THANK YOU, UnoMondo, for differentiating between the opinions/actions of individuals, and those of the governments of thenations of which those individuals happen to be citizens (or sometimes, where they happen to have been born, but of which they are no longer citizens).
Few things drive me battier than when anyone, whether a government or individual, ascribes responsibility for the actions/attitudes of a government, ethnic group, or whatever to all individuals who have any attachment to it, whether that attachment was voluntary or involuntary. I’m usually not sorry to be an American, but I sure was when I was living in Spain and various Spaniards in bars would try to make me defend Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy. I sure as heck didn’t agree with pretty much anything Reagan ever did, hadn’t been old enough to vote for Reagan when he was elected (not that I would have), and resented the implication that I am an American before I am an individual with my own set of opinions.
By the same token, it drives me just as batty to have other American Jews assume that because I am Jewish, I sympathize with everything the Israeli government has ever done, and I am furious when the U.S. government hassles my friends and clients because of what its perceptions are about people of their nationality. I deal with this at work every day. And don’t even get me started on how U.S. law enforcement is selectively chasing down the comparatively few Middle Eastern nationals who have ignored deportation orders, while basically ignoring the millions of Latin Americans who have.
Back to the point here: let’s judge Iranians as individuals, along with Americans, Palestinians, Mexicans, Martians, and everyone else.
My observation of US policy in the Middle East is, at least for the time, that the primary focus is on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. The US will not be able to move in this area until the Israel/Palestinian peace process is restarted. Iran has been a major supplier of weapons to militant Palestinian groups, and is therefore seen as an impediment to the peace process.
Along the same lines from this report from 2001, but still relevant….
My bet is that the US is far more pragmatic in its policy than you might think. Agreeing with what others have said here, far from plotting a triumphant return to Tehran and avenging the taking of hostages 20 years ago, the average American likely spends exactly zero time thinking about Iran. The American government also likely thinks little of Iran except when they pose an obstacle to some specific policy goal. As I said above, my impression is that the current policy goal in the region is removing Hussein, and Iran only figures in the equation as they continue to disrupt peace in Israel.
I am shocked!!! For the life of me, I can’t fathom a reason why “U.S. law enforcement” would be doing that. :rolleyes:
American policy doesn’t ignore its own culpability; instead, said culpability is irrelevant to American policy. As with all countries, the US acts in its perceived self-interest. The fact that the U.S. really screwed up in the 50s has little bearing on what the U.S. government perceives as its interests now or the appropriate response to actions by Iran;
Methinks you are more than a bit overboard with the use of the term “foreign mastery.” First, eliminating “foreign mastery” wasn’t the true goal of the Iranian revolution - if the U.S. had not been involved, but the Shah still had SAVAK and still imposed his “modernization” policies on the Irani people, the Iranians still would have revolted. Second, “mastery” implies control. Particularly by the 70s, the U.S. didn’t control the Shah and couldn’t have tossed him out - barring an invasion. The Shah was allied with the U.S. - that’s not the same thing as control.
Rhum Runner, maybe I just didn’t provide enough detail…I sure do understand why U.S. law enforcement has made a very public priority to round up people of Middle Eastern descent who have ignored deportation orders, rather than the hundreds of thousands of others, mostly Latin Americans, who have. Two reasons: Latinos are a much bigger and more vocal political constituency, and it’s “sexier” in the wake of 9/11 to look like you’re fighting terrorism.
My point, however, was meant to be that if you’re looking for sheer bang for the law enforcement buck, some of the others who have blown off their deportation orders may not be Middle Eastern, and may not have been involved in the kind of mass insanity that the 9/11 perpetrators were. However, a decent chunk of them were ordered deported for things like murder, rape, arson, drug trafficking, etc., and although their crimes may not have had the impact on the national psyche that 9/11 did, they still aren’t folks I care to have as neighbors.
I think the U.S. law enforcement community has been focusing on rounding up a very small number of people, most of whom aren’t dangerous, at the expense of getting rid of a much larger number of nasty folks who have had (and will continue to have) an equally awful cumulative impact on the lives of individual Americans. I think the latter group would be much easier to find, if any decent amount of investigative resources were devoted to it; not like it’s shooting fish in a barrel, but it’s easier to find at least a few in a group of, say, 300,000 in this country than a few of a group of 5,000.
