Another CRISIS in the USA

[LovelyLadyLux]

This is just BREAKING NEWS and is almost beyond belief. The latest crisis in the USA is they are experiencing a huge surge of children crossing the border - 90,126 CHILDREN so far in 2014 just surging across the southern border. In 2013 there were 6,000. These kids are being warehoused in totally inadequate housing. Homeland Security is overwhelmed and can't handle this extreme crisis as they're not set up for this.

Apparently the President of the USA (Obama) caused this as during a speech he gave a list of 13 things that if an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, Nicaragua etc did they couldn't be deported. The main point of his speech that was hear loud and clear by all countries south of the USA border was that IF your children end up in the USA then you have to come to the USA and get them. This created a huge swell of families shoving their children into rail cars and transport them to the USA border and dropping them there.

I definitely will have to read about this matter further. Seems it is a breaking story - another crisis albeit domestic in the making.

[Horus]

The world is fraught with stupid politicians opening their mouths and then putting their foot in it.

[LovelyLadyLux]

This story just broke last night when somebody took photos of all these kids from central American countries being transported and then warehoused at the border. There were literally thousands. Then the broadcaster went on to say the Gov't has been busing these kids into border cities, dropping them on street corners where locals were picking them up. This was apparently being done as Homeland Security guys were overwhelmed.

Unfortunately I was somewhat busy and only had the TV on in the background and I wasn't able to get too many details.

The theory is that President Obama in a speech earlier this year gave 13 points that if done would prevent that person from being deported. One being if a child got to the USA and the parents had to arrive to get this child they wouldn't be deported!! This has started an enormous mass rush to the border of children!!

I wouldn't have believed this was even true except I do watch a legitimate TV New channel and I saw the video clips AND I quite believe President Obama capable of making stupid speeches that cause greater problems for the USA.

I know I harp on about the USA but having been there, worked there and lived adjacent to this country all my life I'm somewhat saddened to see how 1 man has been able to create such havoc and IS succeeding in bringing this country down.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Now that a few photos has gotten out about the new influx of Central Americans the politicians are weighing in. The border - between USA and Mexico - is totally overwhelmed. Parents are letting their 4 and 5 yr olds just wander across the border HOPING they'll get picked up. Apparently some of the diseases (MRSA, measles, chicken pox etc) are starting to emerge and there are no innoculations sufficient to cover all these people.

Another tragedy in the making.

[Horus]

Little is being said on UK TV about this influx LLL

[Grandad]

Anything like that is being overshadowed by the increasing crisis in Iraq. So many people, including friends on here, were uncomfortable that the long term effect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq not not been fully thought through. Our concerns are now coming into effect whilst Blair is getting wealthier and wealthier.

This is probably a subject for a separate thread but the middle east is looking more volatile than ever.

[Horus]

You echo my own thoughts Grandad, all that effort and for what? This should be a salutary lesson to the West, keep out of Middle East affairs, it never works regardless of how good our intentions are. Saddam Hussein may have been an utter *******, but so what? so was Gaddaffi, so was Mubarak and so is Bashir in Syria, but at least these people are strong men who kept the country stable. Some countries work well with democracies and some don’t, just take China as an example, a Communist state but doing very nicely thank you and moving forward in the world with its people getting richer all the time.

To my mind the Middle East needs dictators to control what is basically a very fragmented and still mainly tribal area fragmented further by religion. Had we left Iraq alone there would have been many tragedies, but eventually it would have boiled over and settled down again, neighbouring countries would have fought over the scraps and we would go back to square one with another despot in control, if the people themselves don’t know what they want then how are we going to know any better.

In the past we have been rushed and cajoled into some sort of intervention by all the bleeding hearts using the humanitarian argument and all it has done is to make things worse. At least with Syria most people have said enough is enough and they can sort out their own problems and at least in their case it does seem to be working, the dictator has not been deposed and some semblance of order seems to be being maintained within the country. I just hope we are not railroaded again into some form of intervention.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Hmmm - I posted a mid-sized reply last evening and today nada.......where did my thoughts go? (Course I think about this all the time anyway)

Mostly I was agreeing with you Horus. I'm sure that those men (Hussein, Ghaddafi, Mubarak etc) were extreme tyrannts and what they did to keep control wasn't, by our standards, acceptable but what is the answer? Not trying to minimize their actions but overall is it better to terrorize just those few individuals who cross their paths OR have the entire country in upheaval as it is in Syria and Iraq now?

