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Thread: The US Army on the Mexican Border

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    Council Member sgmgrumpy's Avatar
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    Default The US Army on the Mexican Border

    OP 22: The US Army on the Mexican Border: A Historical Perspective

    Since the mid-19th century, the United States has frequently employed the US Army on its southern border to perform various roles in support of the Nation—from outright war, to patrolling the border, to chasing bandits while securing persons and property on both sides of the border, and most recently to supporting civil law enforcement and antidrug efforts. Events since 9/11, such as the recent deployment of National Guard Soldiers to the Mexican border, are only the latest manifestation of this long tradition. This 22nd Occasional Paper in the Combat Studies Institute (CSI) Long War Series, The US Army on the Mexican Border: A Historical Perspective, by CSI historian Matt M. Matthews, reviews the lengthy history of the US Army on the Mexican border and highlights recurring themes that are relevant to today’s ongoing border security mission.

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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default Another boost for OP 22

    I did a history lesson using this one yesterday. Response was really good and the paper is well worth the read!

    The foreigners who waged war against the Mexican nation have violated all laws and do not deserve consideration,” Santa Anna told his soldiers. “No quarter will be given them. . . . They have audaciously declared a war of extermination to the Mexicans and should be treated in the same manner.”6 True to his word, the Mexican leader marched his army 1,000 miles north in the middle of winter. Santa Anna arrived in San Antonio with part of his army on 23 February 1836 and laid siege to the Alamo, a former Catholic mission. On the morning of 6 March, after a 13-day siege, Santa Anna and approximately 2,500 Mexican soldiers overran the Alamo’s 190 defenders. The Texans, along with American volunteers who survived the fight, were executed after they surrendered. Twenty-one days later, roughly 333 Texans, who had been captured near Goliad on 20 March, were brutally executed on orders from Santa Anna.7

    While he had certainly been successful thus far, Santa Anna’s early victories bred hubris and a total disregard for the fighting qualities of the Texans. As the Mexican commander drove his men farther east into the heart of Texas, the leader of the greatly reduced Texas Army, Major General Samuel P. Houston, continued to retreat. On 21 April 1836, however, Houston stopped running and unleashed his vengeful army on the unsuspecting Mexicans. The greatly outnumbered Texans launched their surprise attack against Santa Anna’s forces near the banks of the San Jacinto River and, within hours, killed 630 Mexican soldiers and forced 730 to surrender. In revenge for the atrocities committed at the Alamo and Goliad, the Texans butchered many of their Mexican prisoners.8

    "...In May 2006, President George W. Bush announced plans to mobilize more than 6,000 Army National Guard Soldiers to assist the Border Patrol in its efforts to secure the US border with Mexico. Now, 177 years after Riley’s mission, concerns over possible terrorist infiltration, increasing criminal drug activity, and an alarming influx of illegal immigrants to the United States by way of Mexico have again called for the deployment of US troops to the border. Despite the apparent need for better policing, the announcement was not met with unanimous approval. As history has shown, deployment of US soldiers to the border is often controversial, and the use of military personnel to support law enforcement is at best contentious."


    It has been a few months since the last history lesson and I wanted to resume with something at once different and relevant. The Long War Series Occasional Paper #22, The US Army on the Mexican Border: A Historical Perspective by Matt M. Matthews at the Combat Studies Institute certainly fits that description. This paper in concise, balanced, but colorful prose examines the role of the US Army in along our southern border. The 177 years of history covered in this study remain as controversial and as interesting now as they were to the participants. If you wish to get a longer historical perspective on those issues, OP 22 is an excellent place to start, especially when someone starts discussing the role of the military in securing our borders.

    I have attached the study in PDF; it can also be downloaded at:


    OP 22 The US Army on the Mexican Border

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    I went down to a few garden spots on the border in 06 during the planning phases.

    Lots of issues - not many real good solutions.
    "Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"

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    Whenever I think of the issues surrounding the Mexican Border, I just can't help thinking about the issues the Romans had on their Rhine and Danube Frontiers. For some reason, there just seems to be a few too many similarities (mass migration, sporadic armed conflict, almost lawless society on one side of the border and low birth rate on the other, etc.) between the two to dismiss the Mexican Border issue as being just a "border" issue.

