re: "Stop “DREAM”-ing And Embrace Reality"

Robert at Atlantic Crossings ("Between the Hudson Highlands and the South of England...") gave the issue of child illegal immigrants some careful thought (in advance of DHS taking this issue on unilaterally).

Money quote(s):

"(T)his needs saying plainly: denoting as an “immigrant” anyone other than a landed arrival with legal permission to settle, is an egregious misnomer that is insulting to actual landed immigrants. The word “immigrant” is not properly applied to those who have taken it upon themselves to “settle unilaterally” (if we wish not to say “illegal”), but have not received a legal right to reside. Nor does it ever apply to the “unilaterally settled” no matter how often it is misused, children included."

Insulting legal immigrants, those who followed the rules and waited their turn, is never a sufficient deterrent to those who want to jump the queue.

"Many activists and journalists do appear to think that whenever someone sets foot in the U.S., he should apparently be allowed to remain permanently regardless."

Especially those journalists who are themselves illegal immigrants.

"(I)n Britain, every child’s immigration status is ascertained upon initial enrollment in school. Doing so prevents any rearing of a generation of “imagined Britons” who spend 10 years in school and think they are British citizens when they are not. Also the “passive barrier” of checking the legality of schoolchildren’s residency makes “unilateral settlement” by adults with children who must attend school extremely difficult to manage.

As a result, “unilateral settlement” in the UK is almost entirely an “adults only” issue. But we, in the U.S., have accidentally allowed the creation of “imagined U.S. citizens.” We have done so due to our being unfailingly “generous” in educating unquestioningly every child who shows up at the school gate."

American citizen children have to come up with birth certificates and proofs of innoculation in order to register for schools. So what gives with unlawfully resident children?

"Even if all of those “undocumented students” of today are overnight granted the right to remain, if the U.S. does not change its approach fundamentally it is inevitable there will ALWAYS be children and parents who are “unilaterally settled” in the U.S.

Moreover if we are seriously considering legislating that if one can essentially sneak children into the U.S., that once in they will be allowed to remain legally a few years later as adults, let us understand the road down which we are heading. It is no secret that word spreads like global wildfire in a world in which media is now immediate. No one on the planet is less than 24 hours’ travel from a U.S. airport.

So as we blunder around looking for some politically plausible framework to address how to assist “undocumented students,” let us at least also bear both of those realities in mind, as well as recall also how the road to hell is indeed often paved with good intentions."

Robert clearly understands how globalization has accelarated the effective speed of information communication, as between the illegal immigrant and prospective illegal immigrant communities.

"The only viable approach to ending the “imagined U.S. citizen” dilemma appears to be two-fold. First, grant a “green card” to anyone under age 26 who can demonstrate “permanent” presence in the country since age 6 — which is easy enough to glean from school records. If for some reason that is not possible, or if they were “brought in” older, give them a student/ work visa, with the “Rubio Plan” for permanent residency and later citizenship, then to kick in."

CAA is not as sanguine about the sanctity and trustworthiness of school records as is Robert, but it's not that bad an idea, it's certainly a start, and is very likely to be a cornerstone of how DHS will actually implement its latest child amnesty scheme.

"More importantly for the longer-term solution is to stop the creation of “imagined U.S. citizens” at all. It appears the only way to do that is end the lackadaisical attitude toward U.S. legal residency and school enrollment. So, second, nationwide, after Part 1 is implemented, from the following August/September every child when first enrolled in school must have produced on his behalf a U.S. birth certificate, green card, or valid U.S. visa (to be asterisked for re-checking at its renewal date), as part of the routine registration process. If some form of legal U.S. residency cannot be supplied, the child cannot be enrolled.

Doing both should largely put the issue to rest. It ends the “legal limbo” entrapping those kids and young adults currently “through no fault of their own.” It will also prevent the arising of yet another generation of “imagined U.S. citizens” who will end up trapped just like them." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

This would be a tough sell, and one that might cause more serious problems (for the U.S.) in the long run than the supposed "imagined U.S. citizen" problem. That's the "permanent underclass" problem of creating an un-educated, un-innoculated underclass of the permanently disadvantaged.

