Thursday, January 15, 2009

Is Mexico going to come apart at the seams?

The US military thinks it just might.

According to the latest "Joing Operating Environment" report, Mexico (along with Pakistan) may very well be on the verge of collapse.

This makes sense, even though I haven't heard anything about it before. Mexico's been little more than a narco state for years, anyway. Corruption and inter-cartel violence is endemic there. (Most Mexicans probably pray for a politician of Rod Blagojevich's moral fibre.) Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if half the country's GDP came directly from folks in the US sending money back. The Mexican government doesn't instruct its citizens on the finer points of avoiding US border patrols for nothing, you know.

Still, it would be a very bad thing for the US if Mexico collapsed. I've heard stories about how things were in Arizona and southern California during the last Mexican Civil War, 90 years ago. (Refugee camps along the border; death squads sneaking across border lines to kill targets seeking sanctuary in refugee camps; reprisal killings of death squad members; massive increases in demand for local services -- food, medical treatment, etc.) The effects would only be magnified if similar events were repeated today. The waves of Mexican immigrants (illegal or not) we've seen to date would probably seem like trickles compared to the masses of humanity who'd be trying to escape the carnage of a failed state.

That would probably be what would trigger politicians in Washington to finally build the fence along the Mexican border, although the irony would be astounding. The whole time a lot of Americans have been telling Congress to build the fence, Congress has replied that it would be wrong to deprive people south of the border the chance at American freedom. At the moment when folks south of the border would actually need American freedom, though, that's when Congress would probably be most likely to rediscover American territorial sovereignty and deprive them of it.

At least that's what could happen. On the other hand, Congress could also continue the work of Jorge Busheron to remake America as Social Worker to the World, in which case we'd just let everyone in and the millions of refugees would overwhelm border states financially and culturally. It will be interesting to see what Barack "I will heal the world" Obama would do. He's shown an interesting proclivity for stiffing the Far Lefties in his coalition. Maybe he'd do it again with immigration? Or maybe I'm just engaging in wishful thinking. Either way, we'll see.

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