"The Border is already militarized...on the Mexican side!"

Why isn't this on the front page of every American newspaper?

So much for gratitude!

On May 15th, President Bush delivered a lame and belated flim-flam speech, to bamboozle Americans into thinking he cares about controlling the border.

But even this was too offensive here in Mexico, where they are complaining about the militarization of the border—even though the Mexicans have militarized their own border.

Mexican Military at the border.

The posturing began even before Bush gave his speech. On May 14th, Bush’s amigo, Mexican president Vicente Fox, called Jorge on the phone to express his concern. And Bush reassured Fox that the border wasn’t being militarized…he was only thinking of sending the National Guard, and not the Army. [ Dialogo Presidente Vicente Fox con su homólogo George W. Bush, Presidencia de la Republica—May 14th, 2006]

Hey, I’m in the National Guard. The Texas Army National Guard. Our uniforms don’t say "National Guard", they say "U.S. Army." When we went to Iraq, they said "U.S. Army".

Some of our soldiers died there, and that’s what their uniforms said too.

But if Bush thought he could insult the National Guard in order to make Mexico happy, he was sorely mistaken. They don’t even want us lowly Guardsmen near the border!

The Fox administration is assuring folks that the border is not being militarized. But Mexicans don’t seem to believe it...

And the border is already militarized—on the Mexican side.

Mexican Foreign Minister Derbez admits that there are Mexican troops on the border. In fact, he’s even boasted about it.

In an interview with El Universal, Derbez tried to downplay the deployment of National Guard troops to the border. Here’s how El Universal explains Derbez’ view of the National Guard:

"In an interview with El Universal, Foreign Minister Derbez guaranteed that the Americans who will be deployed to the border are ‘civilian sector persons’, although he admitted that they had been trained by the Pentagon and had even participated in the Iraq conflict. ‘They answer to the governor and are not part of the regular Army’ he mentioned."

[En entrevista con EL UNIVERSAL, el canciller Derbez aseguró que los elementos estadounidenses que serán desplegados en la frontera son "personas del sector civil", aunque aceptó que han sido entrenados por el Pentágono e incluso han participado en el conflicto de Irak. "Responden al gobernador y no son parte del Ejército regular", mencionó.]

"He [Derbez] pointed out that, in contrast to the United States, Mexico does have regular Army troops on the border. ‘ These are real soldiers’ he said, although he added that this can’t be interpreted as militarization of the border either."

[Señaló que, a diferencia de Estados Unidos, México sí tiene tropas del Ejército regular en la frontera. "Esos sí que son soldados", expresó, aunque añadió que tampoco debe ser interpretado como militarización]. [ Envío de soldados no es militarizar: Bush y Derbez, By Jose Carreño y Carlos Benavides, May 17th, 2006]

Even the U.S. "Homeland Security" department has admitted repeated incursions by the Mexican Army (or a facsimile thereof) onto U.S. soil.

How could it get onto U.S. soil if they weren’t on the border to begin with?

The reality is that the Mexican Army is used extensively throughout Mexico to carry out police functions. Like checkpoints. I’ve been stopped at Mexican Army checkpoints in various parts of Mexico. It’s standard operating procedure.

In fact, on one of my main routes to the U.S. border, there is a permanent Mexican Army checkpoint. I’ve been through it numerous times. The bus routinely stops there, the passengers are removed and luggage examined. There’s nothing unusual about it.

Mexican territory is divided into 12 military regions, and subdivided into 44 military zones. This arrangement includes 11 military garrisons on the northern Mexican border. The 11 garrisons are located at Tecate, San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonoyta, Agua Prieta, Ciudad Juarez, Ojinaga, Palomas, Ciudad Acuña, Piedras Negras, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.

The Mexican Secretariat Of National Defense website has a list of "Commandancias Territoriales". This section includes all the military regions, zones and garrisons under "Regiones Militares", "Zonas Militares" and "Guarniciones Militares". [Map])

That’s the northern border. Way over in the state of Chiapas which borders Guatemala, the Mexican army is used to apprehend illegal immigrants.

There is even a joint task force called BOM (Base de Operaciones Mixtas, in which the Army and the local police cooperate to detain illegal aliens.

Hmm, that’s an idea! Thanks, Mexico! [Detienen en Chiapas a 205 indocumentados]

But if we put the U.S. Army on the border, wouldn’t some ugly international incident ensue?

There already are “ugly international incidents” on the border. Life on the U.S. border is already an ongoing, day-by-day, chaos.

Read it all, and be sure to access the internal links. Then forward this article to your Congressional representatives and your local newspapers.

In case you think that the Mexican military is a force of weenies, a "toothless tiger." Perhaps they are corrupt, but they're a well-armed force that deals ruthlessly with their opponents. Here they are "suppressing" drug gangs at the border.

If they are at the border all the time, why don't they stem the flow of illegal immigrants rather than assist them in the crossing to El Norte? It appears that, they too, like to come here.