One can hope

 

That or declare war on Canada and then surrender....

More scary brown people, armed and dangerous!

OMG OMG!!1!

From an email making the rounds:

Subject: Invasion Character of Illegal Alien Flood Becomes Clearer

The real nature of the illegal immigrant flood across our southern border becomes clearer as armed insurgents take over Texas ranches. When is America going to wake up that this isn't an immigration issue. It is an invasion issue and we are at war with the insurgents. Take action and cast these rats back off the ship.

BREAKING: MULTIPLE RANCHES IN LAREDO, TX TAKEN OVER BY LOS ZETAS
Published 07/24/2010 - 2:30 p.m. CST
The bloodbath continues along our southern border and now word is coming in that Los Zetas, the highly trained killers formerly with the Gulf Cartel, have crossed into the United States and taken over at least two ranches in the Laredo, Texas area. I am receiving word that the owners of the ranches have evacuated without being harmed.
Founder of the San Diego Minutemen Jeff Schwilk tipped me off to this story and passes along the following information on the location. The ranches are said to be "near Mines Rd. and Minerales Annex Rd about 10 miles NW of I-35".

OMG .. a really really major international incident.... except .. oddly... it's being denied by everybody.

Right-wing blogs have been promoting a rumor that "highly trained killers" from a Mexican drug gang have "invade[d]" the United States, taking over two ranches near the Mexico-U.S. border in Laredo, Texas, but law enforcement agencies in the area have flatly denied the rumor.

The Laredo Morning Times reported that law enforcement officials had been "bombarded" with calls about the rumor but that "officials with the Laredo Police Department, Webb County Sheriff's Department and Border Patrol said they knew nothing about such an incident, while Erik Vasys, an FBI spokesman in San Antonio, said the agency does not comment on rumors."

Some conservative blogs have acknowledged that the story appears to be bogus, but others are standing by it.

Personally, I don't think invading Laredo Texas would be high on the list of things to do by the drug cartels, especially since the US military would be brought in very quickly. The drug cartels have enough Americans who want their products and will help them move it into the US. The ONLY reason the cartels are doing so well is that Americans are keeping them in business.

You want to put the Mexican drug cartels out of business?

Legalize drugs.

Since when is bombing children a good idea?

And don't quote anything from Bush or Cheney....

The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza conflict climbed to more than 1,000 today after nearly three weeks of intensive Israeli bombing and fighting on the ground.

So far, 1,010 Palestinians have been killed, among them 315 children and 95 women, Dr Moawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza's medical emergency services, told the Guardian. The number of injured after 19 days of fighting stood at 4,700, he said.

As Israeli troops fought on the outskirts of Gaza City after another night of heavy bombing and shelling, diplomatic efforts to end the conflict intensified, with the secretary-general of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, in Cairo for urgent talks. He is calling for an immediate ceasefire.

The Israelis may have won this battle, but they've lost the war.

What would you do if your country was invaded?

You would not surrender even though the soldiers promised a wonderful new government and lots of perks. You would either fight or sabotage their efforts. The occupying military would always be invaders, never friends.

At the time of the invasion, you would not overthrow your own government but hold tightly to it no matter what. You would not be so stupid as to invite even more instability, thus even if you hated your own administration, you would rally behind it. The more the soldiers demanded you give up your support of your government, the more you would protect it.

Two stories come to mind. The police often say that answering a domestic disturbance is one of the most dangerous calls to make. Fighting couples immediately join together to attack the third intrusive party, even if they hate each other. Disagreements are temporarily forgotten.

The second is an old allegory of the sun and the wind having a competition: The sun and wind bet each other they could remove the coat of the man walking far below across the meadow. The wind inhaled deeply and blew and blew. The man gripped his coat tightly and wrapped his arms about himself. As the wind tugged at his coat, the man bent almost double but the wind could not rip the coat away. At last the wind gave up. Then the sun tried. The meadow grew warm and bright. The man straightened up and opened his coat. The sun shone more strongly still. The heat rose from the earth and the air shimmered. The man removed his coat.

