To hear Michael Moore tell it, no member of Congress would be caught dead letting a child of his or hers go to Iraq. Some have, though — to their credit and their nation’s benefit. Those whose kids have been deployed to Iraq reportedly include Sens. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Tim Johnson, D-S.D., and Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; Todd Akin, R-Mo.; and Joe Wilson, R-S.C. And the son of Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., just shipped out with a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. True, that’s not very many troops, given the size of Congress. But any and all Americans willing to serve their country are worthy of unreserved praise.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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43 Comments
” But any and all Americans willing to serve their country are worthy of unreserved praise.”
Wrong.
Serving America is not going to Iraq and killing people, and creating enemies. Going to Iraq does not serve any “American” porpose.
Exposing the truth behind the lies which sent us there does serve America.
And that is not being done.
Eddie, serve your country. Burn your keyboard.
Jimmy, Go back where you came from. We don’t want your kind.
Ahhh..how soon we forget. This country has a history of sending troops to other countries that have not attacked us. Other than the obvious ones, like North Korea, Vietnam and Germany, recall the 25 times prior to the Spanish American ‘war’ that US troops were sent to foreign countries that did not attack us.
Democratic and Republican presidents have sent troops to protect “American interest” for well over 100 years. This is nothing new in this country’s history.
And, uninformed people in small towns will continue to second guess, criticize, and complain. *sigh*.
I second the motion that Ed serve the country by burning his keyboard.
Because that’s the way it’s always been doesn’t make it right, Ray. It’s time we do a ideological shift in this country, from our aggressive military actions to our dependancy on fossil fuels. Our survival depends on it. Just because it’s never been done, doesn’t mean it can’t be.
Jimmy and Ray baby, My keyboard is on fire, that’s what smoked you Zionists pigs out in the open. Man, are you ever feeling the heat, sweat baby, sweat. I love it.
Shut up, Ed.
Right, Ray. And look at how those previous “adventures” have turned out.
I wouldn’t cite Vietnam as a precedent for Iraq if you are trying to support the war effort.
But there again, it looks as though Team Bush has already failed to keep Americans on-board in this latest war without end . . .
Shut up, Galahad
Ray, we went to war with Germany because THEY-DECLARED-WAR-ON-US. I typed that real slow so you’d get it. We went to war in Korea because we had a mutual defense treaty. It says an attack on South Korea will be considered an attack on the US. (same with Vietnam
We never fought a war in Vietnam.
Who cares what happened before the Spanish/American war?
We went to war in Iraq because Ariel Sharon told his “boy” Bush to do that.
As repoted in the NYT, Bush told a Jewish Group that he will not leave Iraq because the “terrorists” are glad that the Hurricanes are causing so much damage. Being “glad” about it is the same thing as doing it. Read it yourself, your “boy” Bush is nuts.
Wow, good come-back, Puny (as Anon).
You should consider work as a stand-up comic. Or maybe a lie-down comic. You got the “lie” part down already.
Or maybe just consider work . . .
I don’t need to bad-mouth Bush, Just repeat whatever he says.
I don’t need to bad-mouth Bush, just repeat whatever he says.
I don’t think at the time Micheal Moore’s last movie came out that there were any congressperson’s kids in Iraq. Considering how big congress is, the number of them with kids in Iraq is still very small. Generally, the ones who wage war are not the same ones who fight and make the sacrifices.
Lots of posts…first things first, we never fought a war in Vietnam? When I was there in 71, it sure seemed like a war to me. Ok, it was never formally declared as such, but semantics do not change the fact. Unless I am remembering something wrong..
Not trying to justify anything, or excuse anything..just pointing out that current war behavior is nothing new..for Republican OR Democratic presidents. The US has been a beligerant nation for most of its history. That is not an indictment from me, btw. Not saying I always agree with it, but that is our history. Some countries, like Switzerland, don’t fight…the US does. Not saying it is right/wrong or anywhere in between..just trying to bring a little perspective into current events.