It's bad enough we import them, or allow them to self-import.

5/7

re: "When "Expat" Becomes Enemy"

Robert at Atlantic Crossings ("Between the Hudson Highlands and the South of England…") noted how greatly things have changed since WW2.

Money quote(s):

"(T)his killing should come as no shock given how policy has developed in the last decade. If anything, it is just another example of those perhaps new “gray areas” to have emerged from the confused mess of the reaction to 9/11. Not only is the issue what is “an active battlefield” (especially when civil law is effectively non-existent), but more generally what precisely constitutes “war”, given that it now appears no longer nearly as easy to define as in 1917 or in 1941? Indeed, what is a “battlefield” now and what is not?: “front lines” are increasingly difficult to identity most of the time."

When your enemy is waging multidimensional warfare against you, your country, your allies, your people, and your civilization, it behooves you to respect that choice, to honor the threat. And to respond in kind.

10/3

re: "Quiz: Where Are Parents Required To Produce "Original Passports/ Visas"?"

Robert at Atlantic Crossings ("Between the Hudson Highlands and the South of England…") exhibits a firm grasp of the issues and consequences.

Money quote(s):

"American states had never felt impelled to look for evidence of enrolled children’s U.S. “legal status”. One reason was probably because if there were illegal immigrant children in school, their small numbers did not seem to justify the effort. That seems no longer so."

Local school districts are much more concerned about truancy by school-age children than by their immigration status. And I believe this can reasonably, until quite recently, be extended to the individual states. It's a case of conflicting priorities: local school districts (and states) should not tolerate the fostering of a generation of un-schooled children. That's not their mission.

"(I)n allowing non-U.S. resident children in school, the U.S. has big-heartedly and accidentally ended up doing at least partly what Justice Brennan thought that ruling would prevent. Leaving aside that enrolling them could encourage illegal parents “to root” themselves in the country as they could not otherwise if their children could not be schooled, larger collateral damage that was unforeseen has been those children’s enrollment a decade on creates the tragic “imagined American” teen illegal. Have we not heard far too much about kids who had been through school and mistakenly THOUGHT they were U.S. citizens, only suddenly to discover they are not…when they tried to obtain a driving licence, apply to college or seek a job?

That is where the desire on the part of many for a “Dream Act” comes from. But any such “Dream Act” too is worrying precisely for yet another issue it would also create. And no one seems to be be thinking ahead on that either, but yours truly raised it previously.

The U.S. should be asking: if they are to be schooled, what can be done to prevent the arising of children who come to think they are U.S. citizens when they are not? And if we are genuinely to assist those now trapped of no fault of their own, if all illegally present children are now perhaps to be granted anmesty to do so, how are we possibly to stop millions more parents from entering with young children illegally and hoping for the same outcome for their own kids eventually?"

Although citizenship laws aren't really written this way, most real Americans know in their heart-of-hearts that being an American is much less about the circumstances of a person's birth than about their commitment to American values. That's something that legislators just can't craft into law, no matter how much they might try. They are, after all, lawyers (most of them) so they approach the question of nationality in a legalistic fashion.

"Immigration is rarely able to be dealt with in policy isolation. It is not just about schooling. Anyone pushing (liberals especially) also for universal health cover in the U.S., would, if it ever came about, certainly have to confront then how to cope with non-residents? If you admire European universal systems, understand they “work” because they are limited. Break your leg in Britain as an American tourist, and you had better have travel insurance or lots of cash at the ready, because the British National Health Service (NHS) treats “for free” ONLY legal UK residents." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

10/4

re: "Why I Like "Pan Am" "

Robert at Atlantic Crossings ("Between the Hudson Highlands and the South of England…") makes some excellent points about the new TV lineup this Fall.

Money quote(s):

" “Pan Am” struck a personal chord: my first international flight (a lot more, ahem, recently than 1963!) was on Pan Am.

But “Pan Am” sparked my interest not only owing to that. Pan Am was murdered by terrorists; and its memory since has been stolen by that terrorism. So in a wider sense it is damn well about time we were all reminded the real Pan Am was not only about Lockerbie.
For just as the life of any murder victim is NOT — and absolutely should NOT be — only about his or her murder, Pan Am had had quite a “life” before 1988; and that deserves to be remembered too. That existence stretched back to an era that is recalled fondly as constituting a “golden era” in international flight."

