Would you do away with them in Cuba and Korea too? Reagan expanded the mine fields in Korea allowing him to pull out thousands of troops.
I’ll bow to your first hand knowledge. I just wonder why we keep using them if they are so bad. It seems to me that if we use them to protect Guantanamo and Korea they would work to protect the homeland.
BTW Thank you for serving.
No, but you must consider the "cost/benefit" ratio. In Cuba and Korea, the extremely difficult decision that a few American lives are "worth" the benefit has been made. More on that below.
I’ll bow to your first hand knowledge. I just wonder why we keep using them if they are so bad.
In Cuba and Korea, making the Cuban Army or the North Korean Army believe that they can just swiftly rumble into Guantanamo would make the loss of a few American lives pale by comparison. For example, in 1950, when a careless statement made the Communists believe that South Korea was outside the U.S. defense umbrella, that miscalculation cost the U.S. 36,516 combat deaths. Yes, losing a Marine here and losing 5 drunken sailors there is "bad" but not as bad as losing tens of thousands of lives if Cuba and North Korea think that they can just waltz in.
The Falklands War happened for the very reason. The Argentinians were able to "waltz right in" and it cost the British 258 killed and 8 sunken warships to recover the Islands.
It seems to me that if we use them to protect Guantanamo and Korea they would work to protect the homeland.
So, again to the "cost/benefit". Look how much longer the border is and what are the stakes. That much of a minefield would cost a fortune and maintenance would cost a steady number of deaths to American troops, lost hikers, lost tourists, cattle, cut off ranchers from their Rio Grande water supply ... a nightmare.
Then comes the PR nightmare ..... On the front page of every newspaper across the planet: A photo of dead children with their guts all over their barely recognizable faces. Some shattered bodies will even be American bodies. Maybe even American teenagers that took a wrong tun late at night.
Immigration control become synonymous with mass murder and guess who loses the war?
Anybody that dares mention "Border Control" of any kind will be labeled a "Baby Murderer".
So, all that for what?
To enable the politicians to escape the duty to come down hard on illegal employers and enforce existing laws?
Right now, in the Sate of Georgia, illegal aliens are deporting themselves out of Georgia because, this year, the Georgia politicians decided to get tough and start enforcing laws.
Illegal aliens are self-deporting from Georgia
So, we are, in effect asking American servicemen to die so that politicians don't have to make political choices that are unpopular with the employers that bribe them with campaign contributions.
The "cost/benefit" ratio is simply unjustifiable.
As I posted before, when illegals cannot get jobs, they deport themselves.
Better an ounce of political guts than truck loads of real guts scattered all over the American desert.