Who caused the violence in Central America that kids are escaping from?

Here is a link to an article someone sent me couple of days ago . It’s from 2005 and quite long but the message in it is clear - the influx of children across the border escaping from Central American violence is the fault of the United States. Nothing new about that really. Countries like to blame the US for everything just like Obama blames Bush for everything.

Before I get to my take on this topic, here is one paragraph from the article which is the central theme:

In the past few years, as Washington has focused its attention on the Middle East, it has virtually ignored a dangerous phenomenon close to home. Ultraviolent youth gangs, spawned in the ghettos of Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, have slowly migrated south to Central America, where they have transformed themselves into powerful, cross-border crime networks. With the United States preoccupied elsewhere, the gangs have grown in power and numbers; today, local officials estimate their size at 70,000-100,000 members. The marabuntas, or maras, as they are known (after a deadly species of local ants), now pose the most serious challenge to peace in the region since the end of Central America's civil wars.

The article goes on with a lot of facts and as I was reading it for the first time, I thought, wow, even with the best intent, the USA really did cause the ruthless violence that occurs in Central America. But after thinking about this for a while, its clear there’s more to it than just that.

What we have is American gangs who got their specialized skills in the ghettos of one of our largest cities. But where did those gang bangers come from? I don’t have the statistics but the Latina population in California didn’t spring out of nowhere. It came about because we allowed people to cross the border while our government turned a blind eye. Illegal aliens arriving in large numbers with no prospects of work wound up in some of the worst conditions in our inner cities. That is where the gangs formed and those are the people that were later sent back to their origin countries where they did the only thing they knew how to do - maim, kill, steal, threaten and generally cause chaos.

Did the USA cause the current problem of high crime in Honduras? If we say it is political blindness to the law and not defending borders, then yes. If we say it’s because we don’t deal with poverty in this country properly, then yes. It confounds me to think that liberal policy is quick to give a handout only to make people dependent on the government and not do anything to educate the generations and help them help themselves.

Decades of bad policy keep piling up. The latest problem of the children coming across the border is fodder for more of the same bad, short sighted, political policies. If the criminals in Honduras got their training here, what’s that say for our future when we no longer can control who and what comes over the border.

So there is no personal responsibility on the people of these countries who grow the drugs, take the bribes and commit the murders? Just because somebody offers you money to do something doesn't mean it's not your fault. Should we then hold these same people responsible for our inner city kids who die selling the drugs grown in their country? They don't get to run away from responsibility. I'm not saying America isn't the shadiest country on earth maybe, but their hands aren't entirely clean either and it's a poor excuse for a mass migration. Murder rates are actually down compared to 20 years ago in most of those countries. There were actually wars going on then. The cartels actually originated with old rebels gangs and such. Not prisons in America. They didn't learn guerilla warfare on american streets. Let's at least be a little bit honest here.

What about the Italian, Irish, Africans, and Vietnamese? Should we kick them out, too?

originally posted by: skunkape23
What about the Italian, Irish, Africans, and Vietnamese? Should we kick them out, too?

I don't know why you would ask that question when the topic is about Central America. And by the way, I never said anything about kicking anyone out.

It goes way back to before this. I'll quote myself about the history of Guatemala from another thread:

Between 1901 and 1944, the country was controlled by two dictators, Cabrera and Jorge Ubico, who handed over the country to the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) — they controlled 40% of the land, the railroad, public utilities and the country's only port and had of course, had no competition for the country's biggest export (bananas which is where the term comes from).

The people of Guatemala fought a revolution and overthrew Ubico in 1944. A philosophy professor, Juan Jose Arevalo, was elected president and initiated social reforms and then in 1950, his secretary of defense, Jacobo Arbenz was elected president and he really ticked off the UFC. See he was undertaking among other things, agrarian reform and the parasitical foreign entity that was the UFC, was having none of it.

This all culminated in 1954 when the CIA, with Dulles (a UFC stockholder) at the helm, overthrew Arbenz and exiled him, ostensibly for his links to the communists. This resulted in hit squads, people disappearing and a ultimately a civil war from 1960 - 1996 during which time the indigenous descendants of the Mayans were massacred by US-supported regimes. The turmoil from then to present is a thread unto itself but I encourage you to read up on it, I did.

Think about that next time you're in the produce section and you see Chiquita bananas or Dole, formerly Standard Fruit — American companies with the aid of the US government (CIA), responsible for the ruin of several Latin American countries.

a reply to: LogicalGraphitti

I don't buy it...Where are these people meeting at??? How do they locate the buses and planes to board to get across Mexico and into the U.S...Mexico has stringent border control...Who is driving these buses and planes???

I suspect the whole thing is orchestrated by the U.S. gov't to round these people up and send them to the U.S...The question is; when will it end...When there are no longer any kids in Central America???

And what exactly are we supposed to do with thousands upon thousand of kids? Yes lets kidnap them....Thats what it is, kidnapping.

maybe the guns holder gave the cartels.

this is all a catch 22 loaded question there is no win

can you turn down a child coming from sutch a world .. no

will it mess us up in the end yes

we will have to merg as one to fix the problem hate to say it i hate the idea but oppen boarders is the solution

what can we do with open borders make the enebitable happen faster you canot stop them from coming

every law that has been made to stop imagration has and will fail to go extreme if we where to kill every illegal to come will it stop them ... no they are coming from a life worse than death

im not the symithedic type but the logics say let them come cripple mecico crush them due to influx of population

yes we will sink we cant absorb it it will be a massive wound we can not fix

but in the end i think it will make us stronger the fail of the goverment money econimy everything will happen

and just hopfuly we will rise from it ether that or we will die but the end result is the same we cant stop it

theas people are more than willing to die over what they are faced

in the words of a grate comic just buy everything tell we hit the panamal canal and say swim this

i belive ... critisize me if u must but we will grow from absorbing them i cant see a downfall rake in what will happen now

theres is no way around it we will wither slowly from them or absorb them its all the same

the economic bost is high i think they cant ship the jobs to china not that many we wioll force companys into a checkmate

i think this will happen ether way once umm illicet substances are legsal i mean no cartells ...imagin they are delt the same bow ur typical low level drug dealer is delt wouldent last long

a small milita vs the usa not going to hapion

as i saied im not for this whole idea its just the best solution i can see we will never build walls tall wide thick guarded anything to keep people who are looking at slavory or worse out its just not posible to stop somoene with nothing to lose

to all you anti let them in people try and keey carpender ants out of your house all the bugspray bombs wtf ever u want you can nuke the place they will come back you cant stop it so learn live with it

i wasent refering to imagrants as a problem there just a example of the redinancy to the problem and how it wont stop ever

a reply to: theantediluvian

Goes even further back if you start talking about oil

"I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street....

www.democraticunderground.com...

From Smedly butler, would be on the Mt. Rushmore of US marines if they had one.
We have decimated our neighbors below for years, we are now seeing the side effects.