(no subject)

[bzarcher]

Well, this looks promising... /Sarcasm

I'm not really thrilled about the idea of stretching our military any thinner than it already is. Plus, historically, let's look at the fact that the President is going down the road of invoking the Insurrection Act. This was designed to be used in times where the police were overwhelmed or considered to be criminals themselves. If it starts with the US border, where does that end?

Oh, and let's not forget what Isolationism has "gained" us in the past - WWI, WWII, and a beautiful graveyard in Hawaii that used to be a battleship. If shutting ourselves off from the world had such disasterous consequences then, what will attempting it again mean in a far more interconnected world?

I'm very worried about where this is going.

Comments

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree. This isn't Isolationism. This is us sick of the neighbors kids sneaking into our backyard, so we threw up some barbed wire. We aren't cutting off Mexico. It's just that a lot of people (myself included) are tired of people coming in illegally and then living here illegally. I mean, it's not that hard to become a U.S. citizen.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

No, it's not that hard.

But if the issue is borders, then we should be reinforcing the means we already have to secure those borders, not putting armed troops down.

Plus, going after the people who are bringing them across or employing them afterwards would be a very easy way to give them reasons to say, "No, I don't want to go there like that."

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

Using the National Gaurd is a means of reinforcing what's there. Maybe not the most friendly way, but in reality, it's probably the most effective.

What makes one rethink it more? Some guys in a 4x4 armed with pistols, or a couple army guys in a humvee armed with rifles used for combat?

But I agree, going after those that bring them over illegally is one way to cut it down. However, it won't completely solve the problem.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree it's a very scary thing - but I don't like National Guard getting law enforcement powers, and I really don't like giving the Guard even more commitments when we're stretching them over a good bit of East Asia. I think this sets a bad precedent.

Nothing will ever completely solve the problem as long as America's a better place to live than anywhere else, but I think cutting down on the "industry" of illegal labor would do a lot to help.

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

True. Another problem is that we can't go an advertise HOW to properly get into America. Mexico won't allow it.

Really, it's not how they get here that I have a problem with. It's the fact that once they get here they don't go "wow...It won't be hard to become citizens, let's do it." Maybe we should concentrate on making them legal citizens once they get here as hard as we concentrate on the stopping illegal crossing bit.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I'd be pretty happy with that, too.

[spartanfan.livejournal.com]

This isn't about securing the border. It never has been.

We don't WANT a secure border. The government wants to pacify the people who live near the border by putting troops down there to "patrol" it. They'll make the occasional high-profile bust of small-time operators bringing across the Proud Family. But what this comes down to is money, and the flow of money.

Illegals work cheap. They work cheaper than Americans could ever be worked for, because we became used to a standard of living a long time ago that would prevent us from accepting the trifling wages those people take in. The large corporate interests lower their bottom line and can hit Everyday Low Prices, and the wealth moves across the border to families in Mexico.

In return, the wealth moves back into corporate hands through the natural process of Pax Americana, and the circle of life continues.

The "secure border" is another one of those political levers politicians pull to prompt switch-pushing in the maze, just like "war on terror" or "tax reform".

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Every surge in American productivity (including the electronic explosion of the 90's) has been spurred by a healthy flow of immigrant workers who take the crap jobs so established families graduate to better jobs. To stifle this routine is a disruption we likely don't want to afford, nor have we ever had to come to grips with.

But I disagree that the wealth is moving only into corporate hands - everyone in the nation across the entire social spectrum stands to gain wealth from being propped up by cheap immigrant labor on the bottom. Didn't the AP just run a story about the number of million dollar homes in America rising at rapid rates? That's not zero-sum wealth math there.

[spartanfan.livejournal.com]

You're right: the money does not only pass into corporate hands. Be that as it may, these immigrants or day workers are definitely little better than wage-slaves to these big agricultural or retail operations, and so they get a lot of direct profit from their hard work.

Because of the way our system works, everybody profits greatly from the quasi-slave labor. Large corporations benefit the most obviously from them by being able to keep prices extremely low while still being very profitable, but we get the benefit of the low prices that in turn free up more of our resources to engage in other economic activities. That's why the finger-pointing is so ridiculous, because we're all STILL going to Home Depo or Wal-Mart or picking up the cheap produce at Kroger.

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

I'm of the mind that we address the illegal immigration by making legal immigration a fairly simple process. Basically you show you aren't a felon, a terrorist or carrying some virulent horizontal-transmissing disease, then promise to uphold the tenets of US citzenry and boom, done deal. This requires we completely overhaul welfare as it currently functions, and probably strip education out of the Feds hands, but in the long run I say we take every eager soul we can find and work them into the great American fabric.

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

Do you really think if we had sent Japan a few more gifts and trinkets, we could have avoided causing Pearl Harbor? That's a really unsettling suggestion that we're to blame for those attacks. I'm no history expert but blaming the victim just smacks up in my grill as wrong.

I think your thoughts on the current situation are valid, but drawing this correlation seems hyperbolic at best, outright contradictory at worst.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Trinkets? No.

However, if we had extended our diplomatic options or not had our ambassadors on an insultingly short leash, I do believe that the Japanese expansionism could have been contained.

There's obvious points in the buildup to war in Europe and Asia where the United States might not have been able to forstall the war, but certainly could have reduced the intensity and/or placed a brake on some of the nastier excesses - think of the bombing of US ships and expedition/embassy troops in China when Japan began to invade.

If, rather than taking the stance of it being "A Chinese and Japanese dispute" we had intervened diplomatically or otherwise, the aggressive expansion would have been slowed, and Japan would not have gotten the idea that the US would not respond to attacks and could be cowed, leading to the Pearl Harbor decision.

