The Minuteman Project: Paramilitaries On The Border

[Itsthetruth]

CounterPunch
April 4, 2005

Paramilitaries on the Border
The Minuteman Project: Colombia Comes to Arizona
By JOSHUA FRANK

Billings, Montana

In an online recruiting effort that would impress Joe Trippi, approximately 500 well armed individuals known as The Minutemen, have come together in hopes they can guard the vast expanse of the US-Mexican border out in Arizona. Their mission: Deter illegal immigrants and protect these great United States of America.

"People have this impression we a paramilitary group coming here to stir up trouble. It's so hard to convince them that ... we're peaceful," Joel Segal, a young member of the Minutemen told the Arizona Republic. "Obviously, we're armed, but that's just a part of us being out here. That doesn't mean that we're aggressive. That doesn't mean that we're violent."

Yeah right. Then what the hell are the guns for? Gopher hunting? It's not that they don't have a right to patrol the US border, or pack a loaded weapon. Sure they do have those rights. But do the Minutemen really think Mexicans sneaking across the border are looking for another Alamo? No, scratch that. Forget I even asked.

If it is their own jobs they are so worried about, the Minutemen are patrolling the wrong borders. Non-legals by and large are employed in the darker sectors of the US economy -- ones most Americans aren't willing to take part in. No, the real threat to American jobs isn't illegal immigrants. It's the outsourcing of entire industries to places like India that have shoved a knife in the back of the US worker.

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank04042005.html

[Walt Starr]

1. The guns are for protection

Not only do illegal aliens cross the borders, but a lot of criminal activity occurs on the borders as well. Drug runners bring their wares across at various points, and they don't do it through the checkpoints on roads!

Sorry, they are well advised to arm themselves in this endeavor.

[Mari333]

2. The "minutemen" are a bunch of racist idiots

who are bored , uneducated, and have wayyyy too many guns in their homes and are tired of shooting birds in their back yards. This is covert racism, basically. They are not enlightened enough to recognize that the true threat to their livelihoods is the mega corporations that sent all their jobs overseas.
Im beginning to think the word "minutemen" may very well describe these guys conjugal relationships, also.

[Walt Starr]

3. I disagree completely

This is a matter of law enforcement (or rather, the lack of law enforcement). Racism has nothing to do with this.

[oneighty]

6. Law enforcement?

Will the sewer laws be violated? Do they have sewer laws in the desert? If so will the potty police be there also?

This is a silly joke. The people wishing to sneak across the border will simply wait till the gunslingers get bored and go home and then they will sneak across.

180

[Walt Starr]

18. Be that as it may

They are fully within their rights. There is not thing one illegal about what the Minutemen are doing and it highlights a HUGE National Security issue.

There is not thing one racist about what they are doing. I have yet to hear a single quote of a Minuteman using a racist slur. Not one.

So tell me, is it bigotry to desire that immigration laws be enforced? I think not!

[oneighty]

19. We have a

government to enforce the law of the land.

Live with it or change the Government.

I did not mention race.

Enough said.

180

[Walt Starr]

21. So citizens should do nothing to deter criminal activity?

Why do you hate Neighborhood Watch?

[oneighty]

22. No we do not

have a neighborhood watch. There is no need for it in the civilized society I live in.

I do not believe in taking the law into one's very own hands. We wind up with Tim McVeighs.

FYI; I was recruited by our county 'Civil Defense' program years ago because of my expertise in explosive ordnance disposal and explosives. The group turned out to be gunslingers in disguise. And that was in New York State. Might as well have been the KKK in South Carolina.

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[Walt Starr]

23. What taking the law into their own hands?

What world do you live in where crime does not occur?

[oneighty]

27. The very small

civilized village I live in is well policed by professional law abiding policemen.

I do not wish to react to that question. I do wish to say I believe in law and order and that we are a nation of laws and not Rambo vigilantes.

I will further say that those that place themselves in a position such as the 'Border' where they might kill or be killed are fools. Either way they would lose.

180

[Walt Starr]

28. Well, you're absolutely wrong

As of now, they've stopped 118 illegal aliens:

http://www.svherald.com/articles/2005/04/04/local_news/news2.txt

Monday, April 4, 2005

Local News

Citizens take posts on the border; 118 illegals caught, officials sayby michael sullivan

By Michael Sullivan
Monday, April 4, 2005 1:18 PM MDT



Herald/Review

ALONG THE BORDER - As more U.S. citizens arrive daily to take up positions overlooking the border with Mexico, fears that gun-toting racists in the Minuteman Project would be confronting illegal border crossers were diminishing Sunday.

Scores of volunteers from across the nation were being deployed in an orderly fashion starting Sunday morning, clustered in groups of four or five facing the strands of barbed wire that mark the border. The groups were spaced within sight of one another along Border Road, east of Naco.

