I mean, certainly the US isn’t uninvolved in fuckin up the economies and safety status of all these places that have gradually been becoming hellholes. You didn’t mention Honduras or Venezuela I noticed… yeah I mean not everything is our fault, but some is.
To the Biden administration’s credit, it was trying to pursue some kind of theory that what Harris was gonna be in charge of was addressing the root causes of this huge surge in immigration from the South. But even if we posit that she’s making a sincere effort in that regard (which, okay fine, I am fine with positing), what’s she gonna do? She’s gonna show up in her little Vice President cape and order the whole of US government and industry “Hey! I need you to stop stealing resources and destabilizing a nearby part of the world that’s not strong enough to prevent it! That is NOT COOL!” and they’re just gonna think it’s funny and keep doing it.
Resource curse is a MF. When your government is no longer reliant on its people to fund its political class, all sorts of short/medium term chaos ensues.
This isn’t to say that the US doesn’t have some responsibility in cases, just that the situations are incredibly complex annd it’s easy to scapegoat the bogeyman for all of your woes.
Sure is strange how that resource curse seems to mainly happen in countries with a history of colonization and having their natural resources exploited by foreign political classes
There are also some justifiable fears that Australia is becoming a vassal state to China. I suppose one could argue that Australia was a colony (but I’d argue that the US was one too).
Harris was gonna be in charge of was addressing the root causes of this huge surge in immigration from the South. But even if we posit that she’s making a sincere effort in that regard (which, okay fine, I am fine with positing), what’s she gonna do
In practice, hold closed door meetings with the police enforcers and tell them to be more comprehensive in their enforcement before setting them up with drones and computers and guns needed to do it, and then scoot out of town before she has to witness those enforcers torturing and extorting and working with criminal gangs and etc.
To be fair to Harris and the Biden administration, this has more or less been US policy for a very long time
She’s gonna show up in her little Vice President cape and order the whole of US government and industry
FFS, I so wish more people had more than like a high school level understanding of our government - she’s going to tap into funds created by Congress for general purposes and placed under the administration of the executive branch to give grants or directly purchase computers and drones and guns (or maybe cover payroll expenses and things like that). Or, if she gets concerned about reports of human rights abuses or corruption or whatever, she can withhold that money and those materials (but we never do that, whether it’s Latin America or Israel or the Memphis Police Department, because nine times out of ten when organizations like those do bad things Americans never hear about them).
The power of the executive branch has only been expanding since Newt broke Congress in the 90s and W got to just keep playing the War on Terror card over and over in the early 00s, but we’ve got people out here running around acting like it’s a totally ceremonial office because nobody in the media or anywhere else wants to do the hard work of explaining how the Byzantine nonsense works and why we always have such an easy time throwing millions of dollars at guns and guards.
In practice, hold closed door meetings with the police enforcers and tell them to be more comprehensive in their enforcement before setting them up with drones and computers and guns needed to do it
he’s going to tap into funds created by Congress for general purposes and placed under the administration of the executive branch to give grants or directly purchase computers and drones and guns
Do you have citations about this stuff? If you wanna replace my flip high school understanding of how the VP can (and has been, under Biden) impacting foreign policy with something more factually based, I’m down for that idea.
e; Like I said, it’s Byzantine nonsense that nobody with the knowledge to speak to wants to, but a few other sources that start to get at what I’m talking about
“Northern Triangle: DOD and State Need Improved Policies to Address Equipment Misuse” (arc) is a recent report from a federal agency talking about some of the military aid executive branch agencies are handing out to those countries (and how it seems to be frequently getting misused, but it’s hard to say how frequently because there’s usually no policies on what exactly constitutes misuse or who to report it to)
U.S. military assistance often goes by different names, depending on the legal authorities an activity falls under and which department or agency is overseeing or implementing it. These terms include security assistance, security sector assistance, security cooperation, and security force assistance, as well as more niche programs and terms such as security sector governance and defense institutional capacity building.