CAA is of an age to not only have experienced (as a child) some of what it was like when there truly was a certain "glamour" to air travel but to have witnessed first-hand (as an airline employee) what it was like when deregulation (among other depredations, like Texas Air and Frank Lorenzo) began the not-so-slow destruction of America's flagship passenger carriers.

Present-day consular officers will already be aware of how the Lockerbie/Pan Am bombing changed, for the better, how we do some of our own work.

"(T)hat past is certainly viewed on the ABC screen at times through rose-tinted glasses, but that does not make those memories any less worthy of reflecting on. To those today accustomed to air travel as hardly better than buses in flight, catching glimpses of when commercial jet travel was barely a decade old, VERY special and the preserve of those who had money, is only to reveal various historical truths. While there is no way we should want to return to that era in its entirety for reasons too numerous to list here, that also does not mean that era was utterly devoid of any positives whatsoever and doesn’t deserve dramatic portrayal.

The pilot was stylish, pacey, likeable and contained enough touches of the serious to show the program has potential if the storywriting and character development proves itself solid longer-term."

10/1

re: "Britain Considers South Atlantic “Sovereignty” Rights"

Robert at Atlantic Crossings ("Between the Hudson Highlands and the South of England") comments on the nature of sovereignty as Argentina asks the Falklands question.

Money quote(s):

"Being next door to anywhere does not rightful sovereignty confer: if it did, for instance, England would still rule France."

&

"When that comes into existence, does that mean also that good parts of their populations will then also exclude the U.S.A. and Canada from their list of destinations for illegal entrance?"

"That" refers to BBC reports that "Leaders at the summit, between the Rio Group and the Caribbean Community (Caricom), are also said to have discussed plans for a new pan-American alliance which would exclude Canada and the United States".

re: "So “Terrorists” Do Exist?"

Robert at Atlantic Crossings ("Between the Hudson Highlands and the South of England") provides some American historical perspective in reponse to the to-be-expected grousing from CAIR.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he rest of us had understood “violence” never had anything to do with Islam? Certainly, much media appeared to think that same way.

Moreover, if many “individuals and institutions” were obviously not so unfamiliar with the complexity of Americans’ historical love-hate relationship with their secular state? And if they were not, that they would be better able to grasp the essential difference between the worry and self-preservationist fear that undergirded the likes of, say, the “Whiskey Rebellion”…

…and has always existed, and exists still, compared to that which motivates foreigners who seize Americans on the high seas — and now slaughter them, en masse, at home — and who justify doing so owing to what they proclaim is commanded by their holy book?"

re: "We’ll See If The “Perfect” Record Continues"

Robert at Expat Yank ("One American living in the south of England") made a point that seems to be nearly universally overlooked (except by soldiers).

Money quote(s):

"As we know, most in media are perpetually wilting over the fact that the U.S. actually detains enemy who fall into U.S. hands alive. Moreover, they have little to n0thing to say about how nearly all of those the U.S. detains survive to be released."

&

"Insofar as this blog is aware, every single U.S. or coalition soldier captured by the jihadist enemy, has been murdered in captivity. That is a 100 percent record of barbarity unequalled by any enemy in all of human history."

re: "The Most Artistic Passport"

Robert at Expat Yank ("One American living in the south of England") seems to like his new passport.

Money quote(s):

"Praise is in order.

For it took exactly all of 16 days (including weekends and 2 days transit, round trip, special delivery in the UK post) for yours truly to send his soon to be expiring passport to the Embassy and receive the new one back on Friday. Totally unexpected, that level of efficency. A nod to the passport people in London and at the Department of State."

&

"(I)f you haven’t seen one yet, the new U.S. e-passport is practically a work of art. The front inside cover is embelished with the (presumably Francis Scott Key) handwritten lines of The Star Spangled Banner over an engraving of a view of Fort McHenry. The back inside cover has an engraving of a satellite view of the U.S. down on earth.

