Border War

In Jan Russell’s blog from the San Antonio Express, Russell criticizes Governor Rick Perry for his lackluster efforts on winning the Texas border war on the drug cartels. She argues that Perry is throwing Texas state money away into this war that has had poor results and no near end in sight. There have been a lot of skeptical critics of Perry’s actions since he has been Governor for over 10 years now but has been very careless to finish this conflict Russell believes that the Drug cartels are running easily through the state and also using prisons as a staging ground. The first operation “Operation linebacker” was the first to be set up and was put together by border town sheriffs that were funded by the state of a total of 25 million dollars that would supply the sheriffs with firearms and money to fight these cartels at the border. This operation has been unsuccessful with losing almost over several thousand officers to this fight. Operation Rio Grande was next when the Texas government with local authorities deputy’s and federal agents. This operation another flawed waste of money with no results then came, Operation Border Star and funded it at $110 million. The last and now current is Operation Wrangler, a build up of 133 police departments and 604 Texas Army National Guard troops, along with federal agencies. Perry then approved another 5 million to set up cameras along the wall along the border to spot illegal immigrants and possible drug traffickers. Once cameras were in place the idea was to stream these on the web, so that a regular civilian could view and report any illegal activity. This has been very unsuccessful and has just led to just arrests with people trying to come into the country and no major arrests. I agree with Russell on her stance that Perry is at a lost. He needs to push for more government intervention. Governor Perry needs to bring in some top military leaders and plan a strategy rather then sink money into one failed operation after another. Perry has already wasted over 175 million dollars of state money into this so-called quiet “Border War”. I believe that if he pushes for more government involvement he will get more funds and more military disposal. There needs to be to a clear decision on a win or lose exit strategy, before things get even more out of hand and more American lives are taken.