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Guard chief commends soldiers' reactions

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Republican members of the state House of Representatives ignored the commander of the Arizona National Guard on Monday in Phoenix.

Maj. Gen. David Rataczak testified, over and over, that soldiers on the Mexican border did not feel their lives were threatened by Mexicans they saw near the border at 11 p.m. on Jan. 3. Not feeling threatened, they did not fire at anybody. Which is, said the general, exactly how the soldiers were trained to behave.

Presumably, if the hearing conducted by the House Homeland Security and Private Property Rights Committee had been staged for its stated purpose — to gather information about what happened on the border near Sasabe — the general's detailed account would have put the matter to rest.

But it was clear in the packed hearing room Monday that the committee's Republican majority had an entirely different agenda. No matter how many times the general repeated that his troops were under specific orders from the Defense Department and Homeland Security Department to act in a support role to the Border Patrol, as observers, and to "not be involved in direct law enforcement," committee chairman Warde Nichols, R-Gilbert, used the event to make speeches critical of Gov. Janet Napolitano and federal policy.

Nichols declared, for example, "It appears to me that we are tying the hands of the men and women at the border. They basically have to be fired on to return fire, and that concerns me."

That characterization, however, did not come within a mile of what Rataczak had said. What he said was, "We do not want to militarize the border. We are not at war with Mexico."

Here is an exchange between Rep. Jerry Weiers, R-Phoenix, a member of the House committee, and Rataczak, that should have made the issue of self-defense clear:

Weiers: "At what point can your soldiers defend themselves? Does somebody have to wait for a bullet to go off before somebody can defend themselves?"

Rataczak: "Had that undocumented pointed that weapon at our soldier, he (the entrant) would not have survived. We train them and we trust them to do the right thing, and he did the right thing. Our soldier kept from escalating that event."

What happened at the border on the night of Jan. 3 was this, according to Rataczak: Four Guardsmen were stationed on a hill when they noticed three or four men with automatic rifles walking in the distance from Arizona toward Mexico. One Guardsman walked around a hill and suddenly he and one of the Mexicans found themselves face to face but about 45 feet apart.

Both were surprised, and both had their rifles aimed at the ground, and neither lifted his weapon.

"I strongly believe it was an unintended chance encounter," the Guard commander said, between the soldier and drug dealers delivering money back to Mexico.

But the Republican committee members weren't buying it. The facts as narrated by the military commander — that at no time did the soldiers feel their lives were threatened and that they performed exactly as instructed — were translated into a partisan statement by Rep. Ray Barnes, R-Phoenix, who declared that "Republicans, at least, are concerned about this. We want them to fire first and ask questions later."

That line of thinking ignores the rule of law. We do not practice vigilante justice in the United States, nor should anyone — especially a member of the Legislature — condone it. We do not execute someone without due process and we do not shoot anyone, even trespassers, who are not threatening our lives.

But, with a half-dozen TV cameras rolling in the hearing room, it is far more emotionally effective to grandstand and to criticize the governor for not usurping the orders given to the National Guard by the Republican president, his Homeland Security secretary and his Defense secretary.

Republicans are still angry that Napolitano last March vetoed their bill, which would have legislated when the National Guard could be mobilized. In her veto letter on March 9, the governor noted, "The Legislature has no constitutional or other authority to control when or how the Guard is deployed, and the Legislature's effort to do so in Section One of this bill is an obvious violation of the separation of powers doctrine, and therefore of the Constitution."

She also added a line that is as appropriate today as it was last year: "It is time to stop playing political games and get serious about our border."

The hollow grandstanding of the Republican members of the Arizona House of Representatives will not solve our state's serious border problems. The inflammatory statements at Monday's hearing were not informative and did not bring us any closer to a remedy. We hope the provocative speeches and careless outbursts do not exacerbate an already volatile situation.