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Immigration Caravans and Border Issues


Howl

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24 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

Or that some really convoluted conspiracy theory involving a global network of super rich anti-Americans who have some nebulous plan to destroy america by... bringing in a relative handful of poor children and their parents?

/s/ You forgot to include Area 51.

For an interesting take with lots of pushback, check out this commentary and advice from a retired Army officer:

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Even (especially?) if you do everything right, morally corrupt leaders will do all they can to cover their tracks with your bones.

Intimidation is the preferred method for deterring pesky questions, and selective memory loss is the go-to technique when the scandal finally breaks. You may face the untenable choice of ending your career as a captain for asking hard questions or ending your career in Leavenworth for failing to do so.  There is no easy way out of this dilemma, but you would do well to take the long view.

Perhaps you are part of a faith tradition in which you know that one day you and you alone will have to account for your choices. You are certainly part of a human family and a civic community that reject “just following orders” as a defense for criminal behavior. Maybe one day you will have grandchildren. If so, spare them the indignity of laying a coward’s bones in your grave.

 

 

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8 hours ago, Howl said:

This is political maneuvering days before the mid terms, as is the entire birthright "controversy."  It's raw meat to the slavering base. 

 

Also known as boob bait for bubba.

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7 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

For an interesting take with lots of pushback, check out this commentary and advice from a retired Army officer

@hoipolloi, thank you for posting this.  I came across it yesterday and didn't quite know what to think.  Just googling around military-ish stuff related to this border deployment has been fascinating.  I've found Defense One, Military Times, Task and Purpose. 

WhiteHouseWatch.com, originally part of WaPo, has been revived as an independent site and I've bookmarked it as a daily visit.  Dan Froomkin blogs daily about all things White House.  But, back to the focus of this thread, here's a link to one of his posts: Trump willingness to use the military for crassly political purposes sets off alarms

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On 11/2/2018 at 12:31 AM, hoipolloi said:

For an interesting take with lots of pushback, check out this commentary and advice from a retired Army officer

A grounded, practical and less cynical response to the link posted by @hoipolloi  

What US Troops On The Border Really Need To Know: A Response To Paul Yingling

As one of the commenters noted about the original article by Paul Yingling, it comes very close to promoting mutiny. 

Something else I've been thinking about as people are piling on SecDef  James Mattis for not growing a spine and pushing back hard against Trump's orders or resigning.  This was Mattis' specific response when he was queried if the troop deployment was a political stunt:  "Yeah, the support that we provide to the Secretary for Homeland Security is practical support based on the request from the Commissioner of Customs & Border Police."   Customs and Border Police are an element of Department of Homeland Security. 

Everybody's favorite Dept. of Homeland of Security Secretary is Kirstjen Nielsen, whose marching orders likely ultimately originated with Stephen Miller/Bolton.  Other than *irony alert* getting harassed by protesters while eating at a Mexican restaurant, she's skated on this, as she skated on the border separation policy.  So, nobody is piling on Sec. Nielson and they should be, because, IMHO, she is equally complicit or totally responsible for implementing the worst of the worst of the worst of border policy, especially troop deployment. 

And it says something about the WH that Kelly and Bolton got into a screaming match over Bolton shitting on Nielson for not implementing WH immigration policy with sufficient alacrity and, presumably, sufficient, enthusiasm. 

My sense is that the troop deployment will become a non-issue in Trump's mind (it will have served its purely political purpose) by midnight Tuesday, Nov. 6 and at that point, Trump will cease to give a shit or forget about the troops entirely. 

 

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And another thing.  The Valley (McAllen, Brownsville), Laredo, El Paso are all heavily Hispanic and often vote heavily Democrat.  The deployment optics in that area are absolutely horrible.  Nobody is impressed by soldiers stringing concertina wire.  In addition, much farm land along the Rio Grand in the Valley has been sliced and diced by elements of the Wall, people are being cut off from their fields and there is eminent domain going on.  These actions are affecting both Anglos and Latinos in adverse ways in real time.  

The deployment has also brought back still raw feelings from a 1997 incident that happened along the border near Redford, Texas (a tiny remote border community in the Big Bend area) where an 18-year old boy out herding the family goats was murdered by a Marine sniper deployed to indict drug smugglers.  The sniper had zero remorse about killing a young boy and was never charged with anything. It's obvious the Marine's involved lied about what happened and tried to cover up.  This is one incident where the Army finally figured out that it doesn't work to have armed military in civilian areas, but apparently they've forgotten about that lesson.  

June 29, 1997  After Marine on Patrol Kills a Teen-Ager, a Texas Border Village Wonders Why 

But back to the original point. I'm really hoping that this deployment bullshit accelerates both the Anglo and the Latino Democratic vote. 

