The Romulan Republic wrote: ↑2018-10-31 10:39pm
Trump is now saying 15,000 troops- reportedly more than the US currently has in Afghanistan. To stop a few thousand unarmed asylum seekers, mostly women and children? For a mere campaign stunt? Or is this a flimsy pretext to move tens of thousands of troops into key Democratic and closely contested states right before Election Day, and the demonstrations that will inevitably follow regardless of outcome? The question seems absurd, or would in saner times, but I think that we have to seriously consider it now.
There is no rational reason for a government to deploy tens of thousands of active duty military on its own soil in peacetime, outside of a major natural disaster. This only makes sense as the set-up for a power grab.
Or hear me out here...
It's empty rhetoric, because the border is fairly Republican and after stating a sane number (800) he increased it to a few thousand and when things kept getting worse he increased it again to an even larger number.
I may blow your mind here, but sometimes Trump says things without any plan to actually be able to do that thing.
And maybe, just maybe consider for a second that the US Military is not in the habit of following orders blindly but hey let me quote the WSJ on this.
WSJ
WSJ wrote:Just last week officials were indicating that about 800 to 1,000 might be sent. On Monday, officials announced that about 5,200 were being deployed. The next day, the Air Force general running the operation said more than the initially announced total were going, and he pointedly rejected a news report that it could reach 14,000, saying that was “not consistent with what’s actually being planned.”
Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the commander of U.S. Northern Command, told reporters the number would exceed the initial contingent of 5,200, but he offered no estimate of the eventual total.
Just 24 hours later, Trump thrust new uncertainty into the picture, catching the Pentagon by surprise.
With his eyes squarely on next Tuesday’s contests, Trump has rushed a series of immigration declarations, promises and actions as he tries to mobilize supporters to retain Republican control of Congress. His own Republican campaign in 2016 concentrated on border fears, and that’s his focus in the final week of the midterm fight.
“As far as the caravan is concerned, our military is out,” Trump said. “We have about 5,800. We’ll go up to anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border.”
Time after time you accuse President Trump of being a liar, yet time after time you believe everything he says at face value and act accordingly.
I'm going to go out on wild speculation here but I'm pretty sure the deploying Troops to the border is red meat for his base and he does not intend to actually do anything for the simple fact any troops over a thousand or two is going to require at least a week of pre-planning for something as simple as securing housing and food for the troops. Due to the many laws Congress has passed on the Pentagon they can't just load up troops and head to the border because once there they can't simply set up camp anywhere nor can the break out the foraging parties. Food, fuel, housing and materials must be pre-staged and because of anti-corruption laws and the procurement system it takes awhile to get that stuff set up.
Or to put it another way, if Donald Trump wants 15,000 troops along the border he can have four soldiers every kilometer in a month or two, or a few thousand in border population areas in a month, or he can have one big blob of troops somewhere on the border by election day, but it won't be 15,000 and it won't be doing much of anything.