Rick Perry takes military-style tack to protect Texas border from Mexican cartels

Rick Perry takes military-style tack to protect Texas border from Mexican cartels:

A little before dawn on a sticky summer night in June, one of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's Ranger Reconnaissance Teams was running a clandestine operation along the Rio Grande when its surveillance squad came across a Dodge Durango pickup truck loaded with bales of Mexican marijuana.

Alone among his Republican rivals running for president, the Texas governor has a small army at his disposal. Over the past three years, he has deployed it along his southern flank in a secretive, military-style campaign that his supporters deem absolutely necessary and successful and that his critics call an overzealous, expensive, mostly ineffective political stunt.

Warning that spillover violence by ruthless Mexican drug smuggling gangs threatens Texas - a claim that some leaders along the border say is sensational hogwash - Perry has made border security a centerpiece of his three terms in office, far more than other Southwest governors.

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