10-17-2011, 06:18 PM
billb wrote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37340747/ns/...pxknpv1n-M
Of course they down-played the unarmed just a tad. :-)
actually, you could search this forum as it was discussed at the time and the general concensus at the time was troops who were in a support role (sent in for political reasons with not much to do) in safe zones pretty much didn't need to be bristlingly armed with weapons, especially if they were doing mundane tasks like monitoring cameras, shuffling papers behind the scenes.
You don't remember the President being vehemently opposed to arming the border , then under pressure sending troops and calling them unarmed so he could do both and not appear hypocritical ?
Well, i didn't ever think that domestically 'deployed' soldiers would be 'bristlingly armed.' I don't personally relish the idea of 'bristlingly armed' troops of any sort on U.S. soil, off of military bases. That sounds a lot like a military state to me, and i'll pass on that. Thanks for the link. I don't do a lot of forum-searching on this side, because it makes my brain hurt to see how little the discussions here change over time. My hunch is that the president didn't really want to send troops to the border at all, but cowed to political pressure in order to give the impression that the federal government was doing something about illegal immigration. A copout, ineffective, and a waste of money and our military. (OMG did an avowed liberal just criticize the PotUS? NO WAY!)
Now, do we have evidence that troops are ever deployed to combat zones or foreign soil unarmed? Since that's really what we're talking about here, i mean. Oops, i have to edit based on $tevie's new links... I remain unconvinced that soldiers have been deployed without guns of any sort. (Which makes sense to me - i've never heard of soldiers deployed with no weapons at all - it seems contradictory in itself to me.)
Edited based on new info.