I wonder why our war with Mexico isn't on TV

The Department of Homeland Security said there have been 231 documented incursions by Mexican military and law enforcement personnel into the U.S. since 1996.

“There is little doubt that the majority of these incidences are accidental,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas., chairman of the Security Investigations Subcommittee. “However, there are several reports of intentional violations of U.S. sovereignty by groups, often smuggling hundreds of pounds of drugs, which appear to be associated with members of the Mexican military or police forces,” McCaul said.

I'm betting that it's not on TV because if it was, someone might actually insist that someone do something about it.

I was thinking last night how hard (or not) it would be to invade the US. Think about this for a minute. The majority of our working military is halfway across the world. Sure, we have more (barely) soldiers, sailors, and airmen on our soil than overseas, but most of our 'fighters' are away fighting or cavorting vis ze frauleins.

We are about to start a war with Iran. When this happens, a) the Straits of Hormuz will be closed, and b) a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq will close both supply lines from Kuwait and retreat lines to Kuwait. Much of our fighting power will be pinned down half a world away. They might fight through or not, but they will not be able to do anything about border incursions here.

Only the Mexicans could invade (Canada has no real army, eh?) because no other nation in the world has the troop ship capacity to get an army here. China can't even invade Tiawan. But if Mexico pulled such a stunt, we would just nuke them since we would not have the short-term soldiery to stop them. On the other hand, they would find themselves in a similar war as we have in Iraq, and for the same reasons. That's why I have have a hard time saying bad things about the 'terrorists' in Iraq who are fighting us for no other reason than that we are there. We'd fight the Mexicans as well, just because they are here.

So after thinking about how bloody unlikely it would be that anyone in the world could mount or hold a successful invasion of the US, even if our army was pinned down half a world away, it suddenly occurred to me that our army is completely unnecessary for the defense of the nation. We are susceptible to missile attack, but soldiers can't help there. We have to go looking for our wars - not that that has ever proved a problem for Presidents - but there's no army that can bring a war here.

Maybe that whole Founding Father warning about standing armies has some merit after all. If you give someone a hammer, he'll go looking for a nail. If you give a commander an army, he'll go looking for a war.