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To: Captain Rhino
We also need to modify the "Posse Comitatus" to allow the full scale use of the armed forces to curb these abuses of the border.

Oh certainly. Look how well it worked with Mexico's military. Ever get the feeling you're not getting the whole story?
103 posted on 11/19/2005 6:30:39 PM PST by dr_who_2
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To: dr_who_2
Not sure what you are referring to here.

The "Posse Comitatus" I am referring to is the U.S. federal law that greatly restricts the involvement of U.S. armed forces in law enforcement activities within the national borders. We have had some involvement recently along the southern border in support of the US Border Patrol. Examples of this are Marine engineer units in Arizona building fences and use of reserve Marine reconnaissance units in south Texas to watch the border. The later caused an incident a few years ago. A teenage Hispanic boy (U.S. citizen) armed with a rifle was shot and killed by a patrol leader after he (the boy) allegedly took the patrol under fire in it's hiding position. Don't know how the case ultimately turned out but IIRC the patrolling was subsequently discontinued due to local political heat. (The boy was from a majority Hispanic community just inside the US border. The Marine who shot him was Hispanic as well.)

The bottom line is that the law severely restricts how and when the support is rendered and prohibits the carrying out of actual law enforcement functions by the armed forces.

I know very little about Mexican law, so if they have a similar law I'd be glad to know about it.

The impression given by this and other articles is that the Mexican Army units along the border have been hopelessly corrupted by narcotics money and that they are acting as facilitators for cross border movement of the drugs and security for them during their transit in the border area. How far up the corruption goes I cannot say. But I suspect that it goes all the way into the top most-levels of Mexican state and federal governments.

In this particular case, the US Border Patrol was effectively intimidated in preventing the complete recovery of the trafficker, the dump truck and the bulk of the drugs. Intimidated because they had nothing but police weapons to deal with the military weapons confronting them. Had the BCTs mentioned in my previous post been available, the mid-river incident probably would have been a different ending with AH-64s, M2/M3 Bradleys, and M1A1s backing up the US Border Patrol.

Yes, there might have been a shooting incident but border inviolability is a two way street and right now the Mexicans are not holding up their end of the bargain. While the Mexican and US governments may not officially want a shooting war on the border, the local Mexican forces aiding and abetting drug trafficking are not going to back down until they are clearly over-matched in terms of firepower.

Let the Mexicans reinforce the border if they are that committed to their drug lords and their money. That will end all pretense and allow us to drop all remaining concerns about posting US forces along the border or building the long overdue border wall.
107 posted on 11/19/2005 10:12:15 PM PST by Captain Rhino (If you will just abandon logic, these things will make a lot more sense!)
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