    This has a lot more potential than Al-Qaeda to seriously harm the U.S. Even here in Canada, Mexican immigration is starting to have political ramifications, which is significant considering the sheer mass of immigration issues that have overtaken the country over the last generation or so.

    You know you have a problem when other countries start catching the same problem too. Could the US Army even mount an effort on the scale of 1916-1917 if it had to?

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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norfolk View Post
    Whenever I think of the issues surrounding the Mexican Border, I just can't help thinking about the issues the Romans had on their Rhine and Danube Frontiers. For some reason, there just seems to be a few too many similarities (mass migration, sporadic armed conflict, almost lawless society on one side of the border and low birth rate on the other, etc.) between the two to dismiss the Mexican Border issue as being just a "border" issue.

    This has a lot more potential than Al-Qaeda to seriously harm the U.S. Even here in Canada, Mexican immigration is starting to have political ramifications, which is significant considering the sheer mass of immigration issues that have overtaken the country over the last generation or so.

    You know you have a problem when other countries start catching the same problem too. Could the US Army even mount an effort on the scale of 1916-1917 if it had to?
    All relevant questions and very much the reasons I decided to issue this one as a history lesson. I am a native Texan and obviously that entails much baggage. But we have to look at this one with as much cold rationality as we can muster. I think Matt Matthews did a great job in capturing the turmoil, culkture clash, and mythology invloved here.

    Best

    Tom

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    Norfolk

    All of those are concerns, add in drug smuggling, people smuggling, etc...

    This problem's solutions lie in the political realm - it will only be acted upon when matters get so bad there is no other option than use the military. The ARNG missions were half-assed to say the least, and that's exactly how the politicos wanted it.
    "Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"

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    Hi Norfolk,This happened before you got here to. We used to have a thread called the Next Small War and I used to to post about how it would be Mexico. Anyway I found this song and dedicated it to SWC member Bill Moore after much discussion on the subject. And now for your listening pleasure and cultural enhancement. Time for Goodbye Texas-Hello Mexico by Johnny Tex and Texicans. PS I haven't found one for Tom yet but I am looking


    http://www.johnnytex.com/

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    slap, you are a gentleman, providing that fine Texas tune for my edification. Even if Johnny Tex swimming the Rio Grande to go live in Old Mexico is a little implausible...especially as I hear that you can walk across the Rio Grande in a lot of areas anyway!

    Tom, Ski, slap, admittedly I come at the whole matter of the American acquisition of the former Mexican territories ("New Mexico", et al.) from a rather different perspective, and one that doesn't approve of it in the first place (here in Canada, we've historically viewed U.S. expanionism with a rather jaundiced eye, for obvious reasons, so please, don't take offence.)

    That said, 150+ years of United States rule obviously matters, and no matter how many illegals come to live in the Southwest (or elsewhere), tens of millions of U.S. citizens living there are an immutable fact. Mexican nationalism, especially led by ideological elements that are mostly US citizens themselves, is going to meet American nationalism, and that ain't just goin' to go away. Politically, this issue had already passed the "possible" to deal-with phase by the 1990's, if not the 1980's. The illegal immigration bill doesn't really change a thing, substantively.

    That leaves the U.S. in a serious strategic predicament that will grow more dire (and I mean to use that very word) in which it utterly lacks the political unity and will to effectively resolve the matter before it seriously destabilizes the Union, and will be left with having to resort to military, paramilitary, and like measures that have even less ability to handle the matter. What would, what could, the US Army do if a potent Mexican separatist movement gained real traction in California? Texas is one thing, but a state that has cities that pass resolutions against Marine Recruiting Stations is quite another.

    The potential for things to get completely out of hand a generation or so down the line, because the political classes can't muster the guts to face the monster that they're afraid to stop tacitly feeding, may make the Recent Unpleasantness between North and South seem positively "clean", or at least civilized, by comparison to what may develop out of this.

    Maybe if the US Army is able to retain the lessons that it has learned in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, it may at least be fairly well-prepared for what may lie in the future along the Mexican border.

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    I don't disagree with anything you've said.

    I felt less secure in a few sectors down there than at any time I was in Afghanistan. The border itself is a joke, with a few strands of barbed wire -if that- and some ancient wooden pickets being the actual "border."

