Ugly Hedgehog - Photography Forum
Home Active Topics Newest Pictures Search Login Register
The Attic
About Walls....
Page 1 of 13 next> last>>
Jan 10, 2019 16:59:05   #
Twardlow Loc: Arkansas
 
ARGUMENT

Walls Don’t Work

As the Great Wall’s history shows, border fortifications are expensive, divisive—and useful political tools.

BY PAMELA KYLE CROSSLEY | JANUARY 3, 2019, 1:41 PM


The idea of throwing up a border wall to prevent incomers is pretty old and has never worked very well. History is adorned with famous walls, from the Sumerian Wall of Mardu 4,000 years ago onward, and the moments their defensive pretensions collapsed. The ruins today remind us that using a wall to prevent incursions is the oldest and weakest idea in the arsenal of the state—one reason why almost nobody has tried to make them work for the last thousand years.

The most romanticized wall, the Great Wall of China, reminds us that walls are nevertheless good for something. The origins of the wall lay in a network of local walls built by the separate principalities of ancient China before its unification under a central ruler in 221 B.C. That ruler, known to history as Qin Shi Huang, cobbled together the northerly facing walls and built them higher. Then as now, China had three other sides, but they were protected by mountains and by the sea.

China had an enemy on the northern side of the wall, the formidable nomadic Xiongnu, who could muster a hundred thousand riders or more. The wall could force the Xiongnu to ride around it, or at least around its strongest sections, expending the supplies, time, and energy of horse and man. Infantry who wanted to climb the wall found it hazardous and laborious, though not impossible. It did not amount to much in the way of security, but it certainly created an interesting obstacle course for anybody invading from the north.

The Great Wall of China’s greatest material uses were for surveillance and for customs regulation. The elevated towers on the wall allowed effective survey of the landscape and any movement on the other side. Like other historical walls, the Great Wall was a fancy way of getting large contingents of watchmen up where they could see.

And like many other walls, the Great Wall had fairly regularly spaced gates—all vulnerable to being burned and hacked by determined enemies. In this case they could be opened to allow Chinese armies out on those occasions when some ruler based in China decided to invade Mongolia or Manchuria. But they were most useful as customs stations. China has traded vigorously with all neighbors and a large number of distant lands for most of its history. Along with that, it has always attempted to regulate trade and suppress contraband. A series of big gates separated by an imposing wall was just the thing. Weary merchants with lumbering camels generally chose to enter through the gate and be taxed rather than attempt to clamber over the walls.

There was another use for the wall. In China as elsewhere, hewn granite blocks and good bricks were appreciated as pilferable materials for the construction of streets, churches, temples, houses, and pigsties, causing walls to shrink and practical architecture to sprout throughout the ancient and medieval worlds.

Yet even beyond these advantages, the true magic of the wall was and is its value as a political tool. It was the first emperor’s first public works project. It symbolized the vast scale of his personal rule. The imposition of forced labor to get the wall to the desired size demonstrated his coercive power. The tight control he exercised over income—all to the glory of the wall—and expenditure strengthened his grip on the bureaucracy and the army. His demands for more revenue for the wall caused the state to steadily enlarge.

Similar effects resulted the time a ruler based in China decided upon a program to repair and augment the wall. In the Ming dynasty, which ran from 1368 to 1644, the most extravagant project produced the look of the wall recognized today. And from Ming times to the present the wall was invoked, in words or in image, to represent the integrity of China as it faced its perpetual challengers from the north, the imposing power of Chinese rulership, and the universal magnificence of China past, present, and future.

That is the sense in which the wall has been employed through the 20th and 21st centuries—as the all-purpose brand name of products intended to show China’s technical and commercial prowess: cigarettes, playing cards, underwear, cameras, herbal medicines, computers, and an SUV that Americans can expect to have in their showrooms by 2022. For patriotic displays, nothing beats a video of the Great Wall with flags flying from every turret while some ecstatic chorus belts out the national anthem. The Great Wall is so critical to Chinese pride that the formidable length of its distinct Ming period manifestation (about 5,500 miles) is for purposes of state statistics inflated by the addition of virtually every bit of wall rubble in north China, for a grand total of over 13,000 miles. When it comes to a symbol of executive power or national pride, facts are no object.

Now a U.S. president is going on about a wall. The year is 2019, and defensive walls have been abandoned for hundreds of years, seeing as how people can now fly. The historical surveillance advantages of watchtowers have been more than adequately superseded by drones, satellites, aerial reconnaissance, and even binoculars, which the emperors of China never had. The shining inspiration for President Donald Trump’s wall—or fence, or series of slats—appears to be the 400 miles or so of razor wire that Hungary’s illiberal authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has constructed to force aspiring migrants to his country to trickle through Slovenia.