I know that Germany declared war on us. So did Osama Bin Laden..remember his declaration before the attacks? I also know that strictly speaking, this country has a history of attacking to protect its interests. I am not defending or attacking that history, it is simple history. For example, in 1896, the US Marines were sent to level San Juan del Norte (Greytown) in Nicaragua due to someone insulting the US Ambassador.
History is clear….yes, Damoon, we can change. Isolationism is no longer possible, tho..not in today’s global economy. Dependence on fossil fuels will decrease when it is no longer economically feasible to use them. $5 a gallon and more will make people get serious about drilling for more, dumping gas hogs, using public transport, etc.
All in all, some interesting comments here today. Then, of course, there are some moronic ones that do not even deserve a response…got that, ed?
A voice of reason from the right-of-center crowd. Well done, Ray.
Actually raised the level of discourse around here . . .
Ray, my comment about Vietnam not being a war was tongue-in-cheek. I’m allowed to do that….sounds like you and I were in the same nasty fix in 71. Sure looked like a war where I was at. I just never understood how we could call a war a “conflict”.
Hey…thanks, Galahad!
You’re really right, Ray, about the price of gas. We won’t change our lifestyle until we start paying what other countries have been paying for years. I was sick on a recent trip to the Smoky Mountains, all the pollution from the burning of fossil fuels in the big cities up East floats down and gets caught up in the mountains. It’s killing the trees and the air quality and visability is very poor.Thanks for the good discussion, it’s so refreshing when someone can talk about the issues without resorting to name calling and putdowns!
I coldn’t figure who ya’ll were telling to shut up. So I turned off my BS filter and there he was. Old Fried Man again.
After we were attacked by Japan, the first thing Roosevelt did was invade Morocco and Algeria. Was that right? I don’t know.
Seems like an awful lot of people got killed (some 10 million, if I recall correctly, including 400,000 American dead) over the two little countries of Japan and Germany. How did that happen? Even after reading the histories, I still wonder.
It was LBJ’s Vietnam draft and horrible war strategy that made me realize that war is a game with a stacked deck and a crooked dealer.
The more educated people become, the more that nations of the world eliminate corruption and develop a middle class, the less likely war will be. Of course, I have to wonder how the world’s resources will support all of its people living well, but those are the problems to be solved.
Now that we all agree that the U.S. is a belligerent nation with a history of “naked aggression”, maybe we could discuss the Native American’s plight in the last 200 years. Entire cultures were wiped out, and those that weren’t have never recovered from being made a part of our country. Their “towns” are poorer than any in the country.Aw, nevermind, the people on gov’t reservations just don’t make for good conversation.
Lets see…this blog was about how Michael Moore thinks that nobody in congress would be caught dead letting one of their kids go to Iraq.First off, let me give my opinion of Michael Moore: A fat Nazi piece of rectal refuse that lives in splendor, and bashes rich people, who is too fat to serve his country in any capacity, believes in nothing but the almighty dollar, while foisting off his stilted brand of snake oil medicine on unsuspecting morons. Ask me sometime and I’ll tell you what I really think of the guy.Second: Whether members of congress support their sons and daughters service to the country, and/or their service in Iraq (note to libs: I separated the two.) is basically immaterial. Ask the sons and daughters, it’s their opinion that is worth listening to. Since when does any congressperson have anything worthwhile to listen to? About anything?Third(ly). The war in Iraq will someday be known for what it really is: A waste of American lives. Until then, I will support those same troops until they are all brought home, irregardless of my feelings about the war itself.How’s that, Ed?
Michael Moore is a hero.
As to the point of this blog, I’m taking my cues from the chickenhawks in charge. Now we all know of the military service or lack thereof of everyone from bush to cheney to rush to hannity.
To whit;? Aint my fight! I got more important things to do! Now that don’t matter too much cause I’m 40 now and too old to go or even get drafted. But my son is 11. And you can bet he aint gonna be signing up.
