Perry Wants To Invade Mexico ?

Rick Perry is not known as a very smart person, and he's come up with a lot of really stupid ideas (seceding Texas from the Union, declaring Social Security & Medicare unconstitutional, turning down federal education funds when Texas was facing a massive deficit, placing a radioactive waste dump over the Ogallala Aquifer in West Texas, praying for rain to cure a drought, etc.). But he may well have come up with his stupidest idea of all recently. He says he would consider sending United States soldiers into Mexico.

Perry seems to have decided that Mexico can't handle it's own internal problems -- especially the drug cartels that have caused a lot of problems and killed both government officials and innocent civilians. He thinks that thorny problem can be handled by just sending in American troops to help the Mexican Army. He has completely overlooked the fact that the biggest problems of the cartel problem are the American "drug war" (that created the problem) and the shipment of American guns to Mexico (which exacerbates the problem). Solving those two problems would help a lot more than sending American troops to Mexico.

Now some of you, especially those on the right, are probably saying that's not an invasion -- that's just helping out the Mexican government. But those who would say that have to be ignorant of American history. The U.S. has sent troops into Mexico before for even more spurious excuses -- and wound up stealing most of the Southwest (including California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and most of New Mexico). Does anyone really think the Mexican government or people would trust American troops being sent to their country to "help"? Not a chance!

And it's not just the history of the U.S. invading Mexico and stealing a significant portion of their country that would have the Mexican people worried. They have watched as American troops invaded many other countries around the world for either political or business reasons (such as, but not limited to, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Philippines, Russia, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan). The U.S. usually tries to cloak it as defending this country, but none of the countries I've listed above posed any threat to America when they were invaded. Mexico doesn't pose a threat to the U.S. either, but the Mexican people know that has never stopped the United States in the past.

You can bet that any American troops crossing the border into Mexico would be considered an invasion -- by both the Mexican government and the Mexican people. There is no way they would ever agree to American troops being stationed in their country to fight citizens of their country (even citizens viewed as criminals). And I'll bet a huge majority of Americans would be opposed to sending American troops to Mexico also -- for any reason. America already has too many troops in too many foreign countries. The U.S. needs to be bringing troops back home, not sending more out of this country.

Rick Perry, like many of his friends on the right, thinks this country has a right to send American troops to any country we want for any reason we want. But that is the thinking of a bully, not a peace-loving and law-abiding nation. It is time for America to stop being the world's biggest bully and start taking care of its own problems -- and let other nations do the same.

Rick Perry's latest idea is not just dumb, it is incredibly stupid. And regardless of what he says, it shows that as president he would be another George Bush -- maybe even worse.