This Chart Shows The True Scale Of Trump's New Border Deployment

[douglas9]

President Donald Trump has ordered more than 7,000 U.S. service members to the U.S.-Mexico border as part of Operation Faithful Patriot, a fresh deployment of active-duty troops to enhance border security. On Thursday, Trump stated that those troop levels could rise to 15,000 — more personnel than currently deployed to Afghanistan.

The fresh troop deployment — triggered by somewhat absurd panic over a caravan of Central American migrants still hundreds of miles from the nearest entry point into the United States — doesn’t just represent a stark contrast to deployments that currently define the Global War on Terror. According to Pentagon data, a deployment of 15,000 service members would be rivaled only by U.S. troop deployments to Japan, Germany, and South Korea.

Think about that for a second: the new border force would constitute a deployment outstripped only by countries we’ve occupied after World War II and our main ally against the most likely instigator of World War II, North Korea.

https://taskandpurpose.com/trump-troops-border-deployment-chart/

[Nitram]

1. It's all political grandstanding. Those troops can't do a damned thing except twiddle their thumbs.

"The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits military personnel from conducting law enforcement functions on U.S. soil, including physically detaining migrants."

[hack89]

2. They can do a lot short of arresting people

Logistics and surveillance come immediately to mind. They could build and maintain tent cities for example.

[Nitram]

3. Trump is sending them there to repel his imagined "invasion," not to observe and build tent

cities. It is an empty gesture meant to prove to his base that he is tough on illegal immigration.

[hack89]

4. We are talking about what the law allows them to do

Which is a lot. If they are on the border they will be busy. It is not in the military DNA to sit there and do nothing.

[Nitram]

5. If the Pentagon even agrees to send them there...

We are also talking about Donald Trump, empty gestures, and political grandstanding.

[hack89]

6. Did you miss all the footage of the troops boarding transport planes to fly to the border? nt

[Nitram]

7. How many boarded tht plane?

[hack89]

8. In the time it took you to write that post, you could have googled it.

I don't intend to spoon feed you if you show no curiosity to find answers on your own.