Trump’s theory is that people who have walked a few hundred miles without adequate food, water, rest, or medical care will find a wall/fence/barrier discouraging, and no doubt many will. Others, as has always been the case, will find the challenge of a wall an insufficient counterweight to the rewards of getting over, under, or around it. They may even remember that the United States has two long coasts, one attached to each end of the hypothetical wall, and that along the way they will find that American smugglers, hunters, ranchers, sovereign citizen landowners, and all-terrain vehicle enthusiasts will have made plenty of punctures in the grand barrier itself.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/03/walls-dont-work/


The World Is Full Of Walls That Don’t Work

Why would Donald Trump want to Build another one?

But what Trump doesn’t understand—ironic, for someone so preoccupied with “winning”—is that building walls between nations is an utter failure of the geopolitical imagination. Walls are a blunt instrument of diplomacy. At best, they offer temporary respite from deeper tensions which usually remain unresolved by separation. At worst, walls can exacerbate the problems they were intended to solve. Put simply, walls do not work as permanent solutions to tough problems. Which is why, ultimately, they fall.

(snip)

Sometimes, barriers can even make things worse. When a wall is built and a lasting solution postponed, its builders run the risk that the temporary fix will aggravate the problem it was designed to alleviate. After all, when a barrier becomes an established feature of the geopolitical landscape, it often offers a rallying point for unresolved tensions, becoming a suppurating wound causing perpetual irritation.

(Snip)

Israel/Palestine

In its modern form, the conflict between Palestine and Israel was born during the British mandate of Palestine following World War I. In 1917, the so-called Balfour Declaration informed Zionists in search of a national homeland that the British government viewed with favor “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for Jewish people.” However, this statement was immediately qualified when it also advised that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.” This diplomatic sleight of hand simultaneously legitimized the claims of both Israel and Palestine—and helped usher in a century of confusion and bloodshed.

Almost immediately, there were problems. Arab nations were resolutely opposed to any kind of negotiations on anything (territorial or otherwise) with Israel; and Israel was not about to surrender the toehold that the Balfour Declaration had offered. Disputes over the dimensions of partition for separate Palestinian and Israeli states lingered until the United Nations produced its own plan for a political settlement in 1947, granting territory to form a new state of Israel. Less than a year later, the first Arab-Israeli war broke out, and in one form or another, the battles have continued ever since.

Today, rather than try to forge a lasting peace with an official demarcation of Israeli and Palestinian states, Israel is constructing walls around Palestinian-occupied territories. Israel claims these walls are to protect its citizens from attack. Palestinians counter that this separation barrier is cover for an Israeli attempt to establish de facto territorial limits for a future partition between the two states. From a Palestinian viewpoint, the building of walls by Israelis in disputed territory is simply deepening the crisis, and pushing a peaceful agreement between the two sides further into the future. The wall, in other words, is just adding fuel to the political fire. And as for trying to stop the bloodshed? This summer saw a new wave of violence in the region.


East Berlin/West Berlin

At the end of World War II, Germany was divided into east and west regions, reflecting the respective influences of the Soviet Union and the Euro-American alliance. Germany’s capital city, Berlin, located in East Germany, was also divided into east and west sectors. Sixteen years later, in 1961, migration from East to West Berlin had become so voluminous that East Germany constructed a militarized and fortified barrier zone (composed of multiple walls and fences) across the city to prevent unregulated movement between the two sectors.

The wall was intended to stem the flow of migrants. But it did nothing to solve the deeper problems that were causing the exodus from East Berlin in the first place: a repressive, authoritarian regime that brooked no dissent; and drastically declining standards of living for ordinary citizens who were able to observe the spectacularly successful West German economic recovery simply by looking out their windows. If anything, the wall worked against the Soviet Union, because the West turned it into a powerful symbol of communist oppression, especially when East German guards began killing those trying to cross to West Berlin.

The Berlin Wall remained for 28 years, until 1989. It wasn’t until Soviet influence declined that political support for the wall began to erode. Finally, one night, a combined assault by citizen demolition crews and avid souvenir hunters began tearing down the Wall, allowing Easterners to cross once more without hindrance.


United States/Mexico

One of the most prominent new walls of the 21st century is the newly erected barrier between the United States and Mexico.

The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and was followed by a six-year effort to survey and mark the boundary line between the two nations. Initially, only 52 boundary monuments marked the 2,000-mile boundary, and during the next 140 years, the line was by and large casually observed. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the first fences appeared in major border cities, aimed at stopping the flow of migrant labor from Mexico. But after 9/11, the U.S. government launched a full border fortification program, imposing an unprecedented degree of separation along most of the land boundary.