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I can't quit thinking about this idiot whose family owns a golf course on the border:

 

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@Howl, I have thought about the people who live there on that part of the border and it terrifies me. With these knuckleheaded militia type, I am terrified for the safety of those who live along the border, even the ones who've been there for multiple generations. I can see them trying to harass, shoot, or call INS on anyone who looks Hispanic, even if their family has had the same land in the same area for generations. 

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4 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

@Howl, I have thought about the people who live there on that part of the border and it terrifies me. With these knuckleheaded militia type, I am terrified for the safety of those who live along the border, even the ones who've been there for multiple generations. I can see them trying to harass, shoot, or call INS on anyone who looks Hispanic, even if their family has had the same land in the same area for generations. 

Yes, I think everyone is on edge in that area.  On a sorta, kinda fun note, and entire convoy on the way to the border stopped at a Whataburger in Alice, TX. 

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And 3, 2, 1 BOOM!  As of today, the day after the election, the deployment will no longer be referred to as Operation Faithful Patriot  and is now just plain old "border support."   No clarification given by the DoD spokesperson, probably because it's so fucking obvious this was a lead-up stunt for the election and the troops were being used as stunt props.  Pretty damned despicable. 

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@Howl- No surprise there! Also saw this mention on twitter that Fox has moved away from caravan coverage as well. I guess they aren't poised to storm the border and take over the country after all.

 

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37 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

Also saw this mention on twitter that Fox has moved away from caravan coverage as well. I guess they aren't poised to storm the border and take over the country after all.

Call me cynical....

Caravan? what caravan?  It's a parade, one of those fiestas or something....Lots of families, tons of kids.  Those people from down there, they love to walk! 

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10 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

Here, my caravan conspiracy theory was that it was funded by the Koch brothers, Trump, Republican dark money, or the Russians...

So the entire thing was crisis actors?  I guess they're all on the way home in air conditioned buses.  

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Well, to respond to my own post, not exactly.  

There are photos of the troop deployment conditions -- it's just wall tents set up in the weeds with cots inside.  No electricity, no heat, no AC.  A cold front rolled through Texas over the last few days, and McAllen, TX, near where many of the troops are deployed, is 48 degrees right now with a low of 37 forecast for tonight, with a 20-mph gusting wind from the north.  This being Texas, when they first arrived, people were sitting in vehicles to get a little blast of AC.  It will gradually warm up over the next three or four days, but damn that has to be miserable.  Cold fronts roll though every week or two this time of year, and it gets cold and damn miserable.  And Trump wouldn't go out in a light rain to Arlington Nat'l Cemetery yesterday, which is minutes from the WH. 

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And another thing in the unforeseen consequences category.  When you move thousands of soldiers out of an area at once (basically the population of a small town), all of the small businesses involved in the local economy where they live (on base or off) takes a massive nose dive. 

The original deployment was supposed to be only until early or mid December; hoping that is the case.  Mattis is due to visit the troops at the border in Texas today.

In addition, the main caravan has appeared to be turned toward the California border, and away from McAllen, TX, even though McAllen is 500 miles closer. 

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And while a large concentration of troops are at McAllen, at least two groups, numbering in the hundreds, have arrived in Tijuana, including a group of about 80 LBGT people who decided to break away from the larger caravan because of harassment.  They face waits of weeks to over a month to be processed at the US border. 

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'A dangerous precedent': Texans outraged at prospect of tent cities for migrants

The Guardian seems to do a much better job of reporting these kinds of things.  No confirmation yet, but it's possible that immense* Fort Bliss in El Paso could become the site of tent cities a detention camp to house imprison asylum seekers.  I really, really, hope this does not come to pass. 

*Fort Bliss (army base) is 1.1 million acres.  It's a big place. 

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The midterms are over, so, of course...  Troops at U.S.-Mexican border to start coming home ... right at the time the migrants are starting to arrive at the border.

 

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The 5,800 troops who were rushed to the southwest border amid President Donald Trump’s pre-election warnings about a refugee caravan will start coming home as early as this week — just as some of those migrants are beginning to arrive.

Democrats and Republicans have criticized the deployment as a ploy by the president to use active-duty military forces as a prop to try to stem Republican losses in this month’s midterm elections.

The general overseeing the deployment told POLITICO on Monday that the first troops will start heading home in the coming days as some are already unneeded, having completed the missions for which they were sent. The returning service members include engineering and logistics units whose jobs included placing concertina wire and other barriers to limit access to ports of entry at the U.S.-Mexico border.

All the troops should be home by Christmas, as originally expected, Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said in an interview Monday.

"Our end date right now is 15 December, and I've got no indications from anybody that we'll go beyond that," said Buchanan, who leads the land forces of U.S. Northern Command.

The decision to begin pulling back comes just weeks after Trump ordered the highly unusual deployment.

In previous cases in which the military deployed to beef up security at the border, the forces consisted of part-time National Guard troops under the command of state governors who backed up U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other law enforcement agencies.

