Originally Posted by DXBtoDOH

In other words, people who are anti wall for emotional reasons find all the faults they want with the wall, relying on conjecture, speculation and opinion and passing it off as facts. All you really need to do is to look at the source, the NYTimes, to know exactly what the article will be about. Reading the article itself is irrelevant.

No matter how one spins it, there is a major crisis on the American border ever since Biden became president, with attempted crossings exploding in numbers compared to the Trump administration, when it fell sharply. That is an irrefutable fact. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/02/98393...order-in-march

More than 170,000 migrants taken into custody in March alone. And it's from NPR, which is hardly a right wing source. Even the American liberal presses can't deny there's a problem and the problem emerged after Biden took office.

If Biden doesn't get it under control, it may very well sink his administration. He was elected because not because of any particular policies or manifesto, but because he was not Donald Trump and he promised a more competent administration. But if the administration does not prove itself to be competent, voters are going to notice that Trump, for all his blusters, actually delivered meaningful results in slowing down the tide of migrants across the southern borders.

Frankly, it's difficult to see how Biden can be an effective president based on the behaviour of his administration and the Democratic party in the last few months. They have not done anything to unify Americans, all their policies and language are extremely divisive, deliberately rejecting the Republican half of the country, refusing any notion of compromise or consensus, and even openly casting any differing opinions as evil and wrongful (see the hysteria over the Georgia voting law reforms). The Democratic leadership in congress behave as if they have a massive majority instead of a virtual tie. 2022 could very well (going by historical trends) see major Republican gains, and that probably is why the Democrats are going on a partisan overdrive to try to get as many 'reforms' as possible in the next two years, but the scorched earth behaviours also makes it more likely the Republican majority in 2022 will only be even bigger. And that is not even factoring in the cancel culture wars enveloping all of America in a bonfire of vanities and arrogance and hatred.

Originally Posted by Leslie

Oh look! Instead of lying about Mexico paying for the wall (they didn't FYI) Biden can just have Steve Bannon pay for it! That is, of course, if he didn't already spend all of the stolen money on pies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...ed4_story.html

Originally Posted by Jsmth321

It's from 2018, short read about the fence that went up in 1918.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...ago-180969343/


I don't know of the fence along the US/Mexico border in San Diego region stopped anyone determined to cross it from crossing, it did push people east into the hot unforgiving deserts where they would cross instead, drug traffickers have been known to dig under the wall in places, it's also ugly as hell. (I guess the new wall they put up to replace the old rusted out one looks better, but eh still ugly as far as I am concerned.)

This photo shows the old wall.

Originally Posted by Lion in Winter

Wire fraud and money laundering.

Non-trivial.

Originally Posted by Giantaxe

Really, the only way to mitigate this problem is for Central America to be developed so that people don't want to head north in these numbers. This is a longstanding issue dating back to the time when the US started exploiting the area, followed by CIA/military interventions to maintain said exploitation and the almost inevitable civil wars that accompanied this. The history of Guatemala in the last 70+ years is just downright horrible. If I were a resident, I'd certainly do what I could to get to the USA. Ditto El Salvador. Ditto Honduras.

So instead of spending billions on largely pointless gestures like this wall, working out how to effectively spend money to develop Central America should be the priority. I just don't see the political will to do it.

Originally Posted by DaveLovesDee

I agree, it makes perfect sense, which is why a certain US political party would never do anything that could support this. Their donors make way too much money from the status quo.

Not wanting to drag this off-topic, bu the EU model of helping it's poorer member countries and poorer regions within them improve their infrastructure and economy has helped those countries level up...

Certainly helping improve central American countries in the same way benefits for the US, as you suggest.

Originally Posted by Giantaxe

I was on the point of mentioning the EU model in my post, particularly its infrastructure funds. There are similarities between communist-era Eastern Europe and Central America now, but there are also glaring differences. The latter is a much tougher nut to crack politically and in terms of institutions that are needed to build successful economic environments. Honestly, it's really difficult to be hopeful about that part of the world, but I guess Costa Rica is an example of a country there that has managed to be relatively successful. And which doesn't see large numbers of people trying to flee.

Originally Posted by Giantaxe

Really, the only way to mitigate this problem is for Central America to be developed so that people don't want to head north in these numbers. This is a longstanding issue dating back to the time when the US started exploiting the area, followed by CIA/military interventions to maintain said exploitation and the almost inevitable civil wars that accompanied this. The history of Guatemala in the last 70+ years is just downright horrible. If I were a resident, I'd certainly do what I could to get to the USA. Ditto El Salvador. Ditto Honduras.

So instead of spending billions on largely pointless gestures like this wall, working out how to effectively spend money to develop Central America should be the priority. I just don't see the political will to do it.

Originally Posted by dakota44

I absolutely agree that the solution to the problem is improved living conditions, opportunities and safety that would go a long way towards encouraging many of those who now leave, to stay instead. But it would take decades I suspect. However, having lived in Peru for 6 years and spending time in Chile and Brazil, I am painfully aware of the vast level of corruption in every part of government and private corporate enterprise. I suspect most of any aid provided would end up in the bank accounts of corrupt politicians and businessmen while a far lesser amount might make for some, but not enough, improvement.

This is the Peruvian example. "Vrtually all presidents in recent history — with the noted exception of an 8-month caretaker — have been suspected of corruption and have been jailed, one has avoided jail by suicide, one is awaiting trial, another is in house arrest custody, and the other awaits extradition in custody in the U.S. on a huge bribery scandal."

Smedley Butler was a 4 star Marine General and recipient of 2 Medals of Honor. He wrote a book, not lengthy, called War is a Racket. He spent his retirement years advocating against the use of the military for anything other than defending the boarders because he regretted having been part of the use of the military to take advantage of other countries and do the bidding of big business.. He wrote something that, although it is not the theme of the book, says a lot about where those Central American Countries are today, in the wake of what the U.S. did to them.

This corruption of foreign governments and supporting corrupt leaders went on far too long to now be even remotely easy to change.


“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. ”