Over the past 10 years, a total of 651 miles of fortifications have been erected, primarily along the land boundary. They consist of vehicle and pedestrian barriers, supplemented by a high-tech “virtual” surveillance border. The 651 miles were regarded as the maximum length of feasible wall-building, since in many places the terrain was so steep that construction was impossible, and fence construction across reservoirs and other water boundaries was not viable.

Has the border wall worked? Did it help stop undocumented immigration? Well, it turns out that it’s hard to prove that it did.

The U.S. government collects information on many immigration indicators, but no one explicitly measures the volume of undocumented border crossings, or the extent to which the Mexican border is in fact “secure.” We do know that apprehensions fell and deportations rose to a record level in recent years, and consequently, the unauthorized migrant population in the U.S. fell from 12.4 million in 2007 to 11.1 million in 2011. What no one can conclusively prove is how much the 651 miles of wall contributed to this decline in undocumented population in the U.S. About five years ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began saying that the wall was never intended to stop people from crossing, but merely to slow them down so they could more easily be apprehended by conventional methods. So, could it be that doubling the number of U.S. Border Patrol agents to more than 20,000 was a more important factor in achieving these results? Other possible causes mentioned as contributing to the decline included: rising deaths and injuries incurred by border crossers, as well as spiraling costs of assisted border passages; declining job opportunities caused by economic recession in the U.S.; and improvements in the Mexican economy. In a nutshell: undocumented migration into the U.S. is at its lowest level since the 1970s; deportations are at the highest levels ever; but the contribution of the walls and fences in achieving these results cannot even be measured, still less proven.

(Snip)

Truth be told, the wall is more likely to make things worse. It will risk even greater disruption to connections between cross-border communities, increase environmental destruction by building of new fortifications, elevate congestion costs and delays that inhibit binational trade, and further insult and antagonize diplomatic relations with Mexico.

The concept of a “wall” may sound good in political rallies. It purports to identify a source for the country’s ills; it plays on fear-driven nativist sentiments; and it recommends action to solve the problem, however imprecisely the problem is understood. But if you’re looking for effective policy, stay away from building more walls. For centuries, walls have not worked, and ultimately, they always come down.


https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/donald-trump-2016-wall-wont-work-214167

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 17:07:29   #
LWW Loc: Banana Republic of America
 
You do realize that repeating the lie won’t make the lie into truth?

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 17:50:30   #
Twardlow Loc: Arkansas
 
LWW wrote:
You do realize that repeating the lie won’t make the lie into truth?


Why would you expect me to learn that, when you haven’t learned it.

If you see a lie, call me on it.

Be specific.

Don’t compound the situation with 400 year old definitions of “liberal.”

Reply
 
 
Jan 10, 2019 18:36:13   #
LWW Loc: Banana Republic of America
 
Twardlow wrote:
Why would you expect me to learn that, when you haven’t learned it.

If you see a lie, call me on it.

Be specific.

Don’t compound the situation with 400 year old definitions of “liberal.”


This thread is a lie, liar.

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 18:52:40   #
Kraken Loc: Barry's Bay
 
LWW wrote:
You do realize that repeating the lie won’t make the lie into truth?


It seems to work for cadet bone head spurs and you are living proof of that

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 20:31:20   #
Twardlow Loc: Arkansas
 
LWW wrote:
This thread is a lie, liar.


Again you run away....

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 20:36:49   #
John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN
 
Did TV predict Trump. Check this Snopes article.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trackdown-trump-character-wall/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Debunker%20-%20Thursday%2010%20January%202019%20-%20The%20Ballad%20of%20Walter%20Trump&utm_content=Daily%20Debunker%20-%20Thursday%2010%20January%202019%20-%20The%20Ballad%20of%20Walter%20Trump+CID_12b689a80b0e8db7e5199ae8a56842ce&utm_source=CampaignMonitor&utm_term=Read%20more

Reply
 
 
Jan 10, 2019 20:43:17   #
LWW Loc: Banana Republic of America
 

Interesting trivia.

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 21:59:51   #
EyeSawYou
 
You my friend are a habitual liar and BS'er.

Israel-West Bank: The border wall — actually much more a security fence — was constructed in the wake of the 2001-2002 terror campaign in Israel. Almost immediately, the number of successful terror attacks in the Jewish state dropped by 90 percent. Indeed, it is Israel to which the Trump administration and wall proponents might turn to resolve one of the main arguments about duplicating the system along the US-Mexican border. After all, Israel has developed anti-tunnel radar and other technology to stymie Hamas (and Hezbollah) terrorist who might try to tunnel. Jerusalem might have developed that technology for Israel’s own security, but it could just as easily be replicated to detect, interdict, and destroy tunnels under the US border.

Morocco-Algeria: Morocco fought a bloody insurgency and terrorist campaign sponsored by Algeria’s and Cuba’s Cold War proxy, the Polisario Front. The Polisario became ineffective, however, after Morocco built its famous 1,700-mile system of sand berms, fences, mine fields, and ditches.

