet. The guns are not for show. They have hand-to-hand combat training. They have surveillance systems. So does the Guard; and they are going to help the Border Patrol.

WHAT YOU HEAR -- "We should have increased the Border Patrol since 9-11."
TRUTH -- We did. It takes money and time to train them, and the Border Patrol is nearly doubled since Bush took office. Before that, it was stagnant.

WHAT YOU HEAR -- "We don't want to see Nat'l Guard tanks and howitzers and fighter jets on the border."
TRUTH -- Didn't you listen to the proposal? The Guard will concentrate on other tasks, to allow more Border Patrol to actually be on the border, patrolling. For every Border Patrol on the border, there is another doing support duty off the border. Weapons must be stored, refurbished, and dispensed. Recurrent training of all sorts must be taught. Trucks and helicopters must take Border Patrolmen to and from their sites. Observation posts must be manned, alert to send Border Patrolmen to hot spots. Special communication networks must be set up, manned, and maintained. Nat'l Guardsmen will concentrate on those duties, so the Border Patrol can concentrate on the border, just like Bush said. Guardsmen will do actual border duties only until even more Border agents are trained.

The truth isn't quite as sensational as the blame-America-first crowd, the anti-military, Bush-haters, far-right isolationists, and the far left media. But, it's the truth.