Is it strange that I find myself agreeing with the guy who believes that extreme-climate-change-will-lead-to-the-end-of-the-world?
It is weird how uncomfortable Americans are around someone who isn't distinctively left or right, but takes the best from both sides That's what happens when you're a poor kid who had to work for it his whole life, no time for false news or excuses
I feel sorry for those that believes hundreds of millions of people will soon be arriving to our shores.
Oftentimes the rationale is that giving aid is cheaper than paying to protect ourselves from the consequences. The aid to El Salvador for example was a 5-year deal for a few hundred million dollars that was intended to make the country more stable and prosperous to not create a flow of migrants to the US. Trump's alternative is $8 billion now on a wall, with another umpteen billion later. I bet we could buy a lot of stability and prosperity in El Salvador with just $1 billion with a similar promise of benefit for us. El Salvador's civil war ended in 1992. Guatemala's in 1996. The US was up to their elbows on both of those, including operationalizing the counter-insurgencies that committed atrocities like massacres and disappearances. And those were both long-running affairs that produced refugees that crossed the US' then-porous border. They formed MS-13 and Barrio 18 in the US. In 1996, we made it our policy to deport all criminal immigrants, which sent a bunch of gang members back to these countries who are now driving the current crisis in the Northern Triangle and producing the refugees we see today. So I think absolutely we can say that the problems we're dealing with today are our own making. And, if we don't deal with this crisis the right way, we'll be making the problems that will come home to roost in the future.
Well, the problem with this train of thought is the idea that any such monies we give will reach the people, instead of just lining the pockets of leaders/dictators. It seems like the latter happens a lot. I hadn't heard this, but I don't doubt it. I think our govt gets involved in a lot of foreign internal struggles that we don't hear about (or hear much about). I wish it were otherwise. The problem here is that if we do nothing (which is what I'd prefer), then we have all the human rights people crying "why won't the US do something?" Ukraine is another case. I don't think Americans ever realized the depths of US meddling there about 10 years ago; perhaps even still. So, we're sort of darned if we do and darned if we don't. But I wish we would stay out of countries internal affairs until it clearly impacts us. We'd almost certainly have less blowback if we were less interventionist. But I would guess I'm preaching to the choir with this stuff....
Sure that can happen (though currently all 3 are actual, if somewhat corrupt, democracies). Obama's package came with key performance indicators to address this risk, and I believe not all the monies were released to these 3 countries because not all the KPIs were met. Still, things do seem to moving in a positive direction in some ways at least. The murder rates have been declining. GDPs have had good growth rates. Literacy continues to improve. Except for El Salvador, gang membership is declining. Hard to know if the money was helpful or not, but we've had progress in the right direction at least. And of course, there is the same concern with the wall too -- that is in fact the loudest objection. That we would spend all this money (much more than we'd give in aid) and it doesn't even solve the problem. Illegals will find other ways in, drugs will continue to come through ports, and we spent all this money for nothing. On this we can agree. I don't want to be in Syria or Yemen or whatever. I don't want to challenge China. The one caveat for me is 'our backyard' North America. I wish we did a lot more to make the countries on our continent stronger democracies and stronger economies -- using positive relationships instead of clandestine operations.
