Border wall world history 101 - echo opinion from California

An echo opinion letter published in The Fresno Bee

Donald Trump promised a border wall and Mexico was going to pay for it.  HELLO? Who will pay for it? Instead, the cost of the useless border wall will be paid by cutting middle class safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, children's health CHIP and important social services. #Cruel_Donald_Trump

Actually, history proves that border walls are an ineffective protection for cities or countries.

In approximately 1300 BC, the Spartans were able to bypass the walls of Troy to burn, sack and loot the city.

In Rome’s Third Servile War,(73 -71 BC) the Roman army had Spartacus’ forces bottled up on the tip of Italy, so they built a wall to contain the rebels. Spartacus not only escaped, but took his army with him and fought additional battles with the Romans.

Masada was a walled fortress on the top of a mountain. In 66 AD Jewish rebels took the fortress away for the Romans and in 73 AD the Romans breached the wall and re-took the fortress. All of the Jews committed suicide rather than be captured by the Romans.

According to historians, Hadrian’s Wall in Britain was never built to prevent invasion or immigration, but to demonstrate the power of Rome.

The Great Wall of China, built in stages between 7 BC and 1644 AD, was built to protect China from the invaders from the north. It did not stop Kublai Kahn from conquering China in 1271 AD and establishing the Yuan Dynasty that ruled China until 1368 AD.

Jerusalem in probably an excellent example that walls don’t work. It was invaded by the Arabs in 68 AD, the Turks in 1073 AD, the Crusaders in 1099 AD, Saladin’s Muslim army in 1187 AD. It was sacked by the Tartars in 1244 AD and the Ottoman Turks captured it in 1512 AD.

Now there was the Berlin Wall. It was pretty effective because there were soldiers on the wall that shot anyone trying to cross it. If we establish a border wall, how many soldiers will we have on it and how many people will they have to shoot?

It would be better to take the $5 billion proposed for the wall and invest it in Central America to improve conditions so the natives of those countries would not have to flee to the U.S. for sanctuary and a better way of life. Putting up a wall won’t do it.

From Jim Clark in Lemoore, California

Americans built an anti immigration wall but it might as well be a magnet for people seeking freedom

It's possible people have nearly forgotten the era of The Berlin Wall, when Germany was divided between east and west. A cement barricade created a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to prevent people in east Germany from escaping to the west.  Of course, The Berlin Wall became an iconic attraction and raised the ambition of many east Germans to escape the tyranny of communism.  In other words, The Berlin Wall was a failure.

Berlin Wall

Likewise, the anti-immigration wall constructed with American tax money to prevent Hispanic immigration into the United States is a similar failure. 

When will governments learn the lesson, that walls don't work? They only raise the bar higher to challenge those who want to climb over the structures, regardless of how well armed they are or high they are built. Just consider The Great Wall of China as a magnificent example.

Therefore, as Americans face the conundrum of what to do about thousands of undocumented immigrants pouring into the Southwest to escape the tyranny of gangs and executions, we must realize that the anti-immigration wall in Arizona is a colossal failure.

In fact, the anti immigration wall in Arizona is among the world's three failed walls. They are (a) The Great Wall of China (b) The Berlin Wall (c) the Arizona anti-immigration wall.

Rather than prevent people from entering the US, the wall has become irrelevant as thousands of people are simply crossing the border from Mexico. Unfortunately, many of those making the arduous journey are unaccompanied children. Families who allow their children to travel over dangerous terrain must be extremely desperate. There's no solution to this wave of undocumented immigration. It's impossible to turn all these people away. Mexico won't take care of them unless they happen to be Mexicans and many of them are from Central American countries.

Nevertheless, what's evident is the ridiculous anti-immigration wall. It's is a complete failure and a huge waste of tax payer money.  
Rather than deter undocumented immigrants, the wall has become a landmark on the US border and a destination marker for those seeking freedom in America.  

Walls in History and the Land of the Free and the Brave

Although there's plenty of "tops" lists to be found on the Internet, the idea of listing popular or infamous walls doesn't seem to capture any one's imagination.  I thought about this, especially with the personal experience of visiting the enormous Great Wall in China.  

Why aren't walls listed as popular tourist attractions?  Probably (in my humble opinion) because walls are constructed for typically nefarious purposes.  For example, there's nothing touristy about the ugly and expensive wall dividing the United States from Mexico, built with the intention of keeping illegal immigrants from crossing the border. This unsightly Arizona border wall is a stupid structure and a perfect example of how people who don't take history seriously are doomed to repeat it.

A wall is by nature a barrier.  I can't think of a reason why anybody would build a wall, except to create a barrier or to segment something as separate from something else.  It's a vertical structure, usually solid, that defines and sometimes protects an area.

In New England, the colonial saying goes, "Good walls make good neighbors", which makes the concept of a wall oddly picturesque.  In reality, the use of colonial or middle ages walls were to protect one person or tribe from another.  Walls were the colonial equivalent of fences, except, of course, the rocks withstood nature's brutality, while fences corroded.  Therefore, in New England and other places, stone walls have become quaint, when their purpose was not so friendly, at all.  

But, the point is, walls have never been effective barriers. They are expensive and symbolic, but not effective.  

Europeans are still trying to figure out what to do with the remains of Adolf Hitler's Atlantic Wall, the name given to a massive coastal defensive structure built on Hitler's orders, that stretched all the way from Norway, along the Belgium and French coastline, to the Spanish border.  Remnants of the Atlantic Wall are hideous and a constant reminder of the tyrannical Third Reich.  Moreover, the extraordinary cost estimate I found on line was 1.2 million tonnes of steel and the cost in France alone was 3.7 billion Deutschmarks.

We know the Atlantic Wall did absolutely nothing to defend Germany from the Allied invasion, June 6, 1944 of Normandy.

A similar analogy can be made about the ridiculous Berlin Wall, dividing East and West Germany during the Cold War (1947-1991).
In fact, the Berlin Wall created a universal symbol of Western victory over tyranny, especially when the Berlin Blockade of 1948-49, was defeated by the Berlin airlift.  

And so on, with the Great Wall of China.  Extraordinary life was lost at the expense of the Chinese people during the building of China's Great Wall. Yet, today the wall is a congested tourist attraction and symbolic of failed protectionist policies.

So now the Land of the Free and the Brave also has an infamous "border wall", in Arizona.

This Arizona wall is sad.  Furthermore, it's just as hideous as Hitler's Atlantic Wall, the Berlin Wall and the Great Wall, combined.  Moreover, it's separating families who have loved ones on each side, plus, puts at risks thousands of lives of those who circumvent it, to reach the United States, in spite of it.

In addition to being a mean spirited social and political barrier, there's no rational logic among conservative, anti-immigration, right wing nuts, who won't spend ten dollars to fund a Medicaid program for the poor, but don't even ask what the Arizona border wall costs?

Surely, right wing extremists (the RWE-RWE's) remember their idol Ronald Reagan's clarion call about the Berlin Wall: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Today, President Reagan could be speaking to them.  

Let's imagine the ghost of President Reagan crying out, "Sarah Palin, tear down this wall!",  or "Senator Lindsey Graham, tear down this wall!" or "Speaker John Boehner, tear down this wall!".  

It's a terrible embarrassment for the Americans to build a wall dividing the two friendly countries of Mexico and the United States.  Beyond being hideous, expensive to build, and to maintain and ineffective, the wall is just plain wrong.  It's now fourth on history's list of unpopular walls, in line with The Atlantic Wall, the Berlin Wall, and the intention of The Great Wall - and Arizona's will never be a tourist attraction.