What you want cannot be taken by force but must be given by choice. If you take peace by force, it will not be peace. Diplomacy not military might will be the thing that saves the day.

Israel cannot force the Palestinians in Gaza to forsake Hamas when they were the ones building schools and answering their needs. Demanding Palestinians submit to the will of Israel will make them cling more tightly to Hamas. The brutalization of Palestinian innocents by Israel exposes Israel for the thug it has become.

Pakistan and India will not be able to destroy enough of each other so that Kashmir can be claimed, they cannot undermine the other because the blowback comes straight into their cities. And both of them have nukes. Just how far are they willing to go before their political dangers become destabilizing for themselves?

And how about ourselves? How about if our military is turned on us?:

EL PASO -- A U.S. Army War College report warns an economic crisis in the United States could lead to massive civil unrest and the need to call on the military to restore order.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Nathan Freir wrote the report "Known Unknowns: Unconventional Strategic Shocks in Defense Strategy Development," which the Army think tank in Carlisle, Pa., recently released.

"Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities ... to defend basic domestic order and human security," the report said, in case of "unforeseen economic collapse," "pervasive public health emergencies," and "catastrophic natural and human disasters," among other possible crises.

The report also suggests the new (Barack Obama) administration could face a "strategic shock" within the first eight months in office.

Fort Bliss spokeswoman Jean Offutt said the Army post is not involved in any recent talks about a potential military response to civil unrest.

The report become a hot Internet item after Phoenix police told the Phoenix Business Journal they're prepared to deal with such an event, and the International Monetary Fund's managing director, Dominique Strauss-Khan, said social unrest could spread to advanced countries if the global economic crisis worsens.

So many times in the last eight years the things we thought would never happen have happened. Preventive war, the destruction of Habeas Corpus, torture.... so who is to say the military will not be turned on American civilians?

What would you do if your country was invaded?

What Tristero at Hullabaloo says

My bold:

The Bush/Iraq war wasn't merely a bad idea. It was screaming yellow bonkers. It had no chance - none - of creating a positive situation. Ever. It is complete nonsense to claim "the invasion could have succeeded" if only competents had been in charge. Why? Competent people would never have invaded Iraq in the first place.

The tragedy we see today was a foregone conclusion. It was predicted again and again, by genuinely sober, reasonable people. The war supporters - all of them - were the hysterics. They wern't "idealists." They were naive, pie-in-the-sky types. After all, it was Richard Perle and David Frum who penned a book called "An End to Evil" - an utterly insane notion, as Anatol Lieven noted.

It is ominous to note the congealing of conventional wisdom around the "great idea, incompetent execution" meme (this review is hardly the only place it has appeared recently). It means that the public discourse remains monopolized by genuine clowns. Until more serious people are permitted to address the American public on a regular basis, the US will continue to blunder into future Bush/Iraqs, with catastrophic consequences.

We have to continuously repeat this. We told them, the world told them, but the neocons had been talking so long and so incestuously to themselves in their little oxygen-deprived club house, they were sure flowers and candy awaited them. Reality still has yet to set in.

And then they'll just blame the Democrats....

It was just a freeway kinda hot pursuit, not an invasion

Turkey invades Iraq... or not:

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who attack Turkey from bases there, two Turkish security officials said. Turkey's foreign minister denied its troops had entered Iraq.

Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, characterized the action as a limited "hot pursuit" raid. They told The Associated Press it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks as Turkish troops built up their force along the border.

One official said the troops went less than two miles inside Iraq and were still there in late afternoon. "It is a hot pursuit, not an incursion," one official said.

Another official said by telephone it was "not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands." He also said the Turkish troops went into a remote, mountainous area.

The officials are based in southeast Turkey, where the military has been battling separatist Kurdish rebels since they took up arms in 1984.

The officials stood by their statement despite denials from Turkish and Iraqi officials.