Stories on Fox News in the last couple of days have highlighted the ever-deteriorating situation in northern Mexico, and have referenced a US military publication that describes Mexico and Pakistan as the two states most likely to fail in 2009. (And showed multiple Mexican soldiers practicing awful weapons-handling skills, but that’s beside the point. Or maybe not.)
The document to which the reporter referred is the Joint Forces Command’s Joint Operating Environment, or JOE. The JOE notes that, “In particular, the growing assault by the drug cartels and their thugs on the Mexican government over the past several years reminds one that an unstable Mexico could represent a homeland security problem of immense proportions to the United States.” And it goes on state, “Any descent by Mexico into chaos
would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”
JOE no speak with forked tongue.
Let me preface this rant by saying I realize it’s not 100% on topic of Lt. Col. P’s post, but it’s still relevant:
I’m admittedly an “armchair military guy” with little schooling on the subject and zero experience. However, as a relative sideline viewer of reports like these (but still holding a piece of stock in it–my own a$$ on my country’s soil!), it’s a bit alarming that we’ve got the capability to draw up these reports yet they fall on def ears. For instance, read the part about China. If I understood it correctly, they’re saying they could give us a serious run for our money militarily within 15-20 years (in my opinion, sooner) and keep it up for another 20 years before they even have to think about stepping it down a notch. Why doesn’t that spark alarm in others??? I realize we can’t be a nation hell-bent on surrounding our borders with an Abrams spaced at 50′ centers, but we’ve got a report placed in front of us laying out how easy it may be for someone to make us their bitch (for lack of a better word to get my point across).
Now onto P’s post:
I can’t help but imagine that if given a worst case scenario of Meh-he-co “failing” and slipping into a state of chaos that we’d still (‘scuse my American here) pu$$yfoot around the border! Again, on par with the Chinese warning, it’s fantastic that we’re intelligent enough to make these reports, but what are we gonna do with them?!?! We’ve got reason enough to button up our southern border for immigration reasons alone. Now there’s a hint at a possible national security reason (not that immigration is not a threat to national security, IMHO) to be concerned about our neighbors to the south–what will we do about it now?
Meanwhile, we’re more concerned with allocating m/b -illions to ACORN and contemplating whether or not to suspend US Postal Services for one day a week.
What’s that noise? It sounds like someone sharpening their sword on the other side of the neighborhood…meanwhile, we’re too busy picking daisies in our front yard to release the brewing storm! If folks think relatively high unemployment numbers are something to worry about, let’s try learning Mandarin Chinese…see how that goes over.
Sorry folks…dooms day rant machine powering down now. Returning to my sugar-coated, blinder-wearing, better things to worry about life…
Edit to the above post:
“…we’re too busy picking daisies in our front yard to REALIZE the brewing storm!”
Sorry…dyslexia at it’s finest.
Hey, as the guy responsible for publishing the JOE (I had no hand in naming it, however), I’d like to know what keeps you up a night. We’re preparing the 2009 re-write of the JOE (we re-look the future continuously) and would like to hear what you think about the future. What are your ideas?
I’ve got three family members in the military, so I have some reason to try to get it right!