Futility of the wall

Interspersed with Trump’s current crises (reunification of separated immigrant parents and children, ebb/flow of White House staffers and department secretaries, investigations of his perfidy on many fronts, etc.), the topic of “The Wall” still occasionally makes the news, mostly to note that prototypes are being erected for evaluation, that Mexico remains unenthused about paying for it and that Plan B would have the Department of Defense funding it instead.

This observer is reminded of the Maginot Line, an ill-fated World War II attempt to thwart Hitler’s invasion of France.

This fortified line of resistance came to naught when uncooperative Nazis did an end run around it, rendering it a speed bump at best.

History threatens to repeat itself at our southern border, where we are on the cusp of erecting our own version of the ML. It promises to be just as ineffective as its predecessor for the same reasons. (The rib-tickler about a 30-foot wall being defeated by an entrepreneurial Mexican manufacturing 31-foot ladders comes to mind.)

Its sole utility at this point is fulfilling a hare-brained campaign promise to the base to “protect America” from hordes of murderers, rapists and other fictional ne’er-do-wells.

David Fietz

Springdale, Washington