    Nothing will be done because both political parties want Central American illegal immigration to continue - the Pubs want cheap labor, the Dems want votes. No one is willing to look at a clash of cultures or races because that is politically incorrect and no one could ever fight over such abstract concepts in the US.

    Exceedingly shortsighted. We will pay in the end in blood I think.
    "Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"

    The Eaglet from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Nothing will be done because both political parties want Central American illegal immigration to continue - the Pubs want cheap labor, the Dems want votes. No one is willing to look at a clash of cultures or races because that is politically incorrect and no one could ever fight over such abstract concepts in the US.

    Exceedingly shortsighted. We will pay in the end in blood I think.
    I fear you are correct and that truth will come to haunt us...

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    Default Shootout in TJ

    Interesting little fire fight, with the cars and weapons coming from the north side of the border. Probably only a matter of time before this sort of fun and games gets moved up here, particularly if the cartels disguise their horrorshowing business moves as a Liberation Movement.
    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.466c702.html

    TIJUANA, Mexico – Suspected drug traffickers clashed on the streets of this border town across from San Diego early Saturday in a wild and bloody shootout that left 13 people dead in a series of moving gun battles.
    Gunmen began firing on each other with rifles and automatic weapons in a light industrial area east of the city, according to authorities, ultimately leaving a trail of corpses, spent shell casings and bullet-riddled vehicles across Tijuana.
    *
    Mr. Perez, the state police spokesman, said police seized 21 vehicles after Saturday's shootout. Some had U.S. license plates.


    http://www.canada.com/victoriatimesc...2-45e4c4ccacdd
    Fourteen bodies were lying in pools of blood on a road near assembly-for-export maquil-adora plants on the city's eastern limits. The corpses were surrounded by hundreds of bullet casings, and many of their faces were destroyed.
    Soldiers stand guard in front of the Tijuana city morgue, where the bodies of drug gang members killed in a gun battle yesterday are being kept. It was one of the deadliest shootouts in Mexico's three-year-long narco-war.
    The 15th body was found nearby. Eight men were injured and six others were arrested, but some gang members are thought to have escaped.

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    Default ARNG on the border and issues relating to the deployment AO

    Gentleman,


    I am a new member here. Nice to meet and be a part. I myself saw first hand the results of having ARNG on the border. And know the issues relating to the border issues here in Arizona. Prior to moving to what I call " proxy front " I traveled here several times to do my patriotic duty not as a enlisted minuteman but as a concerned member of the armed forces. The problem is real. And have seen all to many scenario's come true due to the porous condition of the border. Rampant with drug smuggling, human smuggling, coyotes committing sex crimes on the migrants. Its all down here. I honestly believe also this will be the next small war and hot spot that will require military enforcement again.
    Having moved here and see it day in and day out what contributions I attempt seem futile. Efforts are being made by Border Patrol and other federal agencies but the mass migration north has not slowed. In fact should be increasing. Mexican officials are reporting record numbers of migrants on their southern border just recently.
    There are crimes being committed as these migrants come through and have total disregard for America as they come to drain our system. Its the mighty dollar it seems. Not to dis-credit the ones who actually come to better life.
    But I agree it is going to be revisited and the next small war if it hasn't started in its preliminary stages already. As I observe such a growing concern what would the populace here suggest? Thank you.

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    Default The Ballad of Ezequiel Hernandez, anyone?

    And then there was the case of Ezequiel Hernandez.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezequiel_Hernandez
    Esequiel Hernández Jr was an 18-year-old U.S. citizen and high school student killed on May 20, 1997 by Marines on the United States–Mexico border in Redford, Texas. He was herding some goats, but the Marines thought he was some kind of smuggler.

    I'd be curious how this incident changed (if any) the sort of rules of engagement the U.S. military operates under down on the border.
    Last edited by Tacitus; 08-01-2008 at 07:31 PM. Reason: can't type
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    Default Folks from the Armed Forces were put down there

    Quote Originally Posted by Tacitus View Post
    And then there was the case of Ezequiel Hernandez.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezequiel_Hernandez
    Esequiel Hernández Jr was an 18-year-old U.S. citizen and high school student killed on May 20, 1997 by Marines on the United States–Mexico border in Redford, Texas. He was herding some goats, but the Marines thought he was some kind of smuggler.

