Guard to miss border mission deadline

From the AP via Yahoo courtesy of AlterNet

The Bush administration has been unable to muster even half of the 2,500 National Guardsmen it planned to have on the Mexican border by the end of June.

As of Thursday, the next-to-last day of the month, fewer than 1,000 troops were in place, according to military officials in the four border states of Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona.

President Bush's plan called for all 50 states to send troops. But only 10 states — including the four border states — have signed commitments.

Some state officials have argued that they cannot free up Guardsmen because of flooding in the East, wildfires in the West or the prospect of hurricanes in the South.

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This was such a stupid idea from the get-go that I strongly doubt Bush was ever serious about it. I mean, why not dramatically increase enforcement budgets and get the right people on the job? I suppose the whole Guard stunt was to show the GOP xenophobes that he supports their point of view and wouldn't tolerate the lag time it would take to get some real border patrol action going. But the thing is that Bush doesn't really support the xenophobes; as a longtime Texas businessman, he's firmly entrenched with the GOP illegal labor exploiters faction--as Molly Ivins once wryly observed when contrasting California attitudes about illegals with attitudes in Texas, "down here we like our Meskins." Yeah, Texan businessmen understand that illegal laborers will put up with brutally low wages and working conditions and never complain about it for fear of deportation, the perfect workers from the capitalist perspective.

So this whole National Guard thing was just a political gesture. Bush, who could easily claim "national security" and federalize the needed troops, simply isn't interested in truly helping out the xenophobes. He never really meant it, which is just fine by me.

Besides, the only effective way of reducing the flow of illegals across the border is to go after the employers. Obviously, Bush is never going to do that.

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