Those Kids Crossing the Border From Mexico Wouldn't Be There If Obama Hadn't Supported a Coup

[Judi Lynn]

Published on Saturday, July 12, 2014 by Common Dreams

Those Kids Crossing the Border From Mexico Wouldn't Be There If Obama Hadn't Supported a Coup the Media Doesn't Talk About

by Ted Rall

If you're reading this, you probably follow the news. So you've probably heard of the latest iteration of the "crisis at the border": tens of thousands of children, many of them unaccompanied by an adult, crossing the desert from Mexico into the United States, where they surrender to the Border Patrol in hope of being allowed to remain here permanently. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detention and hearing system has been overwhelmed by the surge of children and, in some cases, their parents. The Obama Administration has asked Congress to approve new funding to speed up processing and deportations of these illegal immigrants.

Even if you've followed this story closely, you probably haven't heard the depressing backstory — the reason so many Central Americans are sending their children on a dangerous thousand-mile journey up the spine of Mexico, where they ride atop freight trains, endure shakedowns by corrupt police and face rapists, bandits and other predators. (For a sense of what it's like, check out the excellent 2004 film "Maria Full of Grace.&quot

NPR and other mainstream news outlets are parroting the White House, which blames unscrupulous "coyotes" (human smugglers) for "lying to parents, telling them that if they put their kids in the hands of traffickers and get to the United States that they will be able to stay." True: the coyotes are saying that in order to gin up business. Also true: U.S. law has changed, and many of these kids have a strong legal case for asylum. Unfortunately, U.S. officials are ignoring the law.

The sad truth is that this "crisis at the border" is yet another example of "blowback."

Blowback is an unintended negative consequence of U.S. political, military and/or economic intervention overseas — when something we did in the past comes back to bite us in the ass. 9/11 is the classic example; arming and funding radical Islamists in the Middle East and South Asia who were less grateful for our help than angry at the U.S.' simultaneous backing for oppressive governments (The House of Saud, Saddam, Assad, etc.) in the region.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/07/12-4

[TexasProgresive]

1. Was Obama's "support" of the coup

what made the coup successful? That is, if he did not approve would anything change?

[Doctor_J]

10. So he supported it because he thought it was inevitable anyway?

wow.

[TexasProgresive]

12. Let me frame this differently-

Did Obama offer material support for the coup such as intelligence and/or air support? What was the U.S. government's role in the coup?

[GeorgeGist]

2. Weak sauce Ted.

"Zelaya's overthrow created a vacuum in security in which military and police were now focused more on political protest, and also led to a freeze in international aid that markedly worsened socio-economic conditions," Mark Ungar, professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York, told The International Business Times. "The 2009 coup, asserts [Tulane] professor Aaron Schneider, gave the Honduran military more political and economic leverage, at the same time as the state and political elites lost their legitimacy, resources and the capacity to govern large parts of the country."

[flamingdem]

3. It's amazing this didn't happen sooner

and that US Citizens are so unaware, or unwilling to help with the people who live South of our Borders. Somehow the US always gets a pass for policies that create violence and humans rights abuse in those countries.

[Judi Lynn]

4. It's a bitter shame they avoid learning anything about what the US does, or has done

in the Americas, and insist upon looking no deeper than the programmed crapaganda handed out in disrespectful doses by the corporate media who toil to keep any chance of light from being thrown upon US behavior toward the poor of the Western Hemisphere.

Only those whose consciences push them to keep searching for the answers have the will to go ahead, spend their time, involve themselves in research until they know what the #### has been happening.

Those who refuse to search merely sit back and wait until they can attack people trying to share the real news, using their foundation in complete ignorance as the starting point. It can't get crazier than that!

It would drive a sane person around the bend, seeing such profound contempt for the impoverished human race displayed so gleefully.

[flamingdem]

5. crapaganda is right!

It took these kids risking their lives en masse to shine any light on this subject.

[Igel]

6. Not entirely.

Years ago there were stories about MS-13 and other gangs in El Salvador and other places in Central America.

They'd picked up gang habits and structures in LA, and then went home or were deported. Nobody stopped them. They weren't reintegrated into society. Their parents or guardians never established control over them or the new kids they recruited to the gangs. This created havoc there, and a new generation of illegal immigrants to the US spread MS-13 to other cities with large Latino populations. This produced a lot of news.

That was long enough ago, I think, that what we're seeing now is the results those particular gangs have had on an entire generation of kids.

[flamingdem]

7. Oh yeah of course that as well

The new intensity due to the Mexicans narcos being pushed South is a nightmare, but human rights abuses were bad back in the 80s too. The deportation of the gangs from LA must have added a sophistication to the criminal element.

Was interesting to learn that the Nicaraguan refugees went to Florida and gangs there did not accept them. However they were recruited in LA where gangs were more open minded.

[unrepentant progress]

8. Just another case of Obama emulating his hero -- Reagan

[Judi Lynn]

9. It still doesn't even seem possible. He apparently got the acting down, too.

Who would have ever believed during the first campaign that he'd ever, EVER imitate Reagan, Bushes, etc.

What does it take to get an honest, moral President?

[geek tragedy]

11. Ah, the assholitarian left has now found a way to outdo the assholitarian right

in finding a way to blame Obama for this.

Please proceed, haters.

[Doctor_J]

13. 2-part question

1. Did the administration support the overthrow of Zelaya? Yes, just like every administration since Nixon or so has supported right-wing anti-democracy coups in CA and SA.

2. Is one of the results of this particular coup that people are fleeing Honduras and trying to make it into the US? Once again, yes.

Rall's article is annoying but pretty much irrefutable.

How is it that after six years the BOG refuses to see that Obama is continuing much of the imperialism of the last N presidents, and that that imperialism has repercussions?

Let the deluded deny.