Cyprus: It was the United Nations which built a wall dividing Cyprus between the northern Turkish portion and the remaining Greek section after Turkey invaded and occupied parts of the island nation in 1974. To cite international law as opposed to walls is, therefore, nonsense since the United Nations created the precedent.

India-Pakistan: India and Pakistan fought wars in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999, that collectively killed millions of people. The two sides have had a more than three decade-long standoff on the Siachen glacier and several skirmishes elsewhere along the disputed border. Because Pakistani terror groups regularly try to infiltrate and wreak havoc in India, India constructed a border fence and wall system to keep Pakistanis out. That’s a good thing, because nowhere else in the world could a simple border incident so quickly escalate into nuclear war.

Turkey-Syria: Throughout the 1990s, Turkey faced an escalating challenge from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group leading a Kurdish insurgency against the Turkish Army. Indeed, Syria only seriously cracked down on the PKK when Turkey credibly threatened war. Turkey subsequently reinforced the border with fences, mine fields, and no-man’s land, and it worked. The next 15 years was largely quiet. It was only when Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan removed many of the defenses and turned a blind eye to border security that the terrorism problem in Syria — and its subsequent blowback inside Turkey itself — grew so great.

There are other walls out there, of course: Saudi Arabia has just built a wall along its disputed border with Yemen to keep Yemeni-based terrorists out of the Saudi Kingdom. India has a long-standing border fence with Bangladesh to prevent illegal immigration. Hungary is building a fence to protect its borders. Greece maintains a heavily protected border with Turkey. Spain fortifies its enclaves in Africa.

Simply put, if the goal is to protect national security and curtail illegal immigration, the record is clear: walls work.


http://www.aei.org/publication/the-places-where-walls-work/

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 22:32:14   #
boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander
 
Twardlow wrote:
Why would you expect me to learn that, when you haven’t learned it.

If you see a lie, call me on it.

Be specific.

Don’t compound the situation with 400 year old definitions of “liberal.”


If walls don't work or are immoral -, why is it that Obama, Schumer, Hillary et al spoke in favor of a wall in 2005 and again in 2013? If walls don.t work why does every prison have walls. If walls dont work why do you lock your door. If walls don't work why is there a wall around the Whitehouse, around tge Clinton home in Chappaqua, or many democrat homes.

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 22:48:46   #
Kraken Loc: Barry's Bay
 
boberic wrote:
If walls don't work or are immoral -, why is it that Obama, Schumer, Hillary et al spoke in favor of a wall in 2005 and again in 2013? If walls don.t work why does every prison have walls. If walls dont work why do you lock your door. If walls don't work why is there a wall around the Whitehouse, around tge Clinton home in Chappaqua, or many democrat homes.


There is something really wrong about your thinking, seriously, no joking you have to go out and seek help.

Reply
 
 
Jan 10, 2019 23:02:14   #
Pegasus Loc: Texas Gulf Coast
 
boberic wrote:
If walls don't work or are immoral -, why is it that Obama, Schumer, Hillary et al spoke in favor of a wall in 2005 and again in 2013? If walls don.t work why does every prison have walls. If walls dont work why do you lock your door. If walls don't work why is there a wall around the Whitehouse, around tge Clinton home in Chappaqua, or many democrat homes.


Of course walls work, and they work very well which is why the Dims are against the wall. In more ways than one.

Walls are very good at preventing people from going where you do not want them to go. They have been in use for thousands of years very successfully.

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 23:05:00   #
Pegasus Loc: Texas Gulf Coast
 
Kraken wrote:
There is something really wrong about your thinking, seriously, no joking you have to go out and seek help.


As usual, you avoid the issue and make no sense. Would you say that you are representative of the Canadiots? Either way it explains a lot about you.

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 23:22:40   #
dirtpusher Loc: tulsa oklahoma
 
Pegasus wrote:
Of course walls work, and they work very well which is why the Dims are against the wall. In more ways than one.

Walls are very good at preventing people from going where you do not want them to go. They have been in use for thousands of years very successfully.


Bet I could put a bullet through your house walls an hit you in your chair.

Reply
Jan 10, 2019 23:29:29   #
Pegasus Loc: Texas Gulf Coast
 
dirtpusher wrote:
Bet I could put a bullet through your house walls an hit you in your chair.


The only thing you're able to shoot off is your big mouth. Oh, I take that back, you're also very good at shooting yourself in the foot.


Also, you are a great example of how angry and hateful the leftists are by expressing your desire to shoot me.

Well done.

Reply
Page 1 of 13 next> last>>
If you want to reply, then register here. Registration is free and your account is created instantly, so you can post right away.
The Attic
UglyHedgehog.com - Forum
Copyright 2011-2024 Ugly Hedgehog, Inc.