Friday, January 11, 2019

the wall

"If U.S. President Donald Trump declares a national emergency as a way to divert military funding to pay for his long-promised border wall without lawmakers’ consent, the Pentagon will be prepared with roughly $3 billion in ready funds, a U.S. defense official told Foreign Policy Thursday."

I don't have much to say that has not already been said, other than the fact that Jerciho's Walls did not work, and neither did Hadrian's nor did China's Great Wall.  And I believe the cost of building, and maintaining, those walls helped to bring economic ruin on the states that built them. 

While it may discourage some, it will not daunt others.  I guess the idiot in chief never heard of tunnels and ladders? 

And lastly:  cui bono?  What connections are there between the bidders and the greedy shit hogs in the halls of congress?

IIRC the FM on Defensive Operations says that fortifications must be covered by fire or they are otherwise worthless. Or words to that effect.  


  1. It's really depressing.

    It looks like Trump will probably declare the national emergency, which is, I think, an escalation about which nothing positive can be said. $3 billion for a few miles of wall on DoD land is a small thing compared with using emergency powers to "win" a political dispute.

    In your last thread I argued Trump's comments weren't very important. Here his actions, assuming he takes them, are of major importance in my opinion. At the very least it is another ratchet in the guillotine hanging over our the legitimacy of our political institutions - an unjustified misuse of Executive power for purely political ends.

    If Congress had an ounce of decency or honesty they would fulfill their checks-and-balances role and rescind the overly-broad emergency authority delegated to the Executive - but they are not even discussing that, much less acting on it. Instead, they and the elites are talking about how this action will be used to justify other unilateral Executive actions by future Presidents.


    1. Keep in mind he's easily manipulated, has low energy and no courage.

      I expected him to turn into Mussolini 2.0, but he's way too incompetent, ineffective and timid for that.

    2. Oops, sorry, thought this was a Chief post, so ignore the "in your last thread" part.

    3. I'm FDChief and I endorse this message, tho, Andy, so it counts... ;P

  2. The "economic ruin" thing is incorrect. Hadrian's wall may even have been profitable, since it enabled proper customs (as with the Germanic limes as well). After all, the Romans outsourced the costs to the locals and used the troops who would be paid anyway.

    The Maginot line is a more appropriate example, and the walls erected by the occupiers in Baghdad to separate shi'ite areas from sunni areas were soon holed in many places.

    The real issue with "the wall" is not economic or even only about the fact that the border is already equipped with obstacles and surveillance to the sensible level.

    The real issue is that it's fake nonsense - even a perfect insulation and closing of the land and river border would not solve any of the supposed problems because there are other avenues and the supposed problems are in plain disconnect with reality.

    We in Europe have an actual problem with us not getting some legislative things right. It's in part about pols so focused on administration that they don't know how to reform (indeed don't even think of it), in part it's different political motivations (ranging from attempting a stand against xenophobia and racism to promoting both) and governments are thinking way too much inside the box.

    So our immigration issues are a politicians problem first and foremost. The annoying fact that migrants game our system is secondary to this, and any net costs incurred by the migrants are tertiary IMO.
    Meanwhile, the Americans don't really have a net immigration issue to complain about at all. There are just a bunch of dudes who dislike or even hate brown people.

  3. Sven -

    You may be correct about Hadrian's Wall. But I find it strange that several Roman emperors abandoned it, either to throw up more fortifications further north (the Antonine Wall), or to abandon the idea completely. Maintaining an Empire is costly. It was not just walls in Britain that were a cost to maintain, but also the Limes Germanicus that you mentioned. And elsewhere.

    There is some hint in Wikipedia that Hadrian, like Trump, built the wall as a political statement. They reference that to Anthony Everitt's bio of Hadrian:

  4. Throw in the difference that the earlier walls you mention, mike, were all built to protect portions of the builders' polities that were at legitimate risk of armed incursions (at best) or invasions (worst). If there are Pictish mosstroopers or Mongol riders on the horizon fixed defenses make some sense. Abuelas and potential chicken processors? Not so much.

    And here's two things to remember about this, always;

    1) There. Is. No. "Crisis". There's no "emergency". The border crossings are a trickle compared to a decade ago, and are a bagatelle compared to the real, huge, nearly insoluble emergency that is included within the label of "climate change", which this Administration appears to consider a Red Chinese hoax not worth knocking a nickel off some coal company's profits for, and

    2) This is something the GOP has been building a constituency for for years, since at least Newtie Gingrich's heyday and possibly as far back as Nixon's "Southern Strategy"; assemble a coalition of rubes, bigots.."rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists" that would be willing to put the federal system to the sword to get the white supremacy and tax cuts and deregulation that they wanted. Andy despairs of the Senate...why is the Senate so useless? Could it be...that the Republican majority and its "leadership" are terrified of the CHUDs that Rushbo, Coulter, Malkin, and Three Dolts on a Divan will unleash on them if they defy the Orange Emperor's temper tantrum over a mnemonic device intended to remind him to be racist and xenophobic on the stump?

    Face it, gang; without a sensible "conservative" party, given the way the federal government was designed - with a crap-ton of veto points - to function, we're all so, so, so, SO Fucked.

    That the MAGAts will burn and drown along with the rest of us is pretty cold comfort at this point.

  5. We're not hearing rumblings that the Great Fool plans to do this.

    For all you hear things about Trump doing this or that unconstitutional, this seems to me to be the first really, openly, blatantly unconstitutional thing he's considering. Article 1, Section 8 makes pretty clear that fiscal authority resides in Congress. If the Executive wishes to fund something it has to go through Congress. If Congress doesn't fund it it doesn't get funded. That was the basis for the crimes that constituted "Iran-Contra", and that will be a crime if this is done in pursuit of a fake "emergency".

    We'll have to see what happens if he does...