Submitted by: John Butler
Southern Invasion: Time to Militarize the U.S.-Mexican Border?
Solutions are available--if DC has the Will
The southern border is open and the political hacks in DC want it that way. Maybe it’s time to militarize the southern border and take the guesswork out of it? RidesAPaleHorse has a few suggestions concerning the details.
I guess I’ll start out by stating the usual caveat that I don’t have anything against immigration. LEGAL immigration. What I have a problem with is ILLEGAL invasion. Now, I know that there are some that will read this and still not get the point so I’ll just accept the barbs and personal attacks, “racist”, “bigot” etc. etc. yaddayaddayadda………….. and forge ahead.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the security of our borders, especially our border to the South. We have, literally hundreds of thousands of people coming across our Southern border illegally with no end in sight. High tech fences or low tech don’t seem to have much of an effect on the flow. We have murders of our own citizens on their own property, murders of American citizens in Mexico and to make matters worse, we even have Mexican surveillance “outposts” right here on American soil, watching and targeting American law enforcement officers: While Obama Readies Arizona Suit, Another War Brews on the Border.
Not to mention the millions of dollars it costs the American taxpayer to feed, clothe, educate and support the interlopers.
We have a border that is 1200 miles long and so porous that it acts more as a strainer than an obstacle. When one entry point is discovered, the illegals just move to another point not as well guarded and the game continues. So the answer is plugging the holes.
It is long past time to accept the fact that we are under an invasion by foreign countries and not just Mexico. There are the “OTMs” or “Other Than Mexicans”, Guatemalans,Costa Ricans, Hondurans, El Salvadorans and other South and Central Americans coming across. And even more of a threat, many Middle Eastern terrorists whose stated goal is to kill Americans, setting up cells here, just waiting for the right time to strike. Time to treat this situation as a war, which is, in reality, exactly what it is. Considering the fact that the Border Patrol is woefully understaffed and under equipped to do the job efficiently, might it be time to consider a military solution?
We have the resources. Surveillance aircraft, technology and manpower in the form of Army and Air Force Reserve units and the National Guard can and should be used to stop this invasion.
Now, I’m not advocating the wholesale killing of people trying to enter illegally, I’m suggesting a deterrent instead. A very deadly deterrent to be sure if it’s needed for that purpose but primarily a deterrent through the use of overwhelming firepower targeting holes and routes and not people.
THIS is an A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft affectionately known as the “Warthog”. Its primary mission is that of a tank destroyer but secondarily it is used for close air support for troops on the ground. It can be armed with missiles in addition to the ability to deliver a wide array of gravity and precision guided explosive ordnance (bombs) including Napalm, fragmentation and cluster munitions. Its main gun is the General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger, a 30 mm, hydraulically-driven seven-barrel Gatling-type rotary cannon with a cyclic rate of fire of 4200 rounds/min. (max) or 70 rounds per SECOND of incendiary, explosive or depleted uranium core armor piercing ammunition.
Air patrols by A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft at irregular intervals would go a long way to solving the problem. If you don’t know exactly when they will be flying overhead, would you be willing to take the chance that you might get caught in the sights of one of them? It wouldn’t even be necessary to kill anyone. A few bursts by the Avenger 30mm cannon (just the sound of this weapon alone would make you think twice about advancing) in the path of those trying to sneak across the border would, without doubt convince them that to venture further would be, at best, foolish, at worst, devastatingly fatal. Drawing a line in the sand so to speak. If it were used to clean out the surveillance outposts on our soil as I suggested in the linked article above and video was taken and broadcast on the web and in the media (which, I’m sure would NEVER broadcast such “brutality”, never mind….), I’m absolutely sure that many would consider the alternatives to sneaking across our border, such as…….staying home.
Of course, the A-10 isn’t a panacea to the illegal incursion across our border. Once it makes a pass, the illegals would still have time to continue on their trek, however, it can, at that point, linger overhead to keep them at bay until agents or troops can arrive at the scene and escort them right back from whence they came.
Considering the amount of money we have spent trying to seal the border, this seems to me to be a much less expensive alternative. Let’s do some math. The border is roughly 1200 miles long. Some of it is secure, some not. By concentrating on the obvious holes, the border CAN be secured. The A-10 is a relatively slow aircraft, with a maximum speed of under 400 MPH but that still translates into the ability to cover the entire border in roughly 4 hours of flight time. However, it’s not necessary to fly the entire border on every sortie, just identify and patrol the weak spots until they can be secured. Surveillance of the entire border can be accomplished with another type of aircraft, the UAV or unmanned aerial vehicle. Specifically, the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator/Reaper surveillance and attack aircraft.
UAVs have proven quite successful in the war in Afghanistan in addition to service in Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, and Yemen, identifying targets and eliminating them from altitudes impossible to be seen from the ground with the naked eye. Once again, it would not be necessary to take innocent lives but instead, identifying potential illegal border crossings and relaying that information to the A-10 commanders and dispatching the aircraft to the site of that activity would go a long way to convincing potential invaders to return home.
Now, let us turn to the problem of drug smuggling across our Southern border. I will state once again that the intention of this writer is NOT to advocate the taking of innocent life, but to secure the border from the illegal incursion with the appearance of a deadly threat and these two aircraft could be used quite effectively against that incursion without unnecessarily taking lives.
I have NO such qualm or reservation however, regarding the use of the firepower available in these two aircraft against drug runners. Once identified, A-10s could be dispatched and in one pass, the Avenger cannon blazing, the drug smugglers perishing in a red mist and their illicit cargo destroyed. Should A-10s be busy elsewhere or for some reason not available, the Predator, which can be armed with Hellfire missiles and other precision guided munitions can do the job. The miscreants, never even knowing where the flash came from, are again, reduced to ambient temperature and their cargo converted to dust spread out over the desert floor or, ALL vaporized in a 5,400 degree firestorm. Once again, doing this on a regular basis and posting the videos on the internet would, in short order, stanch the flow of illegal substances across the border.
Of course, all of this requires a government and leaders that understand and are fully, seriously committed to their responsibility to protect its citizens and adhere to the concept laid down in the Constitution, to “……..protect each of them (states) against Invasion”. (Article IV Sec. 4),
Unfortunately, I do not see that happening in either the near or distant future.
May God have mercy on the United States of America for not protecting His gift to us through the Founding Fathers, of freedom and liberty.
by RidesAPaleHorse
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