YOU, ME, UNCLE JOE AND UNCLE DONALD —WE’RE ALL IN DENIAL

By Edwin Cooney

It's fitting that I'm writing this on May 13th, 2023, because on this date, Wednesday, May 13th, 1846, Congress declared war on Mexico which resulted in one of the most devastating situations in American history: specifically, the Civil War. For more than a decade, our presidents and Congress have quarreled over both the accommodation and the lack of accommodation shown toward immigrants. As I see it, we're all ignoring "the root of the matter.”

There's much that can be said about our relations with the countries of Central and South America from the days of the Monroe Doctrine to, more recently, Vice President Kamala Harris's apparent bungling of the immigration issue. (As I see it, Vice President Harris's gaffe is the least of every other bungle!)

Here's the real issue: The governments of Central and South America are mistreating their own citizens and, although we pride ourselves on being the most decent, proper, and moral superpower on earth, we won't do anything about it economically, diplomatically or, most of all, militarily due to the high risks a new idea or plan may cost us.

The ongoing immigration crisis is, without question, an international human rights issue which largely benefits both liberals and conservatives who are well served politically by the issue's appeal to people's fears. For the immigrant, it's a terrible nightmare. To the traditional American nativist, it's a political weapon. To the ethnic-oriented American, immigration is a pathway to the American way.

Just ask yourself: what would cause you to abandon your home, neighbors and family, and walk 600 or 800 miles across two or three international boundaries to get to a nation that neither wants nor welcomes you? How can it be anything else except a reaction to fear for one's well-being and loss of  life? Meanwhile, 21st Century America is politicizing this human rights matter to our own domestic political advantage. Once upon a time, President James Monroe offered military protection to all of the Americas through his 1823 Doctrine; FDR applied the concept of "the good neighbor" to our fellow Americans; right after World War II, Harry Truman launched The Organization of American States to handle social, military and diplomatic issues; a little later, President Kennedy launched his "Alliance for Progress" as a strategy for tackling social and economic issues in Central and South America. However, as we move forward toward 2024, principle automatically becomes political fodder.

What really needs to happen is for the United States government, regardless of who is at the head, to confront the governments and other sources within Central and South America and insist that they cease policies that are clearly injurious to their people. Governments that won't cooperate should be subject to economic and diplomatic sanction, and to international military intervention, if need be.

The bottom line must be to turn this pointless, poisonous and mean   political issue into the international human rights matter it really is!

So come on, whoever today's "Lord Root of the Matter" may be: strut your stuff, please!!!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY