I'm ashamed of my country today.

I'm embarrassed that America allows itself to be pushed around by a corrupt tinpot oligarchy in Mexico.

I'm mortified that a country that spends more on defense than any other in the history of the world permits armed incursions into its sovereign territory by bands of thugs supporting drug-running and human smuggling operations.

I'm angry that we make the security of foreign borders a higher priority for the U.S. military than we make control of our own.

I'm speechless that this is happening more than four years after foreign aliens entered the country illegally and killed 3,000 Americans.

That's how I'm feeling today after reading the reports of outgunned, outmanned Texas law enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents being involved in an armed standoff with Mexican military personnel and drug smugglers inside our country, north of the Rio Grande.

The Mexican military vehicles, with mounted machine guns, were, according to the American law enforcement officers, towing thousands of pounds of marijuana into our country.

If this were an isolated incident, I guess we could all afford to brush it off as some sort of anomaly. But it is not. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security, whose main job seems to be downplaying border security issues, reported there have been hundreds of documented incursions into our territory by Mexican soldiers.

"Our government has to do something," said Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department. "It's not the immigrants coming over for jobs we're worried about. It's the smugglers, Mexican military and the national threat to our borders that we're worried about."

Just consider some of the recent headlines from the border:

• Border Patrol warned: Brace for violence
• Feds to border agents: Assassins targeting you
• Armed standoff on Rio Grande
• Border sheriff warns: We're overwhelmed
• Mexican drug commandos expand ops in 6 U.S. states
• It's war between cops in Mexico
• The threat from Mexico
• 'It's a war' along Mexican border
• Mexican commandos seek control of border
• Mexican commandos new threat on border

Wars have certainly started with less provocation than this.

Despite what President Bush says or may believe, Mexico is not our friend. It is a country that oppresses its own people. Blessed with great natural resources and climate, Mexico is an economic basket case. Wealth is amassed by politicians and criminals – and often they are one and the same.

I don't blame ordinary Mexicans for trying to flee the dreadful conditions with which their leaders have enslaved them. But I do blame U.S. leaders for following policies that will, eventually, make America indistinguishable from Mexico. I also blame U.S. leaders for their appeasement of the organized crime syndicate that seems to run Mexico. I also blame U.S. leaders for inviting terrorists to take advantage of the out-of-control border.

These are not problems that will be solved through negotiations. These are not problems that will be solved through economic agreements. These are not problems that will be solved through diplomacy. These are not problems that will be solved through weakness.

Bush has failed in many ways as president. But in no area has he been a more profound failure than in his handling of the border and illegal immigration issues. He has disgraced this nation. And what we saw happen a few days ago in Texas, his home state, is just the latest example of his abdication of responsibility.

It's time to get tough with Mexico – and I don't mean with just words.

We need to put our neighbor on notice that the next incursion into our territory by any military or paramilitary force will be considered nothing less than an act of war. Military vehicles will be blown up on sight. Soldiers or those masquerading as soldiers will be shot on sight.

Of course, such a sensible policy requires that we have more troops and better equipped soldiers than the invading enemy. We need to do it now. It's time to militarize the border while we build an impregnable barrier from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico.

 Well said.

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