“Michael Moore is a h#^$”.
Hmm, my keyboard just locked up. Wouldn’t even type a lie like that.
Martin Luther King was a hero. Abraham Lincoln was a hero. Edmund Burke was a hero. Mother Theresa was a hero. Father Emil Kapaun was a hero.
Michael Mooreon is a fabricator of cheap crockumentaries for pre-adolescent minds.
Some time back, Mr. JR claimed to have been a soldier in Vietnam.
Now he claims to be 40 years old. Let’s see: 2005 – 40 = 1965. So when the Vietnam war ended in 1973, JR was 8 years old — quite a boy soldier there.
I hear he fought alongside Kerry in Cambodia.
Of course, JR will claim it was a “Typo”. He meant 50 or 60, maybe even 70, whatever. Sheesh.
Walker,
You win the “blow-hard award.”
If you like Bush, then you like Bush. You don’t need to make a fool out of youself to prove it, or, come to think of it, maybe you do.
Though I do have the occasional impersonator in these blogs, I have not ever claimed to be a Vietnam veteran.There are more than a few liberal and I even supect conservative posters who can confirm this. “Dooda” or whoever that poster is named today is correct in one thing. I was born in 1965.
I called Mike Moore a hero. This is why. He asks questions that earn him the full hate of about half of the American people. He questions a war that for too few people of both political persuasions gave a pass on. He wrote a book containing letters from soldiers who are over there and who question the mission. He also asks and righfully so why it is that those who make the wars so often send others to fight them.
My book that takes a lot more guts then putting a yellow “I support the troops” ribbon on the back endof your car. The troops lose their right to question the “supreme commander” the minute they put on the uniform. They serve for us. They deserve no less than our continued questions as to the mission we have sent them on; among which is rightfully included, “if this war is so damned important, why is not the whole burden shared?”
JR,OK, I may have confused you with Jay Rimel.
By your criteria, Ann Coulter is a hero, too! Half the country hates her. She questions the motives of limousine liberals like Moore who purposely misrepresent the truth to promote an agenda that helps our enemies as much as it demagogues the administration. She has written many good books, and has explained how a volunteer army makes more sense than one drafted proportionally from every possible identity group.
After all, if children of congressmen should be proportionally represented, then the same goes for firemen, taxi drivers, lobotomists and phlebotomists, tatoo artists, bloggers, whores, ships captains, Zamboni drivers, journalists, professors, rich men, poor men, beggermen, thieves, etc., etc., etc. Let’s have a strict accounting, too, down to the third decimal place for every income level in $10 increments, and by race, color, political party, union affiliation, and creed. Lets require proportional representation for every height and weight, and for men, women, straight, not straight, bi, uncertain, transmodified, half modified, spayed, and neutered. Then there’s red heads, brunettes, blondes, long hair, short hair, bald, etc., etc., etc.
Yes, yes, let’s be fair, by golly. We can do it.
Or we can scrap this useless, Mooreonic, crap about identity politics, class envy, and hate mongering and just let the military volunteers do their thing. They volunteered. They accepted the burden; and it works.
Sharing the whole burden equally sounds so right, but that’s as far as it goes. And if it’s such a sacred principal, why are liberals so dead set against everyone paying the same percent income tax?
And if we’re going to share the military burden equally, then everyone has to be point man on patrol, everyone has to be first through the minefields, everyone must take the worst pounding from the enemy. And we shouldn’t lift a finger until all this can be made to happen.
Or not.
Damn, life isn’t fair. It really isn’t.
So what? Part of growing up is accepting this fact and learning how to deal with it. Liberals refuse to even see it, which explains a lot.
Dooda–you calling out JR because he claimed to be vet.
Hoo, boy, that’s rich coming from you, Puny.
The black Muslim professor Nazi holocaust survivor.
Uh Dooda? I am JAY RIMEL. And not on any post or at any time did I claim, as you claim above, that I pretend to be A Vietnam vet. Oh but waht would you know about truth? Galahad and others have demonstrated your multi-posting.
