Open Borders, Closed Minds

It’s not that I expect an orderly, predictable world. I have read enough of history to understand that the dynamics of the human personality in a world of constant change will yield radical, often chaotic, upheavals.

But still and all, a chap doesn’t expect to find a full grown rhinoceros in his desk drawer, or a man eating sparrow on his window ledge.

So you can imagine my astonishment when I picked up The Washington Times yesterday and read on the front page the headline: “Mexican military incursions reported: U.S. Border Patrol alerts Arizona agents.”

Even in a world gone mad we should not expect to see a headline that Mexico is invading (or even incursioning into) the United States — unless it is in the entertainment section regarding a re-make of “The Mouse That Roared.” But the article was on the front page, and written by Mr. Jerry Seper.

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Mr. Seper reports that: “The U.S. Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions into the U.S. by [heavily armed] Mexican [military units] . . . ‘trained to escape, evade and counterambush’ if detected . . . ” The Border Patrol also cautioned its agents to keep “a low profile” to use “cover and concealment” in approaching the Mexican military units, “to employ shadows and camouflage to conceal themselves and stay as quiet as possible.”

As a red-blooded naturalized U.S. citizen (OK, perhaps slightly bluish-red), I felt my questionably hued blood boiling at the report that our Border Patrol has been instructed to hide and stay as quiet as possible in the face of a foreign military incursion. It’s not that I expected five U.S. Border Patrol agents to take on a heavily armed Mexican military unit a la John Wayne (well, actually the thought crossed my mind.)

But I certainly expected the next line of the report to be that the Pentagon had been alerted and 10,000 Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton had been dispatched to drive the Mexican units back across the Rio Grande — and then some. If Jimmy Polk were still president, the Marines would already be well on their way to Veracruz.

Instead of calling in the Marines (or any other American military fighting organization), U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora confirmed the story but said the agents were given guidance on “how to react to any sightings of military and foreign police in this country and how to properly document any incursions.” He then went on to excuse the incursions as taking place in areas of the border “not marked by monuments or signs.”

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