We should take in 150 thousand of those kids from Central America, let them spend ten years here in our decaying cities with our help and support and then send them home.
The United States has stumbled through regime change and nation building for over 13 years now, looking for some way to secure the planet for our economic and political agenda. It’s more than clear this is failing every bit as badly as the proxy wars and covert operations of a generation earlier. Unwilling to wake up from the materialistic petroleum powered dream of the 1960s, America continues to squander its surviving wealth and influence trying to control the world.
Almost no one believes we’re really trying to bring democracy and freedom to the world, even in the US any longer. The profits at Halliburton and Exxon make it clear we’ve spent 20 years providing profit and security for multinational corporations which aren’t really “American” any longer.
Central America is a prime example of how what we do, doesn't work. We spent decades messing around with these countries. They've been overrun with CIA operations, covert activities and bases. We pay the generals which periodically take over the government or run it from behind the scenes. We screw up entire nations merely to assure the profits of a fruit company. We maintain unpopular, ineffective governments to footnote conservative political agendas at home.
What did Hugo Chavez ever do to the US that caused us any real problem? How does supporting a corrupt military in Honduras “undermine” him, particularly after he’s dead? Are we even qualified to have an opinion on what day of the week it is in El Salvadore? Probably not. We’re so blinded by exceptional American ignorance we can’t govern our own country or anybody elses any longer.
I’m not an expert on Central America, but I have friends working there and friends who are from there. I know that in the countries the US has had the most influence over, crime is out of control. The men in control of their government don’t need the population’s support or cooperation. We’ll send money and guns to keep them in power. What happens on the street isn’t their concern.
We have entire cities falling apart and empty of people in America. We squander billions on military aid to support Generals who are making a mess of their countries. All of this is to secure countries which allegedly will be friendly to the United States and share our values, whatever those really are. It's been an epic, expensive, chronic disaster that violates the basic principles of success by insulating those in control from the consequences of their decisions.
For a fraction of that that costs, we could feed, educate and clothe these young people. We could pull their backs off the wall of fear and provide them with the opportunity to grow up and learn. They could learn English, Agriculture, communications and whatever else we’re prepared to help them learn. We could enlist them in our military, teaching programs and agricultural development programs. We could even send them, after a while, to work on our development programs in other countries.
What could 10 thousand young people make and do in a city like Detroit if they had a roof over their head and knew where their next meal was coming from? What could happen there over the years? How could they establish communication with their families back at home? What could they become if they knew they were going to have to make something work?
Than, in about 2024 we could send them home, by the tens of thousands, as a sort of large scale Peace Corps to rebuild their countries. We could support their efforts in their own countries until they’re on their feet. It would be more than the Generals could shut down and if they tried, we could simply cut off their money and the guns. I’m sure it would be messy, but I know what young people that age can do and they might be able to give the gangs a run for their money.
I’m sure it’s a simple minded plan with lots of defects, but paying Generals to prevent Honduras from being socialist hasn't been working and it’s been very expensive. We don’t even know how much our activities in El Salvador have cost. I don’t even know what we’ve done to Guatemala, but that hasn't been working either.
We say America still has something to offer the world. If that’s true weapons and money haven’t made it real in Central America. Countries we haven’t been able to dominate, like Costa Rica and Nicaragua aren't sending tens of thousands of desperate people to us through the desert. I can only guess which population hates us more.
Perhaps we should allow these young people to learn about our country from the inside and take back home, when they’re ready, what they believe is useful. We won’t be in control of that process, but the process we think we control hasn't been working.