But ya know what I’m gonna do for ya “dooda” or whoever you really are? I’m gonna wastemy time answering your last attempt at an intelligent post.
I’ll not sort through every point you made to dispute the assertion that the burden is fairly shared…even if the will for war is not. I’m gonna make it real simple.
I favor the return of the draft. Now let me qualify that. I don’t mean a draft like we had in the past. I mean a draft with no exemptions. Rich kid wanting to avoid combat? (Bush) No dice. No national guard escape route. Got a kid? Too bad you go too. Female? Equal rights means equal fight. Over 40? If you can pull a trigger you are in. In college? That school will still be there if you get back. “Better things to do” (Dick Cheney) Do ‘em if you get back. “Physical limitations” (Rush Limbaugh) war needs people with radios too. Religious conscientous objector? Petition God, meanwhile pack your rucksack.
Oh and one more. Doesn’t the “supreme commander” belong at the head of the troops? Should not the children of the supreme commander stand with him?
Now doo doo, I never served. I have not lived in a time that I would choose to serve. I see no evidence for and a lot of evidence against encouraging my son to serve. If that meant I would have to depart the country or encourage my son to do so I would do it.
It’s easy to encourage or force others to go die for a cause. Humanity has done it the world over for thousands of years. It gets a little more complicated when everyone and I mean everyone might have their ass on the line.
But you are either with us or against us……..right?
Oh I forgot something.
Bring back the draft as I suggested. Then let’s us debate the merits of this or any war.
JRYes, I think I got you confused with mike(?) Sorry. I was wrong and apologize to you.
A draft might work in theory, but making it “fair” would be impossible. Every special interest group would be crying “unfair”. Of course, you know that, which is why you suggest it.
I’m not going to defend wars. I will allow that good things can happen as a result of a war, but nobody likes the human costs.
Still, it’s a volunteer military, so they have volunteered to take on the burden. No it isn’t shared equally. And it wouldn’t be shared equally even if there were a “no exceptions” draft, either.
Unfortunately, the word “fair” will never apply to real life, no matter how big the nanny state gets. The USSR failed to achieve fairness. Europe’s socialist countries haven’t achieved fairness for all citizens. Neither will we.
JR,An equal opportunity draft is a wonderful ideal, but the problem is that it will never work. Money, whether we like it or not, is power! The rich will always find ways to keep their precious, talented future leaders from serving, and leave that dirty job to the legions of brats of the poor.
Thank you Dooda for admitting that you were mistaken. I don’t say that to rub it in your face. I mean it. It is only through honest communication between the factions that we can make any progress. I accept your apology and thank you for it.
The reason I advocate a draft is to at least try and make this or any war a shared burden and thus a shared and well thought out decision. For this war, unlike any other is to many Americans very suspect.
Yes Dooda, it is an all volunteer force. But that force sent in harms way includes an unprecedented commitment of the national guard. These folks volunteered to serve here at home. History gave them no idea that they would be sent abroad.
As to the active duty military yes they are also volunteers. But the original thread here was about Michael Moore. Mike Moore has suggested nothing more than that we be sure that we send our volunteer defenders to fight and die only for the best of causes and the right reasons. Their commitment demands our best judgement and that MEANS asking questions. If we simply wave a flag, say stay the course, we fail them.
I know Jed that any draft would be fraught with corruption, bush himself is an example of that. I don’t like the draft at all and I mean that. But if it were in place; If every effort was in place to make it a shared burden; I think any president would give pause to military adventure.
Given this particular war, do you think bush would send his daughters? Would you send your sons? Would you go yourself?
Suppose there were an absolutely even-handed lottery to draft people for the military, thereby assuring that the burden is shared as equally as possible. Let’s look at the numbers.
