Ron Paul Forums / Rand Paul Forums - The True Cause of the Border and Refuge "Crisis"

(RPF) - Let's assume that there are people who are true refugees, facing terrible, violent conditions in their home towns, and that some of them have crossed over into the US. We should not conflate those with people who just want to move to the United States for a variety of other reasons, usually economic. Certainly there will be some overlap, but let's focus exclusively on those whose only reason to flee is the violence.

For this group, the root cause is clear. It's the war on drugs (WOD). The WOD has escalated and intensified in the past couple of decades. It is not a problem that was created in the past two years. It has essentially turned into a true war in the streets.

While there is a long and sordid history involved, if we look at the past two decades, there were a variety of operations and initiatives by both President's Bush and Obama that have dramatically escalated the violence.

For instance, a story from 2013:

US military expands its billion dollar drug war in Latin America
Published February 04, 2013
...
In the most expensive initiative in Latin America since the Cold War, the U.S. has militarized the battle against the traffickers, spending more than $20 billion in the past decade. U.S. Army troops, Air Force pilots and Navy ships outfitted with Coast Guard counternarcotics teams are routinely deployed to chase, track and capture drug smugglers.

The sophistication and violence of the traffickers is so great that the U.S. military is training not only law enforcement agents in Latin American nations, but their militaries as well, building a network of expensive hardware, radar, airplanes, ships, runways and refueling stations to stem the tide of illegal drugs from South America to the U.S.
...
It is unfortunate that militaries have to be involved in what are essentially law enforcement engagements," said Frank Mora, the outgoing deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs. But he argues that many governments have little choice.
...
But the U.S. is deploying its own military. Not only is the Fourth Fleet in the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Atlantic, but the Marines were sent to Guatemala last year and the National Guard is in Honduras.

The Obama Administration sees these deployments as important missions with a worthy payoff.
...
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/02/04...n-america.html

The solution is clear from a logical standpoint. Prohibition does not work. As a matter of fact, it backfires terribly. End the war on drugs. Decriminalize marijuana, cocaine and heroin. This does not mean endorse or advocate their use. Spend a fraction of the money spent on the war on drugs instead on health education and treatment programs. This will also help to stem the new epidemic of deadly and unknown synthetic drugs from China.

But from a political standpoint, the solution is much more murky. There are far too many powerful people and entities that benefit or profit from the illegal drug trade, and from the efforts to combat it. There are also political motivations such as the Cloward-Piven strategy, which is a method of creating chaos in the first place in order to gain various political advantages.

The emotional hysteria demonstrated on a daily basis in the media and in DC recently is a prime example of attempting to "never let a serious crisis go to waste". And considering that this same amount of effort has never been put into solving the root cause (prohibition), there is good reason to believe that the tragedy is indeed allowed to continue strictly for political and economic or budgetary gain.

Can we address the root cause, and end prohibition and the war on drugs? It would be an easy solution, if not for the vested interests that do not want the problem to be solved. As a matter of fact, some in positions of power probably don't consider it a "problem" at all. This is the hurdle that must be overcome if there is to be a solution to both drug trade violence and the refugees that violence creates.