But the newly deployed troops, most of them unarmed and from support units, come from the active-duty military, a concession the Pentagon made after Trump insisted that the deployment include "not just the National Guard."

Buchanan confirmed previous reports that the military had rejected a request from the Department of Homeland Security for an armed force to back up Border Patrol agents in the event of a violent confrontation.

"That is a law enforcement task, and the secretary of Defense does not have the authority to approve that inside the homeland," Buchanan said.

The closure earlier Monday of one entry point along the California border near Tijuana, Mexico, was only partial and did not require more drastic measures, Buchanan said.

"About half of the lanes were closed this morning, but that’s it," he reported. "No complete closures."

Other ports might be closed fully in the future, he said, but he did not anticipate any need to take more drastic measures.

"If CBP have reliable information that one of their ports is about to get rushed with a mob, or something like that that could put their agents at risk, they could ask us to completely close the port," Buchanan said. "You understand the importance of commerce at these ports. Nobody in CBP wants to close a port unless they’re actually driven to do so."

The troop deployment should start trailing off as engineer and other logistics troops wind down their mission of building base camps and fortifying ports of entry for the Border Patrol.

Army and Marine engineers have now emplaced about 75 percent of the obstacles they planned to, including concertina wire, shipping containers, and concrete barriers at ports of entry. “Once we get the rest of the obstacles built, we don’t need to keep all those engineers here. As soon as I’m done with a capability, what I intend to do is redeploy it,” Buchanan said. “I don’t want to keep these guys on just to keep them on.”

Logistics troops, too, will be among the first to head home. “I will probably ask to start redeploying some of our logistic capability,” Buchanan predicted. “Now that things are set down here, we don’t need as many troops to actually build base camps and things like that, because the base camps are built."

Among the troops who will remain after construction engineers and logisticians start departing are helicopter pilots, planners, medical personnel, and smaller “quick response” teams of engineers who can help Border Patrol personnel shut down traffic at their ports of entry.

In contrast to the speed of the deployment in early November and the fanfare surrounding it, the withdrawal promises to be slower and quieter — but Buchanan expects it to be done before Christmas.

“That doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” he added. “But right now, this is a temporary mission, and we’re tasked to do it until the 15th of December.”

I hope somebody does the tally of what it actually cost in taxpayer money to send the troops in only to place some concertina wire, shipping containers and concrete barriers.

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Yup, more crazy.  I suspect the genesis of this entire shit show was a Stephen Miller wet dream made manifest, when *someone* whispered sweet nothings in Trump's ear,  Kirstjen Nielsen (Homeland) made the request to DoD, then Mattis was legally obligated to put the deployment in motion.  That noxious turd Bolton was probably involved somewhere. 

IIRC, there was an initial request through Dept. of Homeland Security that would have involved more of a law enforcement role, and that was shot down by DoD immediately by lawyers, ethics people and anyone with a functioning brain cell. 

I've been paying attention to various articles and op-eds and the subsequent comments on both civilian and military oriented web sites about the deployment and Mattis.  There were op-eds that called on Mattis to resign in protest, saying basically that he's been hopelessly compromised by Trump,  via the Everything Trump Touches Dies paradigm. 

Although they should, nobody is calling on Kirstjen "Baby Cage" Nielsen to resign over this, and she should be raked over the coals because this is a Homeland Security deal; they made the request and it's in the border patrol/ICE wheelhouse.  However, it's obvious she's already dead meat to the WH (Bolton) with speculation that she's out any day now; the vultures are circling. 

Comments are about 50-50 on several of the articles and op-eds, with half the commenters saying Mattis should resign in shame for caving to Trump, and the other half saying that he needs to stay as SecDef no matter what, because 'only adult in the room' keeping Trump from starting a war somewhere leading to global chaos and incineration of the damn planet. 

Other op-eds state that civilian morale at DoD is in the dumps because the military point of view is ascendant (generals everywhere!) and the important institutional knowledge of the civilian employees is ignored.  In turn, those senior civilian people are leaving, further complicating the situation. 

One thing Mattis did on election day or the day after was to ditch the Operation Faithful Patriot moniker, with no military terms used to describe what was happening, and instead insisted that it be described it in the simplest terms possible: laying wire and putting in barriers. I though this was rather brilliant because it laid bare what Trump forced them to do: needlessly deploy thousands of soldiers to perform a simple task -- basically exposing the emperor Trump as having no clothes. 

Repubs have realized it's turning into a PR disaster which would be much worse were the attention of the US not focused on the fires in California so need to get those troops home for the holidays STAT! 

Who knows if John Kelly will stay or go; speculation has been rampant for 6 months or so and he's still there. 

Anyway, I'm in the "hope Mattis stays" camp because there is so much chaos currently, and Trump is so utterly fucking unstable....best not to change that particular position at this moment and see what happens when the Dems take over the House. 

 

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