Pubdate: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 Source: Waco TribuneHerald Contact: ED, Border troops fixation Border troops fixation Ominous approach would misapply military dollars Congress is getting into a nasty habit of trying to foist things onto the Pentagon it doesn't want. And we're not talking about the kind of needed austerity measures that no bureaucracy wants. We're talking about things that drain resources unnecessarily and hurt readiness. One good example is Congress' insistence on the production of $18 billion worth of new B2 stealth bombers. That would add nine. The Pentagon wants none. A more alarming example of this tendency, however, came Friday when the House, for the second time, voted to allow deployment of up to 10,000 troops at the Mexican border to assist in drug interdiction and enforce immigration laws. This is something the Pentagon vigorously opposes, and for two good reasons: (1) soldiers aren't trained to be civilian police; (2) this mission diverts funding and manpower from the military's assigned mission. It undermines the nation's readiness. This vote comes in the wake of an incident that showed everything that's wrong with putting troops in the job of narcopolice: the fatal shooting of a teenage goat herder near the Texas border. A Marfa grand jury found no reason to indict the Marine who, after requesting permission from superiors, fired the fatal shot. It's not the soldier who merits an indictment. It's the policy. It is reasonable for troops to be summoned in an emergency and temporary capacity when chaos is the alternative. But on these shores, longterm, openended commitments are wrong. Totalitarian states use troops to perform police duties for the simple fact that these countries don't have the same civil rights protections that this nation does. This whole initiative has the odor of border control done on the cheap, rather than done the right way. If Congress thinks the $650 million price tag of this initiative is truly worth the investment and thinks the military can spare the manpower and resources, it could cut the military budget accordingly and put that much money into the Border Patrol. Or, it could put a hold on one B2 bomber, which would more than pay for it all. (