There are about 70 million family households in the USA(single- and two-parent families with children), and there are 535 members of the US House and Senate. I make the assumption that each member of Congress is, or has been, a head of one of those 70 million families. Then Congressmen and Senators comprise, at the absolute most, only a mere .00000764 proportion of the nation’s families with children. By multiplying this proportion by the 150,000 troops in Iraq, we see that the most that would be apportioned to families of the US Legislature is 1.
That’s right — ONE. This means that if a perfectly random lottery were used to conscript soldiers today, then, at most, ONE child of Congress would be in Iraq.
But Rhonda tells us there are six children of Congressmen deployed. So the US Congress is carying at least 6 times its share of the Iraq burden. Rhonda is absolutely wrong to say that six soldiers are “not very many troops, given the size of Congress.”
This is an example of how Michael Moore uses false arguments and suckers others into thinking he has a point. Under the hollow banner of “fairness” he claims that Congress isn’t sharing the burden; but if you just run the numbers, Congress is carrying at least 6 TIMES ITS SHARE OF THE BURDEN.
One other point –I disagree that history gave National Guardsmen no idea that they would be sent abroad. In fact, the Guard was heavily involved in the Gulf War and the Kosovo campaign. Of course, whether the Guard ought to be so heavily involved in such deployments is a policy issue to be debated.
Interesting Dooda and I will check your numbers.
But you miss the point. Yes Moore targeted congress. His point was that congress allowed the war with very little stake in it themselves.
Dooda? We elect the members of congress. They are there because we sent them. They act (supposedly) in the interests of those who elected them. Now if those who elected them also have little personal stake in the war…..because it does not touch them personally….well their elected member of congress is free to vote accordingly.
I’m gonna pick on you Dooda. I’m gonna put you in the place of so many others far more powerful than you that support this war. So I will ask you the questions I would ask them.
If we had a drafted military, I believe we would have gone to Afghanistan. If we had a drafted military, I think we would have gone to Iraq. But Dooda? If we had a drafted military, would we still now have them in Iraq? Further, would Bush still be president?
Yes, putting aside the statistics, I agree with the general assesment that Congress has little personal stake in the war, just like most of the nation has literal personal stake. We are fighting it, in a sense, out of our back pocket and on the cheap, compared to how this nation spends money on other things and on previous wars.
I agree that Congress is supposed to act in the interests of those who elected them, but it should be in a statesmanlike sense, not a populist sense. That means that Congress should do what is right, not what is popular to the unwashed masses. Unfortunately, we get neither. They are led around by the Washington power structure and the most influential lobbyists.
If we had a drafted military, it is likely that we would have had higher troop levels and got the job done in Iraq better and faster because of it. In which case, Bush would be a hero instead of a goat for listening to lousy intelligence and then letting it drag out so long.
However, I don’t think there is the political will to have a draft because there isn’t enough sense of a serious and imminent danger to the nation from terrorists. On the other hand, if Al-Qaeda gets off a few A-bombs in our cities, then the political will to get serious will instantly materialize. I’m afraid it will have to come to that.
I am one of those who think that, just like in World War II, you have to reduce your enemy to blood and rubble in order to eliminate forever its will to keep fighting, especially when it comes to fanatical jihadists. Half measures just allow them to survive to fight another day.
We need to get on with cleaning out Syria and Iran and a few African and Asian countries. Would I fight that war? Unfortunately, I’m too old to do anybody any good on a battlefield; but if we are truly serious, I would be available to contribute wherever I could.
And so Dooda you reveal yourself. You are too old to fight but you are oh so eager for war that sends others to die. Sadly the thoughts that you share in your posts can only make things worse.
There is no threat to this nation that sending troops abroad adresses. Sending Americans over there only makes it easier for those who want to kill Americans to do so. Every time we shoot the revolution and their resolution grows! Oh yeah lets spread the war FURTHER! Come on Dooda! Do you think the whole rest of the world is gonna stand by while we pursue a war of conquest in the oil center of the planet?
