Fred Reed is a very entertaining writer. Like many really good writers, he also tends towards eccentricity; so he lives in rural Mexico and sometimes harbors opinions of the paranoid libertarian variety.
So when I saw this article I figured he was just spouting off based on some off the cuff remark by the Governor of Texas, to the effect that we should “send the Marines” into Mexico to do battle with the “drug cartels”. But I forgot that remarks like this from governors of large states are never “off the cuff”.
Now we have a Washington Post columnist gently floating the same idea, so it has the look of a trial balloon being launched by the MIC (Military Industrial Complex)(h/t the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower).
It’s important for all of us, not just lawyers and libertarians, to realize that a lot of high ranking muckety-mucks in the United States military are susceptible to a peculiar form of temporary insanity. I might go into more detail on that in a later post.
But for now, I simply wanted to go on record as saying that the suggestion of any kind of military operation in Mexico is a flagrant example of just this kind of temporary insanity, and I hope the trial balloon is quickly popped with a barrage of pins.
Update: “US Authorities” uncover a couple of border-crossing tunnels used to smuggle drugs from Mexico into the US. (Via Drudge) This AP story is the result of prodding by the US officials themselves, of course. The timing of this story, in light of the Texas governor’s remarks and the Washington Post editorial, not to mention other things I no doubt haven’t seen, looks suspiciously like one of those coordinated PR campaigns our government engages in from time to time.
I hope they’re not serious.