Between, we get a bald eagle over the opening lines of the Constitution, and visa stamp pages that include backgrounds of the Liberty Bell, the Great Plains, bison (before what look like the Tetons), a steamboat, cowboys, Mt Rushmore, and more, all headed with quotes from Daniel Webster (how many people today have never heard of Daniel Webster, but owing to the passport now will?), Teddy Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and even the Mohawk Thanksgiving Address, among others."

re: " "One nation, in a barn, under The Independent." "

Robert at Expat Yank (" One American living in the south of England") is thinking about nationality.

Money quote(s):

"The U.S., Australia and Canada are the notable exceptions: nationality does not revolve around any one essentialist attribute. Birth in all three makes one, default, a citizen. Or the immigrant chooses to join physically, and takes action to do so."

&

"Aside from birth or naturalization, one vital part of the glue that has “held” a place like America together hasn’t been Christian belief (although most Americans are Christians, at least nominally) so much as it has been in the joining the “civic religion”: for lack of a better description, the “worship” of “America.” As laughable as that notion might seem, and as variably as it is practiced, that embracing of a “mystical America” has created “Americans.”

Thus one Barack H. Obama is able to persuade enough “Americans” that he is part of everyone’s “Church of America.” And they accept that. Had he not done so, or had enough of them not been willing to accept that, he never would have been elected president.

That method of “assimilation” exists almost nowhere else. In most elsewheres, nationality is rooted firstly in blood and in revealed faith of one type or another. "

re: "Not To Compare Bataan To Baghdad, But…"

Robert at Expat Yank ("One American living in the south of England") reminds us about the nature of the enemy. And does so exceedingly well.

Money quote(s):

"(F)or years we have endured bemoanings about “lack of proof,” unfair trials and above all, “torture.” And not just from every released prisoner (Allied forces have evidently “tortured” EVERY captured jihadist) and their lawyers. We’ve also heard it endlessly from many politicians, “activists” and much media.

Ironic all that. For coalition behavior towards this enemy in the War on Terror, 2001-2009, had actually been far better than its behavior in any previous conflict. In fact, it has inarguably been the best treatment ever meted out policywise to captured enemy in all of human history.

Consider this: imagine any enemy held previously engaging in a “hunger strike“? Those held in the past didn’t hunger strike: that’s a “privileged captive’s” jail tactic."

U.S. service members are given some training on how they are expected to conduct themselves if taken prisoner. Unlike our enemy, that indoctrination does not include how to wage lawfare against our captors by making false accusations of mistreatment.

"(A)fter page upon page of Mr Hastings’s having shared numerous examples of Japanese mistreatment (to be polite) of Western and Chinese PoWs and civilians. They ran the horrific gamut from of course starving and working them to death, to beheadings, tying them to trees and bayoneting them, leaving them to drown in the sea, kicking them into latrines and drowning them in excrement, casually pushing them over cliffs, and even subsequently noting how Japanese doctors engaged in the murderous vivisections, without anaesthesia, of eight living (at least, they were at the outset), captured U.S. pilots.

Another source tells us, for example (and no doubt Mr Hastings would not be surprised), of two downed U.S. pilots having been plucked from the sea and “rescued” by Japanese submarine and interrogated — but not harshly. Yet after questioning, their personal effects were parcelled out among the crew and the unfortunate PoWs (men captured in uniform, clearly engaged in military activity against another military) were taken up on deck, (and without even a “military tribunal” finding) weighted down with water-filled gasoline cans, and thrown overboard. And the barbaric list could go depressingly on."

Whole library shelves can attest to the barbaric treatment received by Allied prisoners of Imperial Japan. As it happens, my own family included a Baatan survivor. I grew up listening to his stories, when he would tell them. It's the sort of thing that forever innoculates one from developing an overly-optimistic or romantic view of warfare or defeat.

"(D)id any of that sort of treatment regularly happen at the hands of coalition forces in Iraq or to Guantanamo detainees? For example, was Khalid Sheik Mohammed “waterboarded” (which would have likely been considered a holiday “swim” to many an American or Briton tortured by the Japanese) . . . and then removed to shark-infested waters by U.S. submarine and unceremoniously tossed into the ocean?

