Greg Abbott continues to blame everyone but himself for his disastrous Operation Lone Star scheme
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star has been an unmitigated disaster, and he’s the one solely to blame for that.
He’s the one who decided to use vulnerable asylum-seekers as a primary campaign prop. He’s the one who deployed soldiers to the border scheme. He’s the one who’s forced them to live in deplorable conditions when they could have been at home. Ultimately, it all points back to Abbott. (Personal responsibility, as Republicans used to like to say.)
But as a leaked survey has revealed continued discontent among deployed soldiers (aside from the widespread external criticisms), the right-wing governor has found a scapegoat.
Abbott’s office said on Monday that he was replacing Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris as adjutant general of Texas, which oversees the Texas Military Department. Replacing Norris is Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelze, who Abbott said “will uphold the integrity of the Texas Military Department and exemplify servant leadership throughout every aspect of this position.” Too bad Abbott hasn’t bothered to do the same.
And while Army Times and The Texas Tribune report that Norris has been “under heavy criticism” for conditions like lack of proper equipment and sleeping facilities, let’s not forget that it’s Abbott who deployed them for his campaign stunt in the first place.
That’s not to say that leadership wasn’t imperfect—similar issues were apparently seen in the last deployment, the report said. That should have already been addressed and rectified. But it was Abbott, and Abbott alone, who sent them back out again before that could happen.
Since then, the scheme has the stains of abuses against asylum-seekers and the tragic deaths of a number of service members on its hands.
“You can switch Generals, but we all know where the buck stops,” Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke told Army Times and The Texas Tribune, adding that Abbott took thousands of guard members “from their families, jobs, and communities.”
Nor have they been silent about their discontent with Operation Lone Star. “I hate it here,” one responded to a survey also reported by Army Times and The Texas Tribune. ”Another, asked for general feedback, simply posted four middle- finger emojis.”
“I’m wasting time watching the grass grow at my [observation] point [along the border], while my civilian job is dying on the vine,” the report said another soldier wrote. “IF my job still exists when I return, I will have a giant hole to dig out of.” Other soldiers have also previously described losing work and thousands of dollars due to deployment.
But why should Abbott give one solitary shit when this was an anti-immigrant scheme to secure his job, not theirs? Greg won his precious primary on March 1, and a couple days later marked the one-year anniversary of his border scheme by falsely claiming in a tweet that he had to do “the job Washington would not.” Greg is lying, because incredibly restrictive border policies are still in place (but you can guarantee that if the president ends Title 42, he’ll suddenly remember it). Let’s also not forget that when confronted on the string of soldier deaths, Abbott’s cowardly reaction was to also complain about the president.
Abbott has treated soldiers “with incredible disrespect as he has delayed their pay, cut their tuition benefits in half, and used them as political pawns in his re-election campaign,” O’Rourke continued to Army Times and The Texas Tribune. “It’s time to bring them back home.”
And it’s time to end Operation Lone Star. The policy “has led to serious due process and civil rights abuses, made a mockery of the Texas judicial system, and fomented dangerous xenophobia,” Human Rights Watch U.S. Program Executive Director Nicole Austin-Hillery said last November as part of a call urging a federal probe into the scheme. “The Justice Department should urgently investigate and take all available measures to stop these abuses and ensure accountability for violations of migrants’ rights.”
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