Sheriff Joe Arpaio wants to send U.S. troops into Mexico to put an end to immigration from “South of the Border, Down Mexico Way,” at its source.
Sheriff Joe doesn’t say how, precisely, U.S. troops would accomplish their mission once we’ve got boots on the ground but as we know from Iraq, Republicans don’t actually worry about such things. He probably doesn’t know, any more than Bush knew, what, precisely, is supposed to happen next.
In the simplistic realm in which most Republicans seem to operate, he probably assumes their mere presence would be enough. It scarce needs be said that this is the same sort of thinking that turned the American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq into such quagmires.
According to Newsmax, Arpaio appeared Sunday on the Aaron Klein Investigative Radio show” and “was asked how he would handle the problem if he were president.
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“If we are worried about the danger, then I would send the military across the border, work with their military bilaterally and get the job done,” Arpaio answered.
Listen to the audio via Newsmax:
Arpaio even thinks the Mexican president would give his approval to the intervention, demonstrating a level of naiveté that is almost criminal.
“I would just go in there and have a few drinks with him and get the job done,” Arpaio told Klein.
Right.
And the Iraqis will welcome us as liberators.
How often will we be forced to listen to this same song and dance?
Conservatives suck it up because it presents them with the world they want to believe they live in. That it bears no resemblance to the world they do actually live in seems to bother them not at all.
America has invaded Mexico before. You would think Arpaio might be sensitive to this history. One would imagine the Mexicans would be. History has shown Mexicans that when American soldiers arrive, they don’t go home without some territory. The so-called “Mexican Cession” of 1848 created California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona and provided sizeable chunks of real estate to New Mexico and Colorado.
Nervous Mexico: This is what happens when armed Americans enter Mexico
It could be that Arpaio buys into the whole “Aztlan” fantasy bigots at World Net Daily and elsewhere get worked up about, that is, the creation of a sort of modern Aztec state comprising the territories of the 1848 cession. They get all up in arms about a “radical anti-U.S. separatist group” but think it’s okay to have their own “radical anti-U.S. separatist groups” because their own groups, you see, are white guys.
A sane person can see an American intervention turning into a guerilla war our country is ill-equipped to fight after Republican misadventures in the Middle East but that’s not Joe’s problem. He’s not leading the troops. Your sons and daughters will be taking the bullets for his visions of self-aggrandizement. “Old Blood and Dollars” is probably the best sobriquet we can bestow on any Republican hawk.
Hey, I know, why don’t we let Arpaio send Steven Segal and his Freikorps:
Or Chuck Norris?
Chuck Norris winning the drug war would spawn a whole new level of Chuck Norris meme:
Arpaio is not the first Republican, of course, to fantasize about invading Mexico since the Mexican War: Rick Perry shared his fantasies of invading Mexico before he fantasized about moving to California. This was 2010. In 2011, Indiana Rep. Dan Burton (R) suggesting invading Mexico as a way of winning the war on drugs, reasoning we are already at war and that all we’re missing is the armies.
Republicans love war. It doesn’t matter who it’s against or why. It’s the easiest solution to any problem they can think of. In this case their ignorance is almost amusing, as they seem to be saying of the Southwest “Hey, look, we stole this fair and square! You can’t have it back!”
Of course, it belonged to neither Americans or Mexicans to begin with but to Native American tribes. Maybe we ought to give it back.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