Right. It’s all about appearances. We want to be sexy and look like we are fighting terrorism. :rolleyes:
Any cite for those numbers? Above you said there were “millions” of Latin Americans ignoring deportation orders. Now it is 300,000? Not trying to be too picky here, but some actual numbers might be nice.
But, to the point, if I understand you correctly you feel that the best “bang for the buck” would come from rounding up as many thugs, rapists, drug dealers etc. as possible who might potentially injure a small number of people each because, taken collectively, their crimes are worse than anything a few potential terrorists might do. I respectfully disagree. I think the key phrase you used re Middle Easterners was “most of whom aren’t dangerous” What about those that are dangerous and are bent on killing thousands, maybe 10s of thousands, of people?? We are talking about potentially just a very few individuals here, but they are very dangerous. I submit to you that the potential harm those few individuals are capable of far outweighs the cumulative harm that the rest of the criminal alien element is capable of. Remember, 9/11 could have been much much worse. If those planes had hit 90 min later, and had hit lower down the buildings in NY there might have been 20,000 dead. 8 terrorists, 20,000 dead. I think stopping those 8 would have figured pretty high on the “bang for buck” chart.
I agree that in a perfect world we would try to kickall the nasties out; I disagree that we should not be focusing a disproportionate amount of effort in locating potential terrorists.
Apologies to ** POWER_station ** for the hijack, if you want to discuss this further, maybe a new thread is in order.
Iran , for the most part, doesnt bother most americans (or at least most of the ones i know). But when they start proclaiming us the great satan and make Museums based on making us look evil. that can get our goat.
Sorry this seems to be kind of a long link; if you go to www.globe.com, and search using keyword “immigration” onthe 4/18 issue, you’ll find the article.
As for the several million figure, I misstated; I meant that more as a reasonable estimate of the number of people unlawfully present in the U.S., not people with outstanding deportation orders (which is around 300,000). I should probably write this stuff from home, where I can think straight, rather than from work, where I actually am supposed to be doing other stuff simultaneously.
I also agree that some resources needs to be expended on finding the very few people who are capable of performing truly heinous terrorist acts. I submit, however, that INS has shown continually that they are TERRIBLE at this kind of thing, and the nation would be far better served by having INS expend its resources to get its own house in order.
For example, as it stands now, there is no way to, say, do a database search and come up with a comprehensive list of people who have overstayed visas and have no other application pending which allows them to stay here lawfully (like a change of staus or asylum application. On top of everything else, INS does not consistently record the identities of the people who enter and leave the country every day. One friend of mine was ordered deported in absentia two years after he had returned to his home country, because nobody did the data entry of the little white card htat he handed in to the airline when he left. I believe that INS should straighten out its own problems, and leave the pure law enforcement stuff to the guys who specialize in it, like the FBI and CIA. It would be nice if all these guys coordinated their efforts with each other much better, too.
As for your contention that the cumulative harm caused by drug dealers, murderers, etc. doesn’t justify the expenditure of law enforcement resources that I would like to see placed on it: a couple of weeks ago I went to a panel discussion whose participants included Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States attorney, Northern District of Illinois, and Thomas Kneir, special agent in charge, FBI Chicago Office. Mr. Fitzgerald stated that approximately 2/3 of the nearly 700 murders committed in Chicago last year were related to drug trafficking. 25% of the U.S. prison population is foreign-born (I’ll try to dig up a cite for that one if you want). There is, in fact, a waiver of deportation available for certain long-term permanent residents with certain criminal convictions, but especially since 1996 its application has been limited very strictly by statute and case law, so that most permanent residents who are convicted of felonies will eventually be ordered deported. And that just counts permanent residents; if you’re foreign-born and not a permanent resident or citizen, and you are convicted of any felony and some misdemeanors, you’re outta here.
What does all this add up to? Many, many people who should be deported have not been, and are sticking around and creating more mayhem. Since INS seems to be completely overwhelmed with just figuring out who is still here and who isn’t, I say they should coordinate with the FBI, CIA, and local law enforcement much, much better than they have, so the people who have specialized expertise in getting rid of the nastiest of the nasty can do so in a somewhat more efficient manner.
As for the hijack issue (no pun intended), I’m happy to start a new thread; is there any way to do it without losing what’s been contributed so far?