    I'd be curious how this incident changed (if any) the sort of rules of engagement the U.S. military operates under down on the border.
    over the strong objections of DoD and some in Congress. Most of the objections were to prevent incidents like the one you cite; that and the bending the rules on Posse Comitatus.

    The Hernandez incident is sterling example of what happens when the government tries to garner political and propaganda points instead of doing things right. DoD and the service got vindicated but that didn't help Hernandez. You did note that Hernandez fired first -- getting shot at, even with a .22 gets one's attention -- and that several investigations resulted, correctly IMO, in no punishment for the Marine. Sad and unnecessary for all concerned.

    In the event, the ROE were changed not only on weapons use but on deployments in general for such purposes. Essentially, no Active Forces are routinely deployed (the ARNG is not subject to Posse Comitatus restrictions unless Federalized) and those that are operate only in a support role.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
    over the strong objections of DoD and some in Congress. Most of the objections were to prevent incidents like the one you cite; that and the bending the rules on Posse Comitatus.

    The Hernandez incident is sterling example of what happens when the government tries to garner political and propaganda points instead of doing things right. DoD and the service got vindicated but that didn't help Hernandez. You did note that Hernandez fired first -- getting shot at, even with a .22 gets one's attention -- and that several investigations resulted, correctly IMO, in no punishment for the Marine. Sad and unnecessary for all concerned.

    In the event, the ROE were changed not only on weapons use but on deployments in general for such purposes. Essentially, no Active Forces are routinely deployed (the ARNG is not subject to Posse Comitatus restrictions unless Federalized) and those that are operate only in a support role.
    I am originally from Texas, and was living there at the time this happened. I remember it getting a significant amount of attention from the statewide media.

    The way I remember this being reported, and I could be wrong, the people in the town said they had no idea that there were Marines around running some kind of border surveillance missions.

    Since dead men tell no tales, nobody will ever know how Hernandez viewed the situation. If it was me, I probably would have thought it was a coyote (the four legged kind) out there stalking my goats, or maybe a real illegal alien up to who knows what. If so, I can see how he would think squeezing off a .22 shot might do the trick. I think that is generally a bad idea, though; I've never fired a weapon in my life when I wasn't 100% sure exactly what I was shooting at.

    Actually being in a gunfight with some Leathernecks probably never occurred to him. And I can see how the Marines hearing bullets come in their general direction decided to shoot back.

    If we aren't either invading Mexico, or repelling an invasion of the Mexican army, this just seems like a bad idea to me.
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    Default True

    Quote Originally Posted by Tacitus View Post
    ...
    The way I remember this being reported, and I could be wrong, the people in the town said they had no idea that there were Marines around running some kind of border surveillance missions.
    ...

    Since dead men tell no tales, nobody will ever know how Hernandez viewed the situation. If it was me, I probably would have thought it was a coyote (the four legged kind) out there stalking my goats, or maybe a real illegal alien up to who knows what. If so, I can see how he would think squeezing off a .22 shot might do the trick. I think that is generally a bad idea, though; I've never fired a weapon in my life when I wasn't 100% sure exactly what I was shooting at.
    Nor I. Unfortunately, too many folks weren't raised or taught properly...
    If we aren't either invading Mexico, or repelling an invasion of the Mexican army, this just seems like a bad idea to me. (emphasis added / kw)
    Totally agree...

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    What is your definition of an invasion?

    Is it masses of Central American people crossing the border illegally? Is it tens of thousand of OTM's (Other Than Mexicans) annually? Is having the Mexican Army and Federal Police crossing over the border - for numerous reasons - and working hand in hand with drug gangs and coyotes - reason enough for a military presence?

    Again - the issue here is political, not military - for now. If the powers that be truly wanted to lock the border down, it could be done. But neither party really wants that, so all of the issues with a leaky southern border will remain, probably forever. Votes and cheap labor...bringing the two parties closer together day by day...that's the lesson learned from the Mexican border.
    "Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ski View Post
    Again - the issue here is political, not military - for now. If the powers that be truly wanted to lock the border down, it could be done. But neither party really wants that, so all of the issues with a leaky southern border will remain, probably forever. Votes and cheap labor...bringing the two parties closer together day by day...that's the lesson learned from the Mexican border.

