Don't Surge Me, Bro

Our rulers have a variety of reasons for keeping our country at war as much of the time as they can. War is an automatic way of amplifying state power, centralizing it, and concentrating it in fewer and fewer hands. In our era, wars have mostly been waged against sinister Commies, slant-eyed gooks, and dirty ragheads (in various combinations). However, when the supply of the conventional Other is temporarily short, there's always the evil drugs:

The soaring level of violence in Mexico resulting from the drug wars there has led the United States to develop plans for a “surge” of civilian and perhaps even military law enforcement should the bloodshed spread across the border, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday.

[ ... ]

Aides to members of the House Homeland Security Committee, which oversees the department and has often clashed with Mr. Chertoff over his border policies, said Wednesday that they had heard little about the plan, though they welcomed it.

“We support almost anything to secure our border,” said Dena Graziano, a spokeswoman for the committee.

Yeah. I'll bet they do.

(Via Ioz.)