Gov. Greg Abbott office photo with DPS Director Steve McCraw, Michael Dukakis, Florida governor photo at rondesantis.com

 

 

Planes, Boats and Tanks: DeSantis Top Gun
as Abbott Follows Dukakis War Games Lead

Capitol Inside
November 21, 2022

Texas Governor Greg Abbott passed on the opportunity to join the military as a young man so he could pursue a career as a lawyer. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis both chose to do both.

A Democrat who lost to George H.W. Bush in the 1988 presidential race, Dukakis actually put his military service when he enlisted n the U.S. Army after he'd been accepted at Harvard Law School. Dukakis served for two years as a radio operator in South Korea in the wake of the war that an invasion from North Korea ignited. Dukakis received his law degree from Harvard after his return from duty overseas. DeSantis earned a Harvard law degree and commission as a Navy JAG officer simultaneously before stints in Cuba and Guantanamo Bay and Iraq as an adviser to the Navy SEALS commander there.

DeSantis was rewarded with a Bronze Star and other medals for his service to the United States - and he capitalized with a campaign ad that showed him dressed up like a fighter pilot with the handle Top Gov. Never mind that DeSantis was a Navy lawyer who didn't fly jets in combat. Republicans cheered DeSantis when the commercial sparked a furor among veterans who had risked their lives for their country in the air. Bush and the Republicans murdered Dukakis with mockery for the same creative ingenuity when he appeared in a campaign photo that made it look like he was driving a tank - complete with the helmet on his head.

But neither Dukakis or DeSantis have ever led their states into o actual battle as a politician like Abbott is preparing to do now after invoking consitutional powers that he claims to have now after declaring last week that Texas is drowning in a migrant invasion that he apparently plans to fight with deadly force. Texas has launched a rapid military build up with the addtion of 10 armed personnel carriers known as M113s to its armory for the impending clash with the forces that are invading the Lone Star State. The state is bolstering the artillery with an unspecified number of boats that also are made for war.

The state doesn't actually have the authority to fire a single shot from a tank or gun boat barring a coordinated attack that it simply can't avoid. Coaxing an enemy into shooting first will not allowed in the rules of engagement by which the state must abide or run the risk of having Democratic President Joe Biden nationalize the Texas National Guard. That would put the burder on Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw to carry out the governor's marching orders without the luxury of reinforcements. Davy Crockett faced the same situation at the Alamo after realizing it was too late to get out alive. But Crockett and his men were part of the invasion that leaders in Mexico City perceived in the form of a revolutionary war - which they sent General Santa Ana to shut down in San Antonio. Abbott finds himself at the opposite end of the spectrum now - playing defense against the aggressors that he envisions running rougshod over the Lone Star State.

Abbott could try to pick the DeSantis and Dukakis brains for advice on strategy for the impending battle with the invasion that he's formalized. Both have first-hand experience in battling foreign invasions or cleaning up after them. But the enemy was easily to identify when the current and former governor were in the trenches in lands that were being invaded by neighboring nations with the same last name in different eras.

The bad guys in Abbott's War are a diverse blend of people from all over the world and all walks of life - from murdereous drug and human smugglers to foreign terrorists to poor people who are coming to America for work and opportunity as the future backbone of the nation's economy. Abbott hasn't indicated exactly what the tanks and gun boats that the state has obtained will be used for exactly. Texas forces won't be allowed to fire them at migrants who arer crossing the river illegally between the federal official points of entry. The state doesn't have the legal ability to threaten or to intimidate or to interfere in any way with migrants who are in the waters. The state doesn't have the power to repel anything but mosquitos despite the governor's vow to do so with migrants. All the state has the power to do is arrest migrants for trespassing on private land in an attempt to make their journey even harder than it's been. The state is bound to take all the migrants who it doesn't jail back to the federal ports where they are processed and cleared for travel to the point of destination in the U.S. of their choice. The bottom line is that Texas doesn't have the right to force a single migrant to go back into Mexico. The state can only complicate the trip.

The governor apparently wants to make appear that Operation Lone Star is gearing for a showdown of historic proportions with the addition of firepower that the state is putting on display but will never use for its intended purpose. The state's troops could only use the new artillery for self defense in the face of cartel attacks that are never going to happen because they are business people who have substantial financial stakes in Texas and other states with all the money washing through them.

Abbott appeared to be blindsided this fall when DeSantis rounded up some migrants in San Antonio for a flight to Martha's Vineyard in a move that scored as much or more attention as the governor had garnered while busing migrants to major cities in other states for several months.

The escalation of arms for which the state will have no practical use appears to be a red-meat concession bow to relentless badgering from the far right for an invasion ruling. With the state unable to take the safeties off the guns in the boats and pseudo tanks, Abbott's War appears to be is a state of mind as a result.

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

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