    Agree 1000%....this is always protrayed as some kind of Wicked Problem that can not be solved....which total BS....the Politico's on both sides just don't want to do it.

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    I agree that these are reasons for military presence. It would be a very difficult task to seal the border excluding its ports of entry. There is alot of rural lands that only the smugglers really rule. And this is on either side. I would say that the cross border insurgency made by Mexican authorities and military assisting is increasing. Just not spoken about. One day I believe the politicians will wake up with more than undocumented aliens at the backdoor. If that potential threat hasn't already made it and no one woke up.



    Quote Originally Posted by Ski View Post
    What is your definition of an invasion?

    Is it masses of Central American people crossing the border illegally? Is it tens of thousand of OTM's (Other Than Mexicans) annually? Is having the Mexican Army and Federal Police crossing over the border - for numerous reasons - and working hand in hand with drug gangs and coyotes - reason enough for a military presence?

    Again - the issue here is political, not military - for now. If the powers that be truly wanted to lock the border down, it could be done. But neither party really wants that, so all of the issues with a leaky southern border will remain, probably forever. Votes and cheap labor...bringing the two parties closer together day by day...that's the lesson learned from the Mexican border.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Norfolk View Post
    slap, you are a gentleman, providing that fine Texas tune for my edification. Even if Johnny Tex swimming the Rio Grande to go live in Old Mexico is a little implausible...especially as I hear that you can walk across the Rio Grande in a lot of areas anyway!

    Tom, Ski, slap, admittedly I come at the whole matter of the American acquisition of the former Mexican territories ("New Mexico", et al.) from a rather different perspective, and one that doesn't approve of it in the first place (here in Canada, we've historically viewed U.S. expanionism with a rather jaundiced eye, for obvious reasons, so please, don't take offence.)

    That said, 150+ years of United States rule obviously matters, and no matter how many illegals come to live in the Southwest (or elsewhere), tens of millions of U.S. citizens living there are an immutable fact. Mexican nationalism, especially led by ideological elements that are mostly US citizens themselves, is going to meet American nationalism, and that ain't just goin' to go away. Politically, this issue had already passed the "possible" to deal-with phase by the 1990's, if not the 1980's. The illegal immigration bill doesn't really change a thing, substantively.

    That leaves the U.S. in a serious strategic predicament that will grow more dire (and I mean to use that very word) in which it utterly lacks the political unity and will to effectively resolve the matter before it seriously destabilizes the Union, and will be left with having to resort to military, paramilitary, and like measures that have even less ability to handle the matter. What would, what could, the US Army do if a potent Mexican separatist movement gained real traction in California? Texas is one thing, but a state that has cities that pass resolutions against Marine Recruiting Stations is quite another.

    The potential for things to get completely out of hand a generation or so down the line, because the political classes can't muster the guts to face the monster that they're afraid to stop tacitly feeding, may make the Recent Unpleasantness between North and South seem positively "clean", or at least civilized, by comparison to what may develop out of this.

    Maybe if the US Army is able to retain the lessons that it has learned in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, it may at least be fairly well-prepared for what may lie in the future along the Mexican border.
    I have to disagree with you here. Latin America is much more fractious than the US. The "little brown guys" that come here to work are mostly indigenous people and they are treated worse in Latin countries than they are here. While we talk about "Mexicans" as a group, it is still a small group of rich white dudes at the top and a lot of poor brown folks at the bottom. This is a major part of the struggles throughout all of Latin America. We face a much bigger threat from a Mexico that is a failed state than from the state itself. Mexico can barely control its own population (i.e. Oaxaca) much less leverage them abroad for political control.

    Mexico is almost entirely dependent on the US economy and its greatest threat to stabilization is financed by OUR drug habits. A secure and prosperous Mexico is vital to our national interest and that means greater integration with them, not walling them off.

    I think a shifting cultural tide is a small price to pay for a stable border, especially in light of the aging if the US population and the much more insular Asian communities, who DO identify strongly with their government (at least with the Chinese).

    Also keep in mind that an increasing percentage of Latin immigrants come from central and south America too, and they don't always get along with each other.

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