During WWII, Western media rightly made much of Japanese atrocities. Yet today Western media has almost nothing to say of the last eight years’ enemy’s."

"(W)hile the Japanese were indisputably brutal in the extreme, even they never reached the all-encompassing depths of depravity and viciousness of the current enemy?"

"(I)nsofar as this blog is aware, not a single coalition serviceman, over the last eight years, has been released alive willingly by the current Islamist enemy.

That bears repeating: not one.

Nor are any now held alive anywhere."

&

"(H)ow such now almost Spartan-obsession to leave no one behind stems from the foreknowledge that every single one captured might just as well be tallied with the rest of the dead?

However one gets there, that means the current Islamist enemy has murdered 100 percent of coalition military personnel (primarily Americans, Britons, and Australians, coincidentally enough) who have fallen into their hands. No enemy has ever engaged in such barbarity in the entire history of warfare. That is to say nothing of the fate of nearly all Western non-combatants who’ve been taken.

Thus the most damning perspective of all is almost universally overlooked. That level of murderous brutality makes Japanese atrocities pale in comparison. And it makes Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and a few hours in a dog pen, look like child’s play.

Do we even want to think that in this conflict the Islamist enemy is even more inhumane that WWII Japanese? One suspects we’d rather not."

re: "What Barack Needs To Know About Allies’ Barracks"

Robert at Expat Yank ("one American Living in the South of England") has the plain truth about European troop deployment availability.

Money quote(s):

"Americans must not allow themselves to believe there are ready reinforcements among NATO allies relaxing in comfortable, European barracks."

"(T)he militaries of France, Italy and Germany are professional. But materially and in terms of effective combat troops, they are far less capable than Britain.

In short, there are no reinforcements available. None.

Even with the best will in the world, it would take years to train and equip additional troops and large new sums would have to be appropriated to do both."

&

"(I)f the campaign in Afghanistan is to be won, it will be won mostly by Americans and Afghans."

re: "When Will The Islamic Republic Apologize?"

Robert at Expat Yank ("one American Living in the South of England") is still waiting, as are the rest of us.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he U.S. had diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic at its inception. Those ceased when the Islamic Republic made relations impossible. How?

Americans are still waiting to hear “sorry” from the Islamic Republic for its having orchestrated the overrunning of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979 in complete rejection of centuries-long diplomatic practices. The staff were taken hostage, threatened with death, and 52 of them were imprisoned in Iran until January 1981.

Iran was lucky, then, that the U.S. only broke off relations six months later, and did not declare war on the regime. U.S. restraint at that time was remarkable, and demonstrated how “slow to war” is the country."

re: "Although, There Was That Genghis Khan Role."

Robert at Expat Yank ("one American Living in the South of England") deconstructs common stereotypes about Americans held by people who mistakenly think they know a lot about America.

Money quote(s):

"(A)s an American (speaking only for himself) one could well respond that whether bombing Canada would have been appropriate would rather have depended on certain factors, really.

Especially this: did investigators uncover clear evidence pointing conclusively to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Canadian government in Ottawa being functionally intertwined with, and ideologically aligned totally with, “extremists” who bankrolled and trained those geese at camps in Newfoundland to attack U.S. aircraft suicidally in order to kill hundreds of American travellers? Sadly, worldly observant London-based Canadian Ms Kafno doesn’t address that rather important caveat. But in being so blasé and dismissive over the very real brutal and horrific murders of thousands a scant few miles away in that same NYC in 2001, suicidal attacks that were hatched and organized from just that sort of Taliban/Al Qaeda Afghanistan, it would have undoubtedly been the apex of unreasonability to have expected her to have made that small effort."

Ha. Ha. The geese that downed the USAir flight were from Canadian, so of course the trigger-happy Americans will bomb Canada.

I get it.

Clever.

Not.

Robert will school this knucklehead.

"one might also think we have already for some years had quite a few examples of “extremists in the open” — particularly when they are rather “openly” blowing themselves up to try to blow us up, just blowing us up, or shouting about how they desperately crave to blow us up"

That last sort of thing should be viewed as falling under the "shouting-fire-in-a-crowded-theater" exception to free speech, particularly in wartime, and the utterers taken at their word. With appropriate consequences, including notification of their next-of-kin.