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

Interesting analysis, though it intrigues me how some of your proposals trend more with a Bush Doctrine type of foreign policy, that of an active, policing-style authority could have created Japanese containment.

All that said, I think the States' position on Japan was a well-hedged bet that they wouldn't draw the mammoth into the fight, which we've seen in recent times only works when the aggressor has something to lose. In hindsight, I figure the attack probably seemed retarded to the Jap generals.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

The place where I think I differ from the Bush Doctrine (and be free to disagree - I'm having fun with this!) is that in the Nanking situation, agents of a government (armed troops) rather than independent partisans or non-connected parties (Al Qaeda, Iraq) had taken direct action not only against another nation, but against clearly marked United States citizens, personell, and infrastructure.

Now, certainly, in 9/11, we have an attack by those partisans, and when a government gave them official sanction (Afghanistan) we had recourse and justification to act - but once we had become involved there, especially after the hunt for those partisans seemed to take a back seat to very loosely, if at all connected objectives, the justification was lost.

To use my analogy of what we could have (and probably should have) done in Nanking, if the US had set up a naval cordon to prevent the Japanese invasion from going farther, and brought in military support for the Chinese government (such as it was), it would have been justified. If we then followed that up by invading Dutch Curacao or New Zealand, it would not have been.

The General Staff, for the most part, were already saying it was a bad idea before they did it. It was mostly Togo and his political leadership, along with a selected group of miltary brass, who were convinced that by stunning the US we'd be unwilling to go to war in the Pacific.

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid my grasp of the Sino-Japan conflicts is quite vague; US History classes largely ignore these parts and my knowledge of WW2 is almost completely European. Probably 90% of what I know about the Pacific theatre is all the verbal history my Grandpaw gave me which is anecdotal and up close, the other 10% is South Pacific/Tora! Tora! Tora!

Anyway, to circle this back to the beginning, I don't think militarizing the border is such a great idea, but perhaps as spartanfan alludes to, this is more about rattling the sabre as opposed to using it. The police posse that was billed so heavily only netted one arrest, but one might see that as a victory in simply discouraging illegal crossing.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

And I think there's some use in limited sabre rattling (and even more in improving the immigration method, as you suggested), but this is the wrong way to do it.

If the government wants Guardsmen patrolling the borders, I think it's a better thing to have the President get on a conference call to the various governors of Texas, California, Arizona, and Nevada and "Suggest" that the Guardsmen perform patrols and excercises in those areas.

This gets the same thing done, with no need to activate additional emergency powers or violate the normal use/command structure of the Guard.

Now, however, we have a strong indicator that the President is declaring emergency powers for the military under acts that were designed for massive civil insurrection and secession - a bit of overkill, and a very ugly precedent to set.

[tempest56.livejournal.com]

I personally would want to check the wording on this rather closely. Nearly every bill on this topic in the last several years has stated the 'US borders', not 'US border with Mexico'. Which thus makes it apply both to the Canadian border and to all other points of entry within the US. Just what we need. Fuck international relations *further* by bringing in a mass of armed troops to patrol the border with the US' primary trading partner.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Ever hear about Plan Red?

It's a wargame/operational book the military updates every year. In case of war with the UK and her allies, including Canada. Everything up through invasion plans and detailed strike target lists for the Dominion of Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

Even Batman has a kryptonite bullet in the backroom, just in case. You never know if Canada might turn zombie on us.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I'm more reassured that we have plans for everything. I just wish our military planning was as infallible as Bruce's.

[dklegman.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, War Plan Red (as it was) is long gone. As I've read about it, it seems apparent that War Plan Red was glorified busywork given to junior officers after World War 1.

A source on Wikipedia indicates that it, as with most similar plans, was withdrawn in 1939 as it became obvious the US would be fighting the Axis.

(more on the 'color-coded' War Plans is here)

I'm sure it somehow exists as a thought experiment, but the odds of any so-stated war where the US fights the UK to seize Canadian territory and hold it in perpetuity as states is extremely unlikely.

So I'd imagine that these days, Red is only seriously discussed as a product of its time.

It's food for thought, and there's even a naval wargame about the scenario.

Speculating on Crimson

[dklegman.livejournal.com]

As an aside, one could spin the Speculation Dial and imagine that in a Nightmare Future of Post Peak Oil, the US could want to invade Canada for control of oil reserves and pipelines. Let's ignore that if things get that bad, we might not have to.

There are purely speculative questions from that that recommend at least some kind of strategic thought.

F'rinstance, what are the odds that Canada isn't in much worse shape? Could they have a sufficient ability to fight, or buy time? Who else would they sell oil to? How long does the war last? And wouldn't cooler heads negotiate something long before CNN had their maple-leafy 'WAR!' graphics ready?

[chaoticgoodnik.livejournal.com]

Did you read that a bunch of the Minutemen (Nouveaux) are planning to put up a fence along a stretch of the Arizona border? Anytime you have private citizens handling what should be a governmental function (when things are functioning correctly) ... it's not a good sign.

Incidentally, it's not all that easy to become a US citizen, from what I understand. (Imagine the worst bureaucratic runaround you personally ever had to deal with, and multiply by ten.)

The above paragraph should not be interpreted to mean that I'm cool with people entering the country illegally - I'm not, for a variety of reasons.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I saw that - also not exactly a productive sign.

I don't think anyone in these comments is a fan of illegal immigration, but I think we all do agree that legal immigration needs to be drastically improved.

[degraine.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it's pretty much the same story anywhere in the Western world. Unless you're a university graduate or have several hundred thousand dollars and a business plan (or the less successful option - get married to a local), it's a very steep uphill slog.