Viewpoint: The Nation Next Door Window Shopping For A Catastrophe

Editor’s Note: Views expressed here are not necessarily those of the station or its management

By Jerome Tilghman / Guest Viewpoint Writer

Window Shopping for a Catastrophe?

While the National Command Authority contemplates establishing a ?no fly zone? over Libya in support of its insurgents, it is clear to this former war-planner that ? like the Bush II administration ? too many in authority are too quick to commit troops to foreign shores to risk death or dismemberment for the sake of American foreign policy. These policies are too numerous and too complex for the American public [who pay for them] to take time to research and understand. Few, if any, soldiers have the chance or choice to challenge these policies ? policies they are ordered to turn into ?reality.?

For as long as I live, I will struggle with accepting politicians who want to lead a country for which they themselves would never fight. Quick to send our sons and daughters, few politicos will ever send their own.

Well, here we go again. With approximately 50,000 soldiers still in Iraq, close to a quarter of a million in Afghanistan and no clear definition of ?success? or exit strategy we are window shopping for a new mission. Amidst unprecedented multiple deployments, soldiers? divorce rates, an epidemic of PTSD, suicides and the like all whittling away military readiness, are we now looking for our next intervention? With ?no money in the account,? a Congress using continuing resolutions as a means of fiscal life support for the federal government, state governments teetering on bankruptcy, are our legislative and executive branches now shopping for a new catastrophe with a maxed out national credit card?

Within my career span, I have seen and been deployed to places where the intent was an ?ankle-deep? military commitment. Before one can say ?mission creep? (If you don?t know what that means, ask a soldier.), we are knee deep, then neck deep in debt and death over a cause that ? in determining the end game ? few can either define or describe.

Japan notwithstanding, we are about to sail a naval force across an ocean to fight in a place where we have no real invitation and where neighboring countries ? without our help?have successfully revolted in redress against existing governments. [By the way, they did this with no help from our ?intelligence community?]. Our rationale falls under the guise of preserving human rights and arresting human atrocities. Here is the rub.

While we will sail a fleet across the Mediterranean Sea, we will not put one [military] foot across a river to help a country in much greater humanitarian peril. Mexico, like Libya, is out of control. In 2010, there are over 3000 confirmed deaths in Juarez alone. Daily, families and futures are at risk on both sides of the Rio Grande. Like the Mexican Revolution of 100 years ago, atop buildings and railroad cars, El Paso/America seems content to ?watch.?

In the nation-next-door, thirty-five thousand people have been killed so cartels can control market access to the global community?s biggest junkie ? the United States. What do we do? While El Paso families risk death to visit their loved ones in Juarez and throughout Mexico, dignitaries visit and make speeches. Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, Customs & Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin and our own Congressman Silvestre Reyes tell us ?we have never been safer? on the border and that ?the problem won?t cross the pond.? Members of our own city council suggests ?making the illegal substances legal? to mitigate the misery, murder and mayhem.

One month later an Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent is killed by a bullet from a gun ?made in America.? Wasn?t he from El Paso? Drug busts and weapons confiscations abound right here in our neighborhoods and well north of the Segundo barrios. Ask Jim Valenti with the University Medical Center what the drug war costs them/us. Has the problem ?crossed the pond??

We, the American people, represent roughly five percent of the global population yet consume 25 percent of the world?s resources. Coke, crack, heroin, meth, marijuana as well as a host of legal drugs are certainly tied to these percentages. Central American corridors are proven lucrative transportation arteries that drug cartels will continue to fight and die for in order to insure a continuous flow of illicit drugs into the veins of an insatiable and addicted America. Has the problem ?crossed the pond??

At the state level, incarceration rates are ?budget busters.? With over two million people in jail ?across the fruited plains,? the penal system ranks second to Medicaid? in over burdening costs at the state level. Texas ranks second among the 50 states in the amount of people we lock up. How many are in jail related to drugs? How many criminals are we incubating due to drug trafficking? We never seem to have enough pennies to educate young pupils at age 10 but always seem to find enough pennies to lock them up as prisoners at age 20. Yet, we have the legislative gall to discuss budget cuts in education ? this nation?s future salvation. Has the problem ?crossed the pond??

Being ?over spent? is like being ?over weight.? It does not sneak up on you. Watch your wallet ? watch your weight. Neither should be a surprise. Yet legislators from both political parties have pushed every-day Americans into a pool of red ink ? from poor appropriations management (tax cuts amidst two wars) ? and red blood shed by our fallen soldiers — blood that irrigates Arlington and other cemeteries where tombstones continue to blossom across America. This is blood shed by soldiers whose mission suffers a continuous metamorphosis while our elected leaders shop for a new mission.

Right here in El Paso, we uncovered a storage/stash house full of illegal substances ? with a street value north of a million dollars — destined for our neighborhoods, our neighbors, our nieces and nephews. Down the street from Andress High School ? Northeast El Paso — on Saxon Drive, a dozen or more assault rifles are caught and confiscated. Has the problem ?crossed the pond??

The [potential] profits from such sales will buy ?guns and influence? that will continue to kill more Mexicans and Americans south of the ?the big river.? Crossing over the ?bigger pond,? from the poppy imported from Southwest Asia, we buy the byproducts ? the illegal drugs ? that later bankroll the Taliban and Al Qaeda. I have no doubt that a number of ?IEDs,? the bombs, beans and bullets used against us are purchased with American money. Have we not become our own worst enemy? Addicts do tend to have and use ?clouded judgment to rationalize their behavior.? That might help to explain our ?window shopping? for a catastrophe a hemisphere away when we have a big enough catastrophe ? costing us billions in ?bucks and body count? right here in ?the nation next door.?

This was article No. 3 in the series of writings about The Nation Next Door. The previous writings are titled Enough is Enough and Border Conference.