It’s one of the few things these troops can do. Deployment of federal troops to US territory is severely restricted unless your talking real war. From what I’ve read all they can really do is provide logistical support to national guard and CBP agents. And probably humanitarian functions.
Trump’s been bragging about how many tents the troops are gonna set up (?).
And there’s military, international, and US law about what all these people need to do in regards to asylum seeking refugees. That’s the central idiocy here. These troops aren’t really allowed too. And likely aren’t even interested in doing what Trump thinks they’ll be doing.
It’s not even a bad idea to get the military involved. Like you said they do a lot of humanitarian missions. And a lot of these troops probably did multiple deployments in the Middle East where they probably spent a good amount of time processing refugees.
But CBP is going to be doing that. Because that’s exactly what CBP would be doing anyway. As it is it looks like we’re sending five thousand troops out to scratch their asses and dig latrenes.
That would appear to be why we’re seeing military documents about preparing to deal with militias and armed nativists. Aside from the fact that those people aren’t too friendly to federal employees or military. A good lot of them are itching to shoot at some brown people.
I’m actually wondering where the states these troops will be deployed to are in all this. Yourbdeep red border states are usually really, really, really touchy about federal troops “occupying” their territory.
Is generally all kinds of fucked up (and that isn’t new) and deeply embedded with Trump. One reason why involvement of the military could improve things. But that’s not what’s happening here. As it stands you could potentially see conflict between border patrol and the military. As border patrol has been plainly defying international and military norms on dealing with civilians.
Refuge caravan. These are not just people looking to jump the border. And importantly they’re not Mexican. They’re from nations further south, and they’re fleeing serious instability and social problems. Apparently the last couple caravans included a lot of LGBT people looking to land somewhere they wouldn’t get murdered. Just as an example.
Can we please stop legitimizing them by calling them “militias”? They are not members of a militia. They are militant terrorists in a loosely organized mob. Just like all of the middle-aged, overweight white men who have taken out a reverse mortgage for a Harley and a leather vest aren’t a gang, they’re just sad, lonely men who have spent their life cultivating nothing of value.
Just in case there was any doubt whatsoever that Trump is making hay out of this because the election is next week rather than because of anything to do with a mass of people being anywhere near the border:
If trump actually gave a flying fuck about preventing bunches of migrants from arriving in the US, he could, I don’t know, collect money from the Treasury’s couch cushions and give Mexico a few hundred million bucks for humanitarian aid for the migrants to encourage them to settle down in Mexico.
The schadenfreude resulting from these evil fucks getting their asses handed to them by the very military they fetishize would be – at least for a while, before the terrible fallout – delicious.
Or you’d handle it like any other refugee situation. These caravans tend to shrink as they move through Mexico. With people peeling off as they move into the better, safer parts of Mexico and the Mexican government processes people along the way. I think there were only 400 people left by the time the last one got to the US.
They’re only blocked up into caravans like this because Mexico doesn’t have the capacity to deal with that many people all at once.
If you really wanted to deal with it you’d cooperate with Mexico. Bring the UN in on it. Find some place as close to their origin point as possible with infrastructure to care for these people. The load would be spread across many nations.
If you wanted to prevent it you’d need a practical foreign policy aimed at stabilizing and ecconomicly improving Central America. And probably Southern Mexico.
I think it’s not so much they want anyone to get killed as that they utterly and completely don’t care. The lives of non-white, non-billionaires are less meaningful to them than ants. Their one and only objective in this is to stoke fear in their base in order to get them out to vote.
Commanders on the border will be put in a hopeless position, caught between the actual law and the CinCs insanity. I do not envy them one bit. And the political fallout should they actually wind up in conflict with the White Supremacist militias, holy shit!!
Well yeah. But there wouldn’t be thousands of people who needed to do that. And they would have to keep moving if the Mexican government had the capacity to deal with the numbers in the first place. They’d be temporarily housed and the border and dealt with properly as they showed up.
Their relationship with the military is schizophrenic to say the least. They imitate military fashion (lots of cammo) and affect (calling themselves militias). but while a fair number ARE ex-military almost none of them made a career of it. A larger than normal percentage have “bad paper” discharges of one kind or another. The IDEA of being some kind of hero appeals, but core military values of following orders and getting along with the others in your unit are usually beyond them. That’s part to the reason that most of these “militia” groups are small. They just don’t play well with others. It is amusing to look at the grandiose websites of a group with less that 50 people that nonetheless has table showing rank insignia up to brigadier. They have a fantasy of military life that frankly DOES sound much more appealing that the reality of BS assignments and hurry up and wait.
I know a guy who won’t shut up about his veteran status and just idolizes everything about the military (and Trump of course) when all he did was swab decks in the Navy for 3 years and couldn’t wait for his enlistment to be up so he could get out.
Fast forward 30 years and he’s now drawing full disability pension and free health care from the VA but complains endlessly about “freeloading Mexicans” and welfare cheaters. Thankfully I don’t have to be around him too often.
Well the issue they’re concerned about resolved itself.
The issue of thousands of people barely making it across thousands of miles of desert because they’re so desperate that seems like a better option. The abuse that goes with it. The neighboring government we spent the last 20 years working to help stabilize being stressed to the breaking point while attempting to deal with it on its own. Among other things. Aren’t getting resolved at all.
But those would be the real issues involved and Trump and his administration clearly don’t give two fucks about any of that.
I’m surprised he hasn’t invented something more involved. The unsung (publicly, activists and military members seem to try to take it head on) end of the stolen valor thing is that a lot of it is actual veterans inflating their service level, achievements and injuries.
I know a guy who hangs at the bar all day telling war stories. About his 4 deployments in Iraq. Refuses to join the VFW because those are “weak old men” who never saw “the shit”. He’s been shot 4 times. And once put one bullet through 3 “hadjis”. He’s got a bronze star!
I’ve know him since high school. He lost his shit (not psych wise) in basic and broke his fist punching a drill instructor. They sent him out on a medical discharge so he wouldn’t have trouble getting work from a dishonorable discharge. He never served at all none the less got deployed. Since he didn’t finish basic and has a whole “not combat effective due to hand injury” in his record he couldn’t even finish out his commitment with the National Guard or Coast Guard. Couple times he’s sought out schollarships and grants meant for combat veterans or wounded vets. And almost got himself in a bit of trouble. But he’s a regular are Wounded Warrior outings, military sports trips, and what have. Anything people don’t look too close at actual record for. Always trying to get people to buy him beers and very much likes to make thanked for his service.
It’s always worth asking why they are ex-military. Did they honorably serve, did they muster out from the stockade, are there strongly-worded notes in their file on the subject of not offering re-enlistment?
Absolutely, which makes this political theatre and not a practical solution to a very real problem; what are so many people running from that makes this journey seem worth it? Not just in the Americas, across the world right now.
I can’t stand stolen valor types. Just giant pieces of shit.
I know a similar person who has licenses plate and such for like a 6 mo stint in the Navy. Some health issue got him let go early.
How does that work? I wasn’t under the impression that the VA pays for shit unless it was related to service. Like I think they covered some stuff for my dad’s hearing, but I had a friend with kidney issue he thought might be related to Agent Orange exposure. The VA denied looking into it because he was never ON Vietnam. he was on the USS Enterprise and was like, “We had like 10,000 gallons of the shit on the boat. Where the fuck do they think it came from? And then there was the fire with god knows what burning and in the air.”
