Texas invades Mexico - A Hypothetical

Some who read my previous posting A history lesson for anyone who believes Isreal was right to attack Lebanon may get the erroneous idea that I am anti-Israel. Not at all, however I'm not pro-Israel either. I actually think the month long conflict between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon highlighted a very important social phenomenon that could only have existed with Israel as a participant.

No doubt George Bush was relieved to have some of the attention diverted from his debacle in Iraq. The media immediately dispatched journalists to the scene, gave on the spot updates, counted bombs and bodies, and made it into something which it wasn't. It wasn't new, it wasn't justified, and no matter who beats their chest and declares victory, there was no winner. They have sucessfully doomed another generation to hatred and bigotry and quite possibly created the next terrorist "mastermind".

So let's bring it home:
Imagine an American citizen crosses the border from Laredo, Texas into Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and gets kidnapped. That's not so hard to imagine, it's already happened. According to the FBI "Between May 2004 and May 2005, there have been 35 reported abductions of U.S. citizens in this region" and between "January to mid-August 2005, 202 kidnappings" of Mexican citizens "occurred in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, the Gulf Cartel's operational center, which includes the cities of Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, and Reynosa." It's a dangerous place where violence crosses the international border into the United States.

We could then imagine George Bush getting serious about border security. That's pretty far-fetched I know, but just play along. In his quest to prove he's serious about stopping the drugs, violence, kidnappings, and murder before they spread into the U.S., let's imagine he retaliates by sending in troops. Not the 6,000 national guard troops he said he would send to protect the border without, of course, giving them any enforcement power or weapons. This time he means business: Marines, special forces, fighter jets, boots on the ground. He's gonna show those Mexicans his commander in chief powers.

Our group of Mexican terrorists is not called Hizbollah, we'll call them Los Zetas. They are narco-terrorists rather than ideological terrorists, known to be violent and are recruiting gang members inside the U.S.. Los Zetas is believed to be responsible for the latest kidnapping, so Bush decides their actions represent a danger to the United States and retaliates first by sending in fighter jets to drop bombs on suspected Los Zetas strongholds in Mexico. Los Zetas has a history of living among innocent civilians, so it's not surprising that there's a large amount of collateral damage.

Go ahead and insert all of the media coverage of the Israeli-Hizbollah conflict here, substituting the U.S. for Israel and Los Zetas for Hizbollah.

When it's all said and done, we're left with a lot of resentment on the part of Mexican citizens who now expect the U.S. to destroy their homes and property, so they turn to Los Zetas for protection and pledge their loyalty. Sound familiar? We've just created a new generation of terrorists.

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