DON'T MILITARIZE BORDER

Shortsighted plan would put national security at risk

Arizona Gov. Jane Hull has every right to be outraged by an unwanted
amendment to the defense bill that would authorize putting U.S.military
troops along the border with Mexico.

Gov. George W. Bush and other Texans should join in Gov. Hull's outrage at
shortsighted solutions dictated from Washington that would make matters
worse in the states that share a border with Mexico.

Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio, attatched the plan to the $270 billion defense
budget approved by the House last month. The bill will next be taken up by
the Senate.

Traficant would have a different view on this subject if he represented a
state that shared an international border, daily commerce, family
relationships and cultural roots with Mexico.

In a letter to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Gov. Hull said the prospect of
armed, uniformed soldiers patrolling the streets of border towns "creates a
terrifying image that threatens our very nature as a peaceful nation."

Like many Texas governors, Hull said she and other Arizona officials have
worked for years to strengthen relationships with neighboring Mexican officials.

"Permission to militarize the border is unnecessary and antagonistic to a
country that is working to overcome the many challenges of a developing
nation," Hull wrote to McCain.

The idea of stationing U.S. troops along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico
to prevent the entry of "terrorist, drug traffickers and illegal aliens" is
opposed by Pentagon officials, U.S. military leaders, and Barry McCaffrey,
America's drug czar, whose spokesman described the congressional plan as an
affront to our relationship with Mexico. "We could line up every division we
have in the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps put together, and you couldn't
cover that border," he observed.

Besides the fact that the idea is a diplomatic disaster, it is opposed by
the military, the Border Patrol, by federal drug enforcement officials and
by the officials and citizens of the border states -- not to mention that
the idea wouldn't work unless the United States re-instituted the military
draft, placed all U.S. military troops along the border and raised taxes to
pay for it all.

The Pentagon vigorously opposes the idea because it threatens the nation's
readiness. Soldiers aren't trained to be civilian police and the plan would
divert funding and manpower from the military's assigned mission.

Texans and the citizens of New Mexico, Arizona and California want to stop
"terrorists, drug traffickers and illegal aliens" as much as anyone. It's
just that they are a little closer to the problem than pop-off politicians
who seek election-year sound bites but haven't the foggiest idea what they
are talking about.

If Ohio's Rep. Traficant and his buddies in Congress want to do something
useful, they can increase funding to the U.S. Border Patrol so it can hire
more agents.

In the long term, the best solution is for Congress to help strengthen the
economies of the Latin American nations, build international bridges of
trust and goodwill and do what is necessary to curb this nation's appalling
appetite for illegal drugs.


Checked-by: Melodi Cornett