I’m sorry Dooda but your whole premise is flawed. Continuing to send troops 7,000 miles away to fight terrorism while all the borders and ports here are wide open is sort of like leaving your house with all the doors and windows open to go across town and look for the home of a burglar.
Look it’s real simple. Let’s stop bringing the war to them and FOCUS on keeping them from bringing the war to us.
Reveal myself? You’re too old to do anybody any good on a battlefield, too.
We have seen the world (UN)stand by on everything. The combined armies and navies of the world pale in comparison to ours. The sovereignty of all the other nations on this planet is currently guaranteed more by our good will than by any other force on earth.
If we attacked Iran and Syria, only the usual pundits, elitists, intellectuals and diplomats would fuss over it. There would be a few statements of disapptoval by third rate socialist countries, and the fever swamp would poop in the streets.
I like your analogy about leaving the home wide open while chasing burglars. Still, there is no way to sew up our borders tight enough to keep terrorists out. We would have to build a solid 12,000 mile wall and stop all international trade and travel. That’s not going to happen.
Terrorists have to be stopped where they train and congregate.
Letting terrorists fester, unopposed, has proved to be the worst thing to do. Attacking their sanctuaries will succeed. Ultimately, lives will be saved the sooner we make terrorism a no-win career path.
The Bush Doctrine is sound. If a country supports terrorists, it should be treated no differently than the terrorists. Our only fault is in not pursuing that doctrine with enough energy.
Naturally, smacking the terrorists will rile them up, and it was expected. But doing nothing concedes all the initiative to them. So, doing nothing — playing defense and no offense — is not a rational option.
Terrorism will continue even if we nuked Israel into a glass lump, shipped all the Jews in America to Iran so the mullahs could enact their version of the final solution, and withdrew entirely from all muslim countries.
We are infidels, you see. Some muslims are death on that – literally. They will kill you if you don’t submit, and maybe even if you do.
Doodah I do give you credit your staying the debate with me but frankly you only descend further into your own delusions.
I’m not too old to go fight. Neither are You I suspect. But in talk of war we must ask ourselves if we would fight. Now Dooda I would not go fight in Iraq for bush. In fact I would not go anywhere to fight for bush. You excuse yourself from combat by your age. Yet the point of this thread was whether we rightly committ our troops to this fight.
WIth that as a beginning, I frankly find opinions like yours scary Dooda. You say the world would grumble a bit if we invaded Syria, and Iran. I think China and India have a little more than the capacity to simply grumble. I do not think they would sit idly by and watch the US occupy the oil center of the world.
Further, you would seem to imply that because we have the capacity for military dominance, we might just as well pursue it. I wonder if you know the fate of the many “empires” in the history of this old world. Oh they do well in the short term. But they tend not to survive.
YOur real point tends to be addressing terrorism. Dooda? If some arab 7,000 miles away wants to kill me, he has to get here to do it. Now I could send my son to go there and kill that arab and probably lots of innocents as well in geting that done and probably piss off and create 10 more angry arabs to take his place. Hell It would make a lot of money for those invested in war. But I aint invested in war.
I want our troops on the border HERE. This is our turf and we probably can defend it a little better than the unknown land of the mid-east. Hell we only got ONE border here to worry about vs. about 5 in Iraq. More? I will go to Arizona. I aint gonna go to Iraq. And I am far from alone.
We don’t need troops in Iraq or Syria, or Iran. We need troops at the airports there keeping the terrorists from coming here. Lots easier and less combat. They can hate America all they like ………over there. They got some reason to. But they will be over there. The arguement that we must fight them over there to keep them from coming here is a lie and I just showed you why.
But Dooda you are smart enough to know that that aint what it is about. Why not say so? Why not say that while you won’t or can’t go fight the war, you are oh so eager to promote that war……..over there.
Again I go back to Mike Moore. “They ask only that we send them when it is absolutely neccessary” Clearly it aint absolutely necessary in this case. It never was. So what is YOUR agenda Dooda?
