Illegal Immigration And The War

What do they have in common? The fact we've gotten ourselves into both messes and haven't a clue how to get out. There are as many opinions on how to extract ourselves from the war as there are members of Congress and Presidential candidates. The same, I dare say, applies to the illegal immigration problem.

As of right now I rather like Bill Richardson's solution for the war. Total withdrawal now. Total chaos will ensue. We don't have it now? We're told how Iraq will devolve into a civil war. Is there not a consensus that we have that now? I would suggest it had been in progress before we ever got involved militarily. The difference being it was kept under the dictatorial thumb of Saddam Hussein and we weren't trying to keep an unwanted order in the middle of it.

It is said we worry about the oil. It isn't there now and won't be for some time to come. It isn't going to pay for squat. We cannot change cultural differences we don't understand. We cannot rebuild the damage we inflicted to the country's infrastructure with "shock and awe" as long as the insurgents come in on our heels and blow it up again. It will play out as it will in time whether we are there or not. Building the largest embassy in the world, Senators suggesting forays into Iran to disrupt the weapons and manpower pipelines don't help nor does removing troops to perimeters to play watchdog. It seems to me it is likely to continue to build resentment rather than diminish it.

Our soldiers continue to die over indecision. We should be asking every candidate for President how they feel about not only their solution to this mess but what their philosophy is about waging war in the first place. That pre-emptive wars are wrong, period, might be a good start.

The same perplexity applies to the immigration problem that is the current domestic hot button. It is not about persecuting "landscapers" while we should be pursuing "terrorists" as Ted Kennedy suggests. It cannot be about "no amnesty" as others insist. It is about not providing enough manpower and oversight to stem the influx. They estimate we have twelve million illegals in the country. Twelve Million! And now we're concerned about it?

Heck, when Bacchus gets a flea I deal with it immediately. I don't wait until he has twelve million of them!

Face it. If you do nothing it is amnesty. If you do anything it will include some form of amnesty unless you have a viable plan for identifying and corralling twelve million individuals. Admit it and move on.

So now what? How do you find, what's more round up these twelve million? You can't identify them by appearance any more than you can tell the good Iraqis from the insurgents. They don't wear defining uniforms. Even if they did there would no doubt be a flourishing counterfeit business here just as there is in Iraq where uniforms of any stripe are readily available in the marketplace. You can bet they are not going to step forward to identify themselves.

So come on politicians. Get real. Come up with something that makes actual sense before bombarding us with your thought process. Or lack thereof. You don't have to posture to make us believe you are actually working your three and a half days a week along with the months you take off for "recess". All you have to do is come up with workable plans and how to fund them. We'd be in such appreciative shock we'd probably even applaud you.