Bush to militarize U.S. Border

In an apparent effort to stem his loss of support from the most right-wing segment of his base, George W. Bush proposes to militarize the U.S. border with Mexico. Read that again. Bush plans to have military troops guard the border that the United States shares with Mexico.

The White House formally insisted that no decision has been made and that Bush was still considering options yesterday. But aides left little doubt that the president intends to call for an expanded Guard deployment at the border involving several thousand troops, a significant increase from the 200 or so now there.

Officials suggested their mission would be to play a supporting role by providing intelligence, training, transportation, construction and other functions, while leaving the actual guarding of the 2,000-mile line separating the United States and Mexico to the Border Patrol. The National Guard would be a stopgap force until the federal government could hire civilian contractors to take over administrative and support functions from the Border Patrol, freeing more agents to actually hunt for immigrants slipping into the country.

"This is not about militarizing the border," national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "The president is looking to do everything he can to secure the border. It's what the American people want, it's what he wants to do."

So, not unlike cold war-era East Germany, the United States is going to have troops guarding its border. The difference, at least for now, is that the troops will be keeping people out, rather than keeping them in.

And, don't miss the little nugget about privatizing border security functions, eventually. When BushCo. is running things, why beef up your actual Border Patrol agency so that it can do its job effectively? Why not just undercut said agency and funnel the money to private contractors? How much do you wanna bet Halliburton is getting ready to acquire a security contracting firm, or two?

I love the smell of no-bid contracts in the morning.