How Not to Win Friends and Influence People
U.S. Coast Guard crews have been busy beavers off the coast of Ecuador detaining suspected illegal migrants, firing on ships and sinking the ones they deem unseaworthy.
U.S. gunners "sink boats to show the power they have to stop migrants, to show the other fishermen not to (get involved) ... They board with machine guns, put everyone on the floor, tie hands," Segundo Moreiro-Vegos said.
And the U.S. Department of Homeland Security defends this practice as:
"pushing our borders out." Enforcing U.S. laws abroad is crucial, they contend, to control record illegal immigration, estimated at 500,000 a year, and close security gaps terrorists could exploit.
Now, I agree that we have an immigration problem, but sinking Ecuadorian ships? And if we are enforcing U.S. laws, shouldn't the suspects have the same rights as U.S. citizens. Like that innocent-until-proven guilty-thing? And that cruel-and-unusual-punishment-thing.
Here in the U.S, if you get nailed for a DUI, your car doesn't get blown up. They impound it and you can get it later. Then when you have gone through the trial process and if you are proven guilty, then there may be more reprecussions.
But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Some analysts see this as contemporary gunboat diplomacy. If foreign armed forces stopped U.S. boats in this way, "we'd call it an act of war," said John Pike, director of the Washington think tank Global Security. "There is no world government to enforce international law. It's always been the case that the strong do what they can, and the weak do what they must."
"To have U.S. ships off the coast of Ecuador sinking boats is not the best public relations for the United States," said Robert Leiken, director of immigration and security studies at the Nixon Center think tank in Washington.
If stopping illegal immigration is the goal, cracking down on U.S. employers who hire illegal workers would be far more effective, Leiken said.
You'd think in this most desperate of times that we would be trying desperately to get our allies behind us instead of just pissing them off.
U.S. gunners "sink boats to show the power they have to stop migrants, to show the other fishermen not to (get involved) ... They board with machine guns, put everyone on the floor, tie hands," Segundo Moreiro-Vegos said.
And the U.S. Department of Homeland Security defends this practice as:
"pushing our borders out." Enforcing U.S. laws abroad is crucial, they contend, to control record illegal immigration, estimated at 500,000 a year, and close security gaps terrorists could exploit.
Now, I agree that we have an immigration problem, but sinking Ecuadorian ships? And if we are enforcing U.S. laws, shouldn't the suspects have the same rights as U.S. citizens. Like that innocent-until-proven guilty-thing? And that cruel-and-unusual-punishment-thing.
Here in the U.S, if you get nailed for a DUI, your car doesn't get blown up. They impound it and you can get it later. Then when you have gone through the trial process and if you are proven guilty, then there may be more reprecussions.
But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Some analysts see this as contemporary gunboat diplomacy. If foreign armed forces stopped U.S. boats in this way, "we'd call it an act of war," said John Pike, director of the Washington think tank Global Security. "There is no world government to enforce international law. It's always been the case that the strong do what they can, and the weak do what they must."
"To have U.S. ships off the coast of Ecuador sinking boats is not the best public relations for the United States," said Robert Leiken, director of immigration and security studies at the Nixon Center think tank in Washington.
If stopping illegal immigration is the goal, cracking down on U.S. employers who hire illegal workers would be far more effective, Leiken said.
You'd think in this most desperate of times that we would be trying desperately to get our allies behind us instead of just pissing them off.
posted by cookie christine @ 1/04/2005
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