"(E)veryone else, including those who follow a particular religious faith, are all non-essentialist individuals. All people are heartily different from one another with no shared “traits” whatsoever. Except Americans, of course: they are cartoons."

That's one of the drawbacks of Hollywood being the 500 lbs. gorilla of the global entertainment industry. Everyone's seen an American movie so they think they know about America and Americans. And lots of Europeans have visited New York City and Los Angeles and Miami so of course they're experts on American culture and folkways. Naturally.

"“Big John,” yes, at times played some morally questionable American characters, which is hardly surprising given that he was portraying characters on screen (films aren’t “real” remember), so they had to be somewhat “interesting.” However, yours truly also cannot recall a major film in which “the Duke” starred as an American in a “shoot ‘em up, g-damnit, slaughter all of ‘em, women and children, too, just for the sake a killin’, and because I feel like it and it makes me feel good, pilgrim” role?"

I too must have missed those ones.

"(H)ollow accusations cannot easily demolish how Mr Wayne’s stereotypical character that has come down to us was clearly almost never “the provoker” so much as the man who didn’t fight until unduly provoked and United Nations mediation was definitely unavailable. Mostly, he fought when he felt his back was against the wall, in order to save the women and the children, the farmers, the town, the country.

That unwillingness to fight lightly does seem very much an American trait that John Wayne on screen came to epitomize, which is probably why so many identified with his characters: because they saw themselves in his outlook. Remember, before he became a truly huge star, it had taken a direct assault on the major U.S. Pacific naval base at Pearl Harbor to get Americans into the fight against Japan. It had also required Hitler’s declaration of war on the U.S. to push Americans into the war against Nazi Germany.

All after much of the rest of the world was already in a titanic life or death struggle for over two years. Yet not having been directly confronted themselves, Americans as late as December 6, 1941 for some reason didn’t relish the chance to jump in a-shootin’? Remarkable that reticence from a nation of “unrestrained” military tendencies that is populated by “born flagwavers.”

More recently, to prompt major U.S. military action abroad? That required a series of surprise suicide attacks that attempted to flatten lower Manhattan and destroy parts of Washington, aiming to kill tens of thousands with a few carefully pinpointed blows. Amazing: talk about a bully people with fingers perpetually on triggers, seeking a fight over the most insignificant of provocations?

True, that horrific violence unleashed at them in 2001 subsequently moved many Americans to reflect upon a hatred that had been directed at their country from a disturbingly large number of people generally embracing a certain religious faith. Which as we know had been almost entirely Bush’s fault."

I really like Robert.

re: "Choose Your Xenophobes"

Robert at Expat Yank ("one American Living in the South of England") notes the British press being misleading about foreign work permits in Britain.

Money quote(s):

"Of course the paper doesn’t go into that sort of helpful detail. Why should it? After all, when you are waxing xenophobic and trying to mislead and whip up misplaced anger and even hate in your readership, why would you dare risk offering actual information?"

re: "Windmills Of The Mind Appear To Power The BBC"

Robert at Expat Yank ("one American Living in the South of England") shares a sad tale of the BBC.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he BBC News 24 woman studio newsreader (yours truly didn’t catch her name) observed to him, in a voice dripping with the incredulity of a sort one might hear emanating from a child, that, as an Israeli ground offensive begins into Gaza, Hamas can’t fight back with anything [materially] like the Israelis have."

"(Y)ours truly also knew then and there that she had just provided a morning post. In other words, “Daddy, ooh, those Israelis have big tanks. Gosh, that doesn’t really seem fair?”"

"(W)hat’s that BBC newswoman’s excuse? For she’s purportedly an adult, and if her similar simpleton observation doesn’t neatly sum up BBC stupidity, bias and sheer reporting childishness, yours truly doesn’t honestly know what does."

&

"What in heaven’s name does she and the lot at the Beeb honestly think war is? A darts match? Who throws first? Everyone throws from the same distance? The same number of darts each? And afterwards everyone gathers in a circle on the lounge floor and partakes from the Holly Hobbie tea set?"