I prefer Michael Ledeen’s criticism of the administration to Michael Moore’s. Ledeen believes in winning. Moore believes in cowering.
at a time when small countries are acquiring nuclear weapons and missile technology, we are not many years away from the time when neither walls nor troops protecting our borders mean anything. That’s why we can’t be isolationists, nor pretend that we can allow the leaders of the world’s kleptocracies to shrewdly turn the festering discontent in their poverty-stricken populations against us. We either accelerate the world toward democracy or we will ultimately be vanquished by totalitarian forces that we allowed to become too strong.
Europe already is cowed by its growing muslim minority. Peaceful muslims around the world are afraid to speak out and clean out their own houses. But if Iraq becomes one more ally and an example for other muslim countries, the tide may well be turned. Doing nothing but cowering at home is not an option.
Too much good has been done by our presence in Iraq to ignore it; but people ignore it anyway, because some people get hurt when armies attack, and because just one of the initial reasons (WMD) for attacking turned out to be more minor than the world intelligence community expected.
It is unfortunate that the intelligence was lousy, but our Congress voted for the Iraq campaign, too. Anyway, we are there and it hardly matters why we went there any more. And it doesn’t matter to anybody whether you or I would fight there or not.
I have noticed that bin Laden has been made irrelevant, reduced to increasingly sporadic, tired, fourth rate videotapes that repeat Moore’s propaganda.
I have noticed that real change is sweeping across the middle east for the first time in half a century.
But I am sure that if we leave too soon, thugs will quickly fill the vacuum we leave, and bin Laden will have proved himself to be right – that we don’t have the will or stamina to fully prevail over radical Islamofascists.
We could certainly patrol our borders better. The Border Patrol is trying to defend 6000 miles of our Mexican & Canadian borders with one tenth the manpower of the New York City police department.
The USA, including Alaska, has 19,857 miles of border and coastline. See http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us/Geography
Over 1000 border patrol agents (and some innocent civilians) have been killed or wounded in protecting our borders, a number that will surely skyrocket if we get really serious about our borders. People might start wishing for the good old days in Iraq.
You might find this site interesting: http://www.usborderpatrol.com/
So then, let’s send troops to patrol the borders with enough of them to realistically prevent any possible infiltration. Is one every mile enough? No, even the leaky border patrol average is better than that, and their best guess is that a million illegals still get through every year. Every 100 yards? every 50 feet? every 10 feet? No, they probably will have to stand every 6 ft and hold hands to avoid any chance of being infiltrated. That will assure that they stay 100% vigilant and have enough people at every place to handle any attempt by terrorists to rush the border with large numbers.
Let’s see — (20,000 miles of border) times (5280 feet per mile) divided by (6 ft) per soldier = 17,600,000 soldiers. Multiply that by 3 shifts and we need 52.8 Million soldiers at an annual cost of $50,000 each for pay, overhead, and support costs. This comes to $2,640,000,000,000 annually — that’s a $2.64 Trillion annual cost, which is 40% higher than total federal income today. Probably not going to happen, no matter how much these numbers are pared.
Or we could build a wall/fence. (20,000 miles) times (5280 feet per mile) times ($1000 per foot) = $105.6 Billion. Now that would make sense if it could be done that cheaply, but with $200B going to bail out just the New Orleans area alone, a wall around the whole country would surely cost thousands of times more. Also not going to happen – well, maybe we could outsource it and get the Chinese to do a replica of the Great Wall for less. Actually, it might be economically feasible to do something reasonable with walls and fences.
But when the limousine liberals of Martha’s Vineyard complain about how non-polluting windmills proposed for the nearby ocean will ruin their view, I doubt that they will like a wall or fence or a patrol line running through their property. So a fully-effective wall or patrol won’t happen, either. In fact, any attempt to fully patrol the border or fully wall off the outside world will meet greater resistance than the Iraq war.
A fully effective border patrol could also easily end up causing more deaths.
Enough for now. We can continue this discussion after the first terrorist suitcase bomb, if we’re lucky.