From: Jesse Mossman [Email him]

I have felt  for a long time, without razor wire, the border "wall" is easily climbed—now this video is proof.

Trump says his border wall is 'impenetrable.' It took climbers in Kentucky mere seconds, Ben Tobin, Louisville Courier, October 11, 2019

The much-ballyhooed prototypes—which turned out to be a complete waste of money—could also be climbed. Obviously the government "test" which said teams failed to climb the prototypes were fake—superiors must have made it clear that actual climbing success would not be looked upon favorably. Furthermore, the bollard design with gaps allows drugs or weapons to be easily passed through.

So why aren't coils of razor wire fastened to BOTH sides of the fence (the US side needs the wire too so those who reach the top through various means—including ladders—can't easily descend the US side)?

There are two possibilities—that those in charge don't really want to stop illegal aliens from entering or that it is all about style. That is, razor wire looks bad—conjuring up images of prisons, Communist frontiers, etc. Those in charge merely want to make it look like they are doing something about border security while minimizing criticism for bad visuals. So we have a case of style over substance—or as 50's hot-rodders used to say about cars which looked hot but weren't, "all show and no go."

In contrast, the fences in Israel and Eastern Europe, covered with razor wire, are actually meant to stop invaders—and they do.

See earlier letters from Jesse Mossman.

James Fulford writes: Apparently President Trump wants to put wire and other things on the fence to make climbing it uncomfortable and unpleasant. His subordinates have (a) failed to do so and (b) leaked how horrified they are to the press. This is from the recently released Border Wars: Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration, by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear, which contains a lot of leaking by disloyal aides.

But the president’s overarching goal was to make the experience of crossing the border into the United States as terrifying and perilous as possible. At one point, Trump became enamored of the idea of digging a trench along the border, so much so that Nielsen asked the Army Corps of Engineers to calculate the cost. (Twice to three times as expensive, they reported back.) Discussions with his advisers ensued about what would be inside the ditch: Water? Alligators? Snakes? Some of the president’s proposals were so outlandish that aides could not even tell whether he was serious. Trump was crystal clear on one point, though: the wall should be dangerous enough to dissuade immigrants from even attempting to scale it. More than once, he had instructed officials at the Department of Homeland Security to look into whether the wall could be electrified so that anyone touching it would receive a shock.

Why not? These would be the non-lethal fence variety used to guard secure sites all over the world.

He wanted the spikes on top to be sharp enough to pierce human flesh in an instant. He wanted concertina wire everywhere. Trump had vivid descriptions of what he wanted immigrants to experience if they tried to scale the wall: They would be burned, maimed, cut to pieces by the wire. I want these people to be in horrible shape if they climb up, the president would say.

Spikes on top of walls are common even in the US, and incredibly common in Latin America. Steve Sailer has written that immigrants to Los Angeles seem to like installing "lethal finials" on their fences. Trump tweeted one possible design here:

It was stunning. The president was openly advocating for illegal border crossers to be maimed and burned at the border, the kind of treatment usually associated with brutal dictators or military strongmen. In fact, Trump was envious of Kim Jong-un, the ruthless leader of North Korea, for the security of his border, fortified with land mines and policed by armed guards who shot to kill. “When you talk about a wall, when you talk about a border,” he said in 2019 before a visit to the Demilitarized Zone, “that’s what they call a border. Nobody goes through that border.”

Trump actually said this, without, of course, saying he envied Kim Jong-Un, or referring to land mines (used by both sides) and shoot-to-kill orders. The point of the DMZ is that it's South Korea's barrier against invasion, and aid of fortifications and US and South Korean troops,  it prevents the North from invading, and has done since 1952.

Trump expressed no sympathy for people clamoring to enter the United States. To the president, they were all criminals, the kinds of dangerous people he so frequently warned about during his rallies. He was determined to keep them out, and his aides were alarmed at what he was willing to do to get his way.

I'm alarmed by his disloyal aides, of course. They're the problem, as are people like former DHS head Kirstjen Nielsen, who don't care how many illegals break in and stay in the US, as long as they don't look bad in the press.