The US government has constructed at tremendous cost to its
taxpayers some of the most impressive structures – both architectural and
organizational – of all time. Yet somehow it has failed to build a viable wall
on the Mexican border.
In 1931, during
the Great Depression, the US government began construction of the Hoover Dam,
one of the most ambitious civil engineering projects ever attempted. Employing
thousands of US laborers, some 100 of whom reportedly lost
their lives in the course of the project, the dam is mind-boggling due its
sheer size, rivaling that of the pyramids.
At 726 feet
tall, the wedge-shaped structure is 660 ft (200 m) thick at its base, narrowing
to 45 ft (14 m) at the top, which provides enough room to accommodate a highway
connecting Nevada and Arizona. The project required
millions of cubic feet of concrete – said to be enough to pave a two-lane
highway from San Francisco to New York – and tens of millions of pounds of
steel.
Many decades
later, the US government undertook another extensive project known as the US
Embassy in Baghdad. Although rarely discussed in the US media, this 104-acre
slice of American property in a foreign country is so immense that it rivals Vatican City
in terms of size [the Vatican is an independent city-state, complete with
its own euro-based currency and security detail, located inside of Rome].
Officially
opened in 2009, the $750 million embassy, which is situated in Baghdad’s
so-called Green Zone, is by far the most expansive and expensive embassy in the
world. Why does a foreign nation need a footprint the size of a small country
to house a few thousand diplomats and private contractors? That is a very good
question, but one that was never really pursued by legislators when Congress
approved plans in 2005 for the mega structure under the Bush administration.
To this day,
much of the complex remains under heavy wraps due to “security concerns.” Yet
this behemoth cash cow continues to suck money dry from government coffers; in
2012, just several years after its construction was finished, the Obama
administration requested and got
more than $100 million for a "massive" upgrade to the compound.
Speaking of
Iraq, which suffered military conquest at the hands of US-led forces starting
in 2003, the United States also managed to find ways to construct some 900+
military bases around the world. Needless to say, this is no cheap venture, and
helps to explain why the US military budget is approaching $1
trillion dollars annually – more
than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, and Japan
combined.
In light of
these monumental projects, it goes without saying that the United States
certainly possesses the technical prowess and the financial wherewithal to
perform the simple task of building a wall, and more specifically, a wall on
the Mexican border. Yet thus far, and despite the fact that Donald Trump pledged
on the campaign trail that would be his first task in office, the wall remains
– a bit like Barack Obama’s past promise to shut down Guantanamo Bay detention
center – a pipe dream.
How did we
Americans arrive at a place where such a fundamental element of nationhood –
that is, the ability to control our borders from any and all outside illegal
intruders – is considered a radical concept? Since when did the universally
accepted idea of a strong national border become an issue for debate and
contention among our legislators? Since when have weak, porous borders become a
desired state of affairs for a global superpower, and especially one that has a
habit of attacking sovereign states? Part of the answer seems to lie within the
present atmosphere of political correctness and identity politics that has
conflated the need for a strong border with racism and even white supremacist
ideology. More on that in a moment.
Just this week,
part of the South American ‘caravan’ that the US mainstream media had called a
“myth” has turned
up on
America’s doorstep in the Mexican town of Tijuana. Images show dozens of young
men straddling the top of the border fence with none of the US troops that
Trump activated in sight. Now, if the US Democrats had their way, these
thousands of illegal aliens would be awarded amnesty and shepherded into
‘sanctuary cities’ where these individuals would slip undetected into the
fabric of American society. And for those – including the US president – who voice
opposition to this invasion, they are casually branded as racist or a white
supremacist. However, the real motivation for the Democrats behind such ad
hominem attacks is raw political opportunism.
The Democrats
are actually building part of their platform on awarding asylum to illegals,
and despite the fact that many of these people are not suffering political
repression back home. In fact, most of these people just want to improve their
financial well-being. In other words, the great majority of these new arrivals
– as was established by
on-the-ground interviews – are economic migrants.
And who can
blame anyone for wanting a better life? After all, it was the incentive of
economic opportunity that first brought millions of migrants to America in the
first place. However, the difference between the migrants from past generations
and many of those arriving today is that the former went through a lengthy
legal process for entering the country. Today, it's even worse than just a
matter of legality; it's a matter of criminality on multiple fronts.
What the US
mainstream media fails to inform the American public is that the overwhelming
majority of people from this so-called ‘caravan’ are young, male and oftentimes
dangerous. This much was confirmed by Chris Farrell of Judicial Watch, one of
the only Western journalists to actually travel to South America and report on
the march of migrants firsthand. In addition to reporting that, in his
estimation, some 98 percent of the migrants were young and male, he added that
some of them bore tattoos that identified them as members of the notorious MS13
international crime gang. To get a better understanding of this caravan and the
true makeup of its participants I would encourage the reader to watch
Farrell’s interview in its entirety.
Now this leads
us to the question of constructing a wall on the US-Mexico border. To date,
those efforts have gone fizzled. In March, Congress passed its trillion-dollar
spending bill; glaringly missing from the
numerous pages was funding for construction of Trump’s wall. Instead, $1.6
billion was put aside for “border security,” as well as replacing parts of the
existing fence. In other words, nothing that will prevent illegals from
entering the United States.
Republican Rep.
Jim Jordan said this week that the Trump White House has one last chance – with
a lame duck Republican Congress still in place – to secure funding for the
US-Mexican border wall.
“We
should be focused on that one main thing over the next several weeks as we
still have a few weeks left while Republicans control all of government,”
Jordan said in an
interview.
Time is ticking
like a bomb for the American people to restore control over its southern
border, and there is no good excuse for not completing this monumental
project. Americans should not be cowered by accusations of ‘racism,’ when
the country itself has been founded on the blood, sweat and tears of migrants
throughout history. Much of the so-called racism that exists in America is a
figment of the media's hyperactive imagination. Nor should the expense of the
project – considering the price tag for so many other US adventures and
misadventures, up to and including wars abroad – be a reason for preventing
it.
The overall
cost of failing to protect America’s border will far excel the total price of a
wall if action is not taken now. It's time for America to act like a real
nation – a superpower with a backbone – and protect its border.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/11/20/america-has-built-800-military-bases-worldwide-why-cant-build-mexican-border-wall.html