While dozens of demonstrators with placards and flags lined up across Naco Highway from the U.S. Border Patrol station, Minuteman Project organizer Chris Simcox led a caravan of reporters, photographers and project volunteers from the parking lot of the Palominas Trading Post past the demonstrators and down along the border.

After a bumpy, dusty 10-mile ride, Simcox pulled up and media representatives

<snip>

They are being successful.

[Jesus Saves]

25. It's a slippery slope

They have the right to try and do it, but it won't make anything beter. It's just a bunch of pot bellied out of shape white guys playing marytr roles. And they do have connections to right wing fringe groups that have a history of advocating violence.

[jody]

4. Some of the "minutemen" have PhDs or professional doctorates

As for conjugal relationships, have you sampled 30 or so "minutemen" from which you draw such statistical inferences? :hi:

[Itsthetruth]

7. Yes .... and what's the point?

"Some of the "minutemen" have PhDs or professional doctorates"

And so do many of those who hold credentials as certified right-wing bigots in the Bush government and Congress.

Stupidity and bigotry isn't limited to those who lack college degrees.

[Mari333]

10. well, a college degree doesnt necessarily mean

someone is well informed. Ive met quite a few morons with degrees.

[jody]

13. But you made a blanket statement they were "uneducated". I merely

pointed out your error.

Where did you meet "quite a few morons with degrees", where a moron has the mind of a child between 8 and 12, and those morons have PhDs and professional doctorates which was the specific assertion I made?
:shrug:

[Mari333]

15. they are patrolling borders vis a vis their concern

over immigrants taking their jobs away when multi national corporations are sending jobs to India, as the article suggests..their motivations seem pretty uninformed .

[jody]

30. I still want to know where you met morons with PhDs and professional

doctorates as well as your sample size on the prowess of minutemen. :shrug:

[oneighty]

8. But do they have

good sense?

If there was an Emiliano Zapata roaming the desert would they stay and fight?

180

[Mari333]

9. heh...thats like asking Ted Nugent

if he would hunt bears naked, and without a weapon

[jody]

14. I've hunted naked bears that did not have weapons.

:rofl:

[Mari333]

11. It was the 60s!! after all....n/t

[radwriter0555]

5. "Let's go HUNT THEM MESSICANS!" These racist freaks are hunting

Indians actually.

I hope they shoot each other.

[Redstone]

29. When I lived in Texas, they weren't "Messicans."

They were "Meskins."

One fewer syllable than "Messicans." Easier to pronounce, especially after a dozen Lone Stars.

Redstone

[IrateCitizen]

12. There will be a serious border incident w/i the next 2 weeks...

... with these whack-jobs running around loose. And it won't have a damned thing to do with stopping people from crossing the border looking for work or a better life.

I read recently that many of the people volunteering for the Minuteman Project are NOT from the area by the border. I'm not from there either, but I did spend about 2 months heading up a project for the Army Reserve in Nogales, AZ improving patrol roads for the BP. One of the biggest things we were briefed on was the danger of drug smugglers. There were even recent incidents of Marines working along the border being caught in the middle of shootouts between drug rings.

One of the volunteers was quoted as saying something along the lines of, "Many of us have military training. They're just a bunch of punks -- we'll take them out." I can see many with that kind of thinking ending up riddled with bullet holes along the border. One thing you do NOT do is get between a smuggler and his destination, because they will not hesitate to kill you. Many of the USBP agents even have bounties on their heads down there.

Finally, when you're near the border, you have many of the SAME "PEOPLE" living on the US side of the border as the Mexican side. There are people living in AZ whose families have lived there for generations, and some still may not even speak English. Seriously, when you go to a market, you cannot really tell what side of the border you are on in many instances. What happens when these vigilantes do something to a US citizen of Hispanic decent?

These people are all on crack. There is no good way for this thing to work out.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Bring your own sheets, guns, beer and Confederate flags.

Yeeehaaa! Just like the good old days in Mississippi. The BillyBobs ride again!

Gotta pertect the borders against them furriners. I mean ya' wouldn't want one marryin' yer sister wouldja?

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. When they first proposed this, they said they would be unarmed.

When did they change their minds? When the government didn't object to the idea of massacres of illegals? Or of gun battles between Minutemen and 'coyotes'?

Does the government have a vested intrest in there being a border incident?

[Theres-a]

20. Good question

[ComerPerro]

24. Cowards. All of them

If they are so tough, why aren't they protecting America in Bush's wars?

[guinivere]

26. I'll wait and see

I too thought they weren't going to be armed.
I have a slim hope that there won't be any violence.

This seems like it is an accident/incident waiting to happen.