Steve beat me (“Mexico Just Busted Up A Caravan – Hundreds Arrested“) in putting up the news that the Central American “caravans” may be near the end of their political lifespans. We’ve been writing about these for a while now as we at GraniteGrok do see them as a slow rolling existential threat given the political groups that are behind, funding, organizing, and running them. I had been thinking of an aligned idea for a bit on The Wall but for the moment, let me switch to a tangent.
Von Clauswitz: “War is the continuation of politics by other means“; most of us in the political or military realms are quite familiar with that quote. However, until I went searching for it, I never had seen this with is at the end of the paragraph that contains the above quote (emphasis mine):
But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.
“War is the means”. Most people take that to mean military might (and the US has great gobs of it). However, I’ve oft written about “lawfare” – a non-military means of carrying out war by other means but always with a given “political view is the object” mentality. Instead of using guns, planes, and ships to wage war, lawfare is the use of legal means of entangling one’s opponent with the same end result as military war: break one’s opponent’s will to fight (or, since this war by legal means, get a judge to rule for you, get a jury to side with you, or financially ruin your opponent). And then there is Donald Trump.
For the first time in my lifetime, we have a President that has joined two powerful ideas – that Americans need their interests placed uppermost in the minds of their elected leaders and that America’s economic might should be used to further American interests (as opposed to appeasing globalists of any type and that we should be ashamed of our economic might that is the result of individual Liberty being used a citizen in their “pursuit of Happiness”.
Back to Steve; he had this at the end of his post (reformatted, emphasis mine):
I’ve heard reported, comes a week after President Trump threatened a new Tariff on auto imports if Mexico did not do more to stop the caravans. This looks like a change in policy. This looks like a change in policy. But we won’t know until we see changes to the growing crisis on our southern border.
We Americans have gone through a raft of “who is or soon will be better than us economically?” and the press (and “experts”) have moaned and groaned about how the US has lost its edge and we will soon be passed by Germany, then Japan, then the newly formed EU, followed by the Asian Tigers and finally now, China. Frankly, each of the former examples turned out to be about as true as the Eco-Apocalypse nonsense I’ve been listening to for the last 50 years – blowhards all (albeit we don’t know how China will turn out just yet).
President Trump, I believe, truly understands how to wield America’s economic power in support of American interests (as opposed to former Presidents that all too often acted like they were ashamed that we were so successful compared to everyone else). Thus, go back to the pull quote from Steve’s post and read it again. Much of what Trump is accomplishing on the foreign policy stage is directly hooked into that power – look at Iran, dealing with Venezueala, sanctions on them and on Russia as well. And he willing to apply a rather deft hand in turning on and turning off elements with that power to accomplish policy objectives that favor American workers and citizens.
So, with all that off my chest, the point of this post: The Wall.
Trump has been stymied by the Democrats AND Republicans on filling one of his biggest campaign promises – Build The Wall. He has been blocked by lawfare by Democrat or Never-Trumper judges, sued by Democrats in lots of political offices both local and national, and he’s been the butt of jokes on “well, where’s that Mexican money to build The Wall, eh?”
Sidenote: he ought to tax outbound remittances and I can’t understand why that hasn’t been done yet. Done right, it could easily pay for the Wall (although I am very loathe to allow any level of Govt yet another new revenue stream).
So, the Mexican Govt has finally gotten serious about illegal immigration through their own country (after allowing and abetting it up until now)? Is it listening to its own Citizens who are complaining enough is enough? And has a combination of Trump’s economic “persuasion”, both in aid and in penalties, started to make a difference? Let me add this as well…
Democrats have always been against building a physical wall (up until Trump threatened to ship illegal aliens to Sanctuary Cities and States: re: Cher and now NYT Columnist and “futurist” Tom Friedman are now saying to build the wall) but would allow for a virtual wall. Their idea was to have all kinds of electronic sensors, drones, and the like to monitor the border. Problem is, they don’t stop illegals from crossing the border and then claiming asylum due to our dysfunctional immigration law in that regard (or as Democrats are wont to say about Second Amendment issues, “loopholes”).
So, Steve’s reporting on Mexico is showing that with Trumps prodding, he’s killing two stones with one bird (just gimme that, huh? It’s the end of the week):
- A virtual wall
- Mexico is paying for it
The Mexican government knows where these caravans are (and they probably know the smuggler and cartel routes as well) and they are spending their own money on their own forces to stop the caravans. They won’t even get to our border. Democrats must be crying in their cups – they now have their “virtual wall” not in the way of sensors on OUR side of the border but on the MEXICAN side (both electronic and human intel).
Two stones, one bird. IF this keeps up, Trump has The Wall. Sure, not a physical one, but one that works all the same – both campaign promises fulfilled.
Democrats are gonna hate that…..