We didn't do anything going into Iraq. The cost to us to capture one man was incredible and then what? Decades of people living in chaos and now even the chaos is deteriorating into worse chaos. I truly believe we need to keep our noses and values out of other countries particularly the Middle East.

Seems Iraq is on the verge of imminently blowing apart. All our efforts and there is nothing except extreme loss of life and a very unstable situation.

[Grandad]

Probably forgot to click the submit button LLL.....you are not alone, I have done the same. Safest approach if you are likely to write more than a couple of lines is ro do it in Word or similar word processor, then copy and paste it into your post.

But on the subject in question, William Hague our foreign secretary, has stated categorically that we will not put boots on the ground. It seems to still leave an option for air attack.

The US is apparently saying that 'all options are open'. I didn't like the sound of that. But in an interview last evening on our TV, Hilary Clinton said that she is totally against any involvement but the Whitehouse statement is normal political speak so as not to be seen as coming down on one side or the other. She has just published a memoir and I was persuaded to think that I would probably like to read it. I enjoyed her interview with Jeremy Paxman. Paxo, as we know him , has a reputation for being a hard hitting interviewer but I think Hilary used her charm to humour him.

[Horus]

The more I think about Iraq the less sympathy I have for them, after all the effort and loss of lives that America and UK put into removing Saddam Hussein and his infrastructure in order to supposedly free them of a tyrant, what did we get? The current ruling party could not wait to see the back of us and were rather bolshie about us getting out ASAP, so to be honest it’s all on their own heads, I for one have had enough of the Middle East and the Arab world in particular, regardless of what we do we will always be the bad guys. Once they are left completely alone they will cease to have a scapegoat for all their ills, they will just have to blame each other for a change.

It is fairly obvious that left unchecked Iraq will probably break up with Turkey, Syria and Iran being major players in the area and a new Caliphate created that spans some the existing national borders of those countries and ruled over by this new ISIS group, who incidentally are worse (if that’s possible) than Al Quada ever were.

The biggest mistake we made was to dismantle Saddam’s Ba’ath party and its infrastructure as that left nothing militarily powerful in its place. We should have learned a lesson from the conquest of Japan when great military leaders like McArthur left the Japanese police and even parts of the Japanese army in civilian control to maintain law and order. What we saw as a result was a smooth transition from a conquered belligerent enemy and populace slowly being transformed into a well governed country that continued to prosper after the war ended with little or no real problems.

[LovelyLadyLux]

I've sometime thought - and this would NOT be popular - but if we DO decide to intervene (anywhere in the world) it could be better to go with full force for a month and lay waste. A complete Ground Zero then leave. I realize this would be horrendously awfully tragic ++++++ but it would also be over and done with. What we have in Iraq now is a totally traumatized population and a generation that knows nothing but strife, conflict and violence. I know this is extremely radical and would never happen (although Hiroshima is still in memory) but what IS the greater good? To try and do something that drags for years at financial cost to everybody and then we can never extricate? OR go in guns blazing and cripple? OR and I think this is best - we mind out own business in the first place and let everybody else make their own decisions.

[Grandad]

These are middle east Islamic problems and we MUST have learned by now that our intervention will always fail.

Their problem, they must sort it: We simply do not understand the culture and psyche of the Islamic sect and tribal history and make up. Opinion on TV last evening was that even Syria is beginning to show signs of resolution. We didn't get involved there and, if the pundits are right, it may resolve itself, and Assad will still be in charge.

On the suggestion of the big foot short sharp solution LLL, things like that simply cannot work. In any conflict where the west becomes involved there is always a period of months getting the logistics sorted. Iraq was supposed to be short and sharp and look how that turned out not least in the loss and maiming of military servicemen.

For once let's just step aside and let the problems resolve themselves, and if that means more hard line dictators, well it worked in the past.........

[Horus]

I agree on both counts, we should keep well away, it is not our problem, but if ever we are forced for whatever reason to go to war then it must be total. You cannot pussyfoot around, you either intend to destroy your opponent or you do not bother in the first place, this idea of friendly limited wars is a load of tosh, the enemy doesn't fight that way.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Well my post disappeared again! Wonder what is going on?

Anyway - the readers digest version of what I recall saying was that we can't seem to understand WE are marching to a different drummer, not everybody in the world can hold our values. Said lots more than that but that was the gist.

President Obama actually said re: Iraq that he isn't going to say anything for a few days but it doesn't seem he is going to go the route of military intervention.