Will they arm them with cork guns and jail them if they try to shoot border crossers with a cork?
Posted on 01/04/2011 1:37:20 PM PST by RnMomof7
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano rang in the New Year with a visit to Afghanistan. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Embassy in Kabul)
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which by its own admission has thus far failed to control even half of America's nearly 2,000-mile-long border with Mexico, is now sending personnel to Afghanistan to help that country secure its border with Pakistan.
On a New Year’s visit to Afghanistan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there are now 25 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CPB) personnel on the ground in Afghanistan. That number could reach 65 or more by the end of 2011, she said.
“We’re going to contribute numbers,” Napolitano said, in explaining her department’s role in helping Afghanistan transition from military to civilian control.
Napolitano said she hoped to leave Afghanistan with an appreciation of what “skill sets” are most needed there – “and to make sure that’s included in the next wave of individuals that we (Department of Homeland Security) send over.”
In July 2002, when the George W. Bush White House released the first national strategy for the Department of Homeland Security, it identified the new agency’s three objectives as preventing terrorist attacks within the United States; reducing America’s vulnerability to terrorism; and minimizing the damage from attacks that do occur.
When asked by CNSNews.com if ICE and CBP personnel have been deployed elsewhere in the world to help secure borders, a DHS spokesperson said that they had, but that security issues prevented the department from providing details on those deployments. Such secrecy apparently does not extend to the deployments of CPB and ICE personnel to Afghanistan, however. The DHS spokesperson did not respond to questions about what posts CBP and ICE personnel would be pulled from in order to go to Afghanistan. Nor did the spokesperson say what expertise the Homeland Security Department could provide that NATO and U.S. military forces could not provide.
At her Jan. 1 news conference, however, Napolitano said that some of the advice provided by U.S. border security and customs personnel is “very practical in nature.” She gave some examples: “How do you arrange in-bound versus out-bound lanes? How do you make sure that you can check trucks? How do you employ the right kind of equipment in the right way?”
Napolitano said U.S. civilians also are working to prevent “criminal activity in general, not just insurgency.” She mentioned drug smuggling and “bulk cash” smuggling and said the goal is to “intervene and disrupt.”
Napolitano said border protection in any country demands specific skills. “Policing at a border, border protection, is not the same as being say an inner-city police officer,” Napolitano said. “There are obviously different techniques involved, different tactics, different laws oftentimes, and so I think being able to participate and help design that training for this border (Afghanistan) is very important.”
Napolitano said border protection is crucial to establishing “legitimate trade” – and revenue -- which “needs to happen” in Afghanistan.
Napolitano visited the Torkham border crossing with Pakistan, where a number of American border security and customs civilians are serving as advisers. She indicated that in general, she is satisfied with what she saw. “So I would say that there is a perception that real progress is being made here and has been made in the last nine months.”
However, the commander of a U.S. Army Brigade assigned to the Afghan-Pakistan border told reporters in late December that even the U.S. military has trouble controlling the Afghan-Pakistan border.
“As far as the border itself, you know, I think it’s naive to say that we can stop, you know, forces coming through the border,” Col. Viet Luong told a press conference in Afghanistan on Dec. 28. Luong and his troops are in charge of 162 miles of the Afghan border.
Is this insanity ever going to end? IS IT 2012 YET???????
So now Afghans will have a completely open border, but will be felt up any time they travel. Nice.
Obama has nothing to gain. He has already lost Americas’ support. More would like to see him gone than stay.
Never anything to help THIS country.
Will they arm them with cork guns and jail them if they try to shoot border crossers with a cork?
In other news, the Keystone Cops have been loaned to Mexico to fight the cartels.
Our Border Agents, good and valued sworn officers, have been defanged, nullified and left powerless, unfunded and vastly undermanned at our southern border. Building on that lack of success, Napalitano tries to build a legacy and get herself an excuse to get out of the country.
Article I, Section 10, last clause. If the Federal government will not secure the border against invasion, the States have the right if not the duty to do so themselves.
I didn't know Afghanistan had become a new state in the Union. It must be one of those seven "new" ones Obama mentioned during the 2008 campaign.
I flew over the Christmas holiday. I opted out of the naked body scanner. I asked if I could have a woman feel me up instead of a man. I was told no, it has to be a man.
Israel built a fence, Egypt built a fence, Mexico is building a fence and Greece is now building a fence. India long ago built an Israeli designed fence...what are we doing?
Helping Egypt with a fence and sending DHS people to Afghanistan. I bet they are all locked safely in the US Embassy..
I’d quit my job first if I had to go elsewhere to secure someone else’s border when I wasn’t allowed to secure our own and protect our citizens from terrorists.
Shame on you obama.
This is the beginning of 0zero’s brown shirt civilian force.
Perhaps the Border Patrol can see first hand how effective Predator drones with Hellfire missiles can help seal out murderous miscreants? Maybe shoot-to-kill and landmines really are an effective deterrent to drug smugglers and killers? Obliterating bad guys and their clans and supporters has some merit?
There may be some lessons they can learn here...?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Obama thinks Article IV Section IV of the U. S. Constitution was written to protect every border but our own. Bush evidently thought so too. Clinton and the first Bush as well...
Why are we bothering to protect a border for inhabitants who like the people on the other side of the border more than they like us???
Both parties are at fault here.
These are not soldiers and should not be sent to guard any border except the US border.
I guess the plan here is to dilute and underman the US border so more and more illegals can get in here. 20+ million after all, isn't enough to do the jobs that American's refuse to do.
We need to decapitate our entire government.
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