It didn’t seem to generate much of a fuss, but I found it interesting that, starting about two weeks ago, there were foreign troops operating on American soil.
Like ghosts from a bygone era, a Mexican military convoy of 47 vehicles bringing relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina arrived in the home of the Alamo on Thursday, the first time Mexican soldiers have operated north of the Rio Grande since 1846, at the beginning of the Mexican-American War.
They were greeted like heroes as they rolled across the Texas countryside from Laredo on the border to the site of the former Kelly Air Force Base, where 3,400 evacuees from New Orleans are housed.
The former base lies 12 miles southwest of the Alamo, where, in 1836, the last Mexican troops to visit this city made martyrs of Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and other defenders of the old mission. It’s this city’s biggest tourist attraction.
To be sure, I’m delighted the Bush administration accepted the aid from our neighbor. The 200 Mexican soldiers arrived with 163 tons of food, water, and medicine, as well as three mobile kitchens capable of cooking 21,000 meals a day for 7,000 people. Americans were in need and Mexico responded generously. Kudos all around.
But isn’t this something of a conservative bugaboo? Whether it’s Mexico or any other country, isn’t the right supposed to balk at the idea of foreign troops operating on American soil? Maybe the fact that this story barely raised an eyebrow suggests some of the right’s xenophobic tendencies are fading a bit, at least in the midst of a crisis.