Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

That's a pretty good article and I'm encouraged by what I read. It will be extremely interesting to see how his hard-left base will react.

Be sure to follow the link to the full speech in Kagan's article. Sen. Obama addresses many of the challenges involved in "SysAdmin" / "DoEE" operations. Key phrase in the speech to me is, "For the past two years, [the Administration has] measured progress in the number of insurgents killed, roads built, or voters registered. But these benchmarks are not true measures of fundamental security and stability in Iraq." -- then goes on to identify several metrics that would do a better job of highlighting real progress.

Barak Obama has never run an organization larger than a shoe-in election, which hardly counts. I want a president with executive experience, who has proven he's good at herding cats. Regardless of the politics of the individual, this points to Guliani or, less strongly, Richardson.

I'd like some clarification here, as I might be misunderstanding Tom's argument.

Tom said the following:
"Personally, I don't see much difference between any of the top four now on foreign policy, with just McCain coming off as most belligerent but hardly a hawk that separates himself from the pack."

Barak Obama has straight-up stated that he would end the War in Iraq if elected President, whereas McCain would likely keep troops in the country and possibly seek to reinforce the surge with additional troops.

How does one not "see much difference" between those two when it comes to foreign policy?

I'd still like to hear from all relevent candidates regarding illegal immigration. I'm no protectionist, but with first hand experience with our public school system here in Florida, profound problems are related to illegal immigrants.

(BTW, I am US citizen, my wife recently arrived from Colombia -- so we both have first hand experience with the immigration process).

I am very interested in hearing from you all regarding some ideas. Actually, I want to understand some logistical matters regarding the U.S. military (I am not military person)...

The thesis is to get the best bang for our buck as it pertains to stopping the flood of illegal immigrants by moving, say, 25%-50% of military training exercises to our border regions. Ground meneuvering, surveillence operations, air-to-ground integration operations, UAV operations, insurgent handling skills, etc... --- all would be actual training taking place where a current insurgency of illegal immigrants is happening right now.

Not to mention the fact that military personnel would gain real world experience in dealing with real people (ie. intercepting real insurgents).

Anyway, the other portion of the thesis would include borrowing/implementing technologies from Visa/Mastercard: That is, database technology is nothing new and these guys know how to employ them. Also, I bet they know what you will purchase tomorrow, where you will likely be, and if you are the one actually using the card --- if this kind of analysis is achievable, it should be employed in our immigration process. Finally, they have superior skill set in Fraud Protection -- false visa applications could be rooted out at levels never seen.

Anyway, I am interested in all points of view on this. Good or bad, but mainly interested in understanding the military element.

James, one problem with your suggestion: what can/should our troops do when they find the smugglers? They would be under much tighter restrictions intercepting Mexicans on American soil than intercepting Syrians, Iranians, etc on Iraqi soil. As I understand it, there's also a potential problem with Posse Comitatus (sp?).

I am curious about the credit card technology idea, though. Please tell more.

Michael, thanks for the comments...

Just to stick to the Credit Card Companie idea:

The idea is that Credit Card companies have gotten very good at fraud protection. Not saying it’s perfect, but these organizations have an enormous amount of experience in securing information, efficient data processing, customer service, and analyzing that information to name a few. Everything about credit cards is efficient, that’s the whole idea --- ease of use (purchasing).

It simply makes sense to implement these kinds of concepts into the immigration processing model --- efficiency, ease of use, inter-agency data sharing, fraud protection, etc). I can only imagine how it would transform the immigration process --- by implementing these things, there is less illegal immigration because the system is better. Much in the same way credit cards promote people to make purchases (for all those reasons above), it could promote immigrants to do things legally if these kinds of processes are implemented into the visa/immigration systems.

I guess what I am trying to get across is the notion that immigration (legal) is mostly based upon data processing --- as it stands if done legally, it’s a laborious, long process that tends to discourage people.

You said: "what can/should our troops do when they find the smugglers? They would be under much tighter restrictions intercepting Mexicans on American soil than intercepting Syrians, Iranians, etc on Iraqi soil."

Detained and processed for deportation? I would assume that anyone caught illegally crossing the U.S. border is subject to the Immigration and Nationality Act. Since the Dept of Homeland Security absorbed the functions of INS, there would have to be an anormous amount of integration between the military and DHS.

Feasible? Dunno...

I guess my original post was questioning about the capabilities of military operations (training) along the border regions. I mean, is it possible logistically? Is it simply too much area? Would that help to create "funnels" of illegal immigration that could define specific points to place border control officers?

There is a lot to go on the basic premise I raised and I am just looking for comments/input for any element.

Again, I appreciate your comments.

Take Care