The Department of Defense commonly uses the term security cooperation while the Department of State uses security assistance. In practice, there is a lot of overlap in roles and responsibilities, with most congressionally allocated funding falling under the Department of State’s legal authorities but executed by the Department of Defense.
A large and unwieldy policy and legal bureaucracy—commonly referred to as the security cooperation or security assistance enterprise—has emerged to oversee, regulate, and execute U.S. military assistance. This entangled web of authorities, permissions, and funding streams makes military assistance incredibly difficult to execute effectively, track transparently, and evaluate.
Awesome; I’ll check it out. I’m not saying I necessarily agree ahead of time, but you’re not wrong that I have no real idea about it beyond some stereotype guessing.
I mean, certainly the US isn’t uninvolved in fuckin up the economies and safety status of all these places that have gradually been becoming hellholes. You didn’t mention Honduras or Venezuela I noticed… yeah I mean not everything is our fault, but some is.
To the Biden administration’s credit, it was trying to pursue some kind of theory that what Harris was gonna be in charge of was addressing the root causes of this huge surge in immigration from the South. But even if we posit that she’s making a sincere effort in that regard (which, okay fine, I am fine with positing), what’s she gonna do? She’s gonna show up in her little Vice President cape and order the whole of US government and industry “Hey! I need you to stop stealing resources and destabilizing a nearby part of the world that’s not strong enough to prevent it! That is NOT COOL!” and they’re just gonna think it’s funny and keep doing it.
Resource curse is a MF. When your government is no longer reliant on its people to fund its political class, all sorts of short/medium term chaos ensues.
This isn’t to say that the US doesn’t have some responsibility in cases, just that the situations are incredibly complex annd it’s easy to scapegoat the bogeyman for all of your woes.
Sure is strange how that resource curse seems to mainly happen in countries with a history of colonization and having their natural resources exploited by foreign political classes
Russia was a colonial power, then it found oil.
There are also some justifiable fears that Australia is becoming a vassal state to China. I suppose one could argue that Australia was a colony (but I’d argue that the US was one too).
Just saying, it can happen to any country.
Excuse me? We are America’s faithful little suckup.
In practice, hold closed door meetings with the police enforcers and tell them to be more comprehensive in their enforcement before setting them up with drones and computers and guns needed to do it, and then scoot out of town before she has to witness those enforcers torturing and extorting and working with criminal gangs and etc.
To be fair to Harris and the Biden administration, this has more or less been US policy for a very long time
FFS, I so wish more people had more than like a high school level understanding of our government - she’s going to tap into funds created by Congress for general purposes and placed under the administration of the executive branch to give grants or directly purchase computers and drones and guns (or maybe cover payroll expenses and things like that). Or, if she gets concerned about reports of human rights abuses or corruption or whatever, she can withhold that money and those materials (but we never do that, whether it’s Latin America or Israel or the Memphis Police Department, because nine times out of ten when organizations like those do bad things Americans never hear about them).
The power of the executive branch has only been expanding since Newt broke Congress in the 90s and W got to just keep playing the War on Terror card over and over in the early 00s, but we’ve got people out here running around acting like it’s a totally ceremonial office because nobody in the media or anywhere else wants to do the hard work of explaining how the Byzantine nonsense works and why we always have such an easy time throwing millions of dollars at guns and guards.
Do you have citations about this stuff? If you wanna replace my flip high school understanding of how the VP can (and has been, under Biden) impacting foreign policy with something more factually based, I’m down for that idea.
Off the top of my head, chapter one of this book covers a ton of this in the northern triangle area of South America specifically - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/672038/soldiers-and-kings-by-jason-de-leon/
e; Like I said, it’s Byzantine nonsense that nobody with the knowledge to speak to wants to, but a few other sources that start to get at what I’m talking about
Awesome; I’ll check it out. I’m not saying I necessarily agree ahead of time, but you’re not wrong that I have no real idea about it beyond some stereotype guessing.
Thank you, that’s more than reasonable
Also, I added a few more sources