The proposed Donald Trump wall to protect United States citizens from the supposed threat posed by some illegal immigrants crossing the U.S. southern border is a well-known, well-proven, expensive, dangerous, politically motivated failure.
First, even if — contrary to fact — there is a real threat to the U.S., the historical record indicates no wall has ever effectively protected any nation state.
Medieval moats, the Maginot Line (a disastrous French defensive strategy in the First World War), former U.S. president Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars defence initiative (every U.S. scientist advised him it was a waste of money that wouldn’t work, and, unlike the current U.S. president, Reagan listened, saving billions of tax money), the concrete reinforced East Berlin Wall, and a proposed toxic nuclear liquid perimeter ditch around Israel’s borders in the 1960s were all determined failed strategies, either in advance or after the fact.
Second, every wall has two sides, posing a threat to those inside and outside it. It may keep some potential threats out, but at the same time, it walls in, trapping innocent citizens inside (the Berlin Wall). People are imprisoned by the strategy supposed to protect them.
Inside the wall (no wall is impenetrable), invaders have a combined front from both inside and outside to bring down the state.
This expensive, ineffective and dangerous wall strategy is a protective failure.
It won’t provide security. Instead, it threatens those inside it.
Third, the wall strategy threatens state security by depriving the country of money necessary to fund real security (e.g., an enhanced network of drone surveillance).
It massively misuses tax money on a political scam deliberately feeding gullible slogan consumers a false sense of security, which we all should know can be worse than no security at all, since we are not properly prepared against real threats.
Thinkers listen as history speaks.
Jim Gough, Red Deer