by George Rasley
Conservative social media is awash with advice for President Trump on how to deal with the army of invading Central American aliens who are rapidly approaching our Southern Border.
There is a strong current of opinion that says the whole “migrant caravan” is a set-up by Soros and his minions and that Democrats are cynically hoping for some sort of election-changing incident in which some poor Central American is martyred at the hands of the American military that the Left despises anyway.
Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2018
In the view of the “it’s a set-up” crowd the illegal aliens should be somehow treated “humanely” but not allowed to enter the United States. Who will corral them and where they will be interned is left to imaginary friends in the federal workforce who will be mobilized to the Southern Border.
It may indeed be a set-up and the Left may indeed be hoping for an election-changing incident, but there is only one national asset with the capabilities, equipment and personnel to handle this situation, and that is the United States military.
What’s more, as our friend Daniel Horowitz of Conservative Review has pointed out in a series of articles and tweets, defending our borders is the military’s job.
Up through World War II and into the Cold War America had substantial military assets deployed at or near the border. Just look at the names of border cities and towns: Fort Bliss and Fort Sam Houston in Texas are still active duty military posts. Camp Shannon in New Mexico was built by the U.S. Army for border patrols it was operational from 1917 – 1922 at Hachita, New Mexico, it became a subpost of Camp Furlong in 1920. Camp Furlong was built by the U.S. Army to patrol the Mexican border. Known as Post at Columbus it was attacked by Pancho Villa’s forces in March 1916.
Camp Cochise, Camp Don Luis, Camp San Bernardino Ranch, Camp Douglas, Camp Bisbee and others in Arizona were built by the U.S. Army as border patrol posts and were operational through World War I and the upheaval of the Mexican Revolution. Camp Newell was a temporary border patrol station built during the 1911 Mexican Crisis that became a permanent U.S. Army border post, and Fort Huachuca, Arizona is still an active duty military post and home to the Army Intelligence Center and School.
Indeed, from the Coastal Artillery at Fort Baldwin at Sabino Head on Maine’s Kennebec River to dusty posts in the Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California Southwest, the American border and shoreline are dotted with place names confirming that defending the border at the border was the job of the Army.
The point of this history lesson is that for the vast majority of our country’s history the military didn’t do its work overseas – its number one job was to defend the United States and its borders. It is a fantasy of the Cold War era that all the threats to our national sovereignty can be stopped by strategic bombers and nuclear missiles, as opposed to soldiers on patrol at our borders.
We don’t have to meet the invading army of illegal aliens with tanks to assure that they do not pose a threat to our national security or overwhelm our border patrol and immigration system.
When the United States defeated Saddam Hussein’s forces in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom we took tens of thousands of prisoners who were captured, secured, housed and fed by the United States military. The notion that the U.S. military is incapable of handling the army of illegal aliens approaching our Southern border in a humane manner is not only an insult to the professionalism and capability of our military officers and troops, it is rebutted by the plain evidence of our national history.
