U.S. takes border war on the road

[whosinpower]

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~11676~2606736,00.html#

snip - The president has authority to secure the borders of the United States," said Lt. Cmdr. Brad Kieserman, operations legal chief at U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Not only off Ecuador, but "anywhere in the world," Kieserman said, Coast Guard and Navy ships will "go to the source of transnational crime and interdict it before it gets to the United States."

snip - Some analysts see this as contemporary gunboat diplomacy. If foreign armed forces stopped U.S. boats in this way, "we'd call it an act of war," said John Pike, director of the Washington think tank Global Security. "There is no world government to enforce international law. It's always been the case that the strong do what they can, and the weak do what they must."

Others say U.S. officials are pushing too far, straining the already faint goodwill and support that the United States needs to fight terrorism, the illegal spread of weapons, and other threats.