By Alfredo Jalife-Rahme, English translation by Gerardo Alejos.
First off, some background: last year, in the presence of Mexico’s Senate leader Manlio Fabio Beltrones [PRI], Bob Gates, then George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense (who was confirmed in his oversensitive position by Barack Obama), promised during a Washington conference that Mexico would be incorporated into the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), as long as the Merida Initiative was approved in the Mexican Congress. Maybe [Mexico's President Felipe] Calderon and Beltrones are not aware that NORAD was used during the Cold War as the nuclear defensive shield of the US and Canada (two NATO members) against the former Soviet Union.
Notwithstanding the notorious entreguismo [appeasement policy] of “Mexico’s ambassadors” in Washington –Jesus Reyes Heroles Jr., his “political consultant” Luis Carlos Ugalde Ramirez (infamous after the devastation of the Federal Electoral Institute [Mexico’s independent electoral body]), and the [former Mexican ambassador to the US Jorge] Castañeda-disciple Arturo Sarukhán Casamitjana–, or the coreographic variations between the Republican and Democratic parties, ¿why is the Pentagon upraising NORAD in the post-Cold War era, with the strange inclusion of Mexico?¿Does the Mexican “governing class” know that Mexico’s espousal of the Pentagon’s military theorems –the war on drugs, the war on Islamic terror, NORAD– will force our country to share the global enemies that the US has duly earned throughout the years in Eurasia, Africa, Europe and Latin America?
Now, the facts. “The ancient route of the perverse men” had already been traced, as French philosopher René Girard would have said, upon the following events:
1) the incorporation of [1994-2000 president Carlos] Salinas’ Mexico to BushDaddy’s NAFTA –a resounding failure, according to top US academic centers–;
2) [2000-2006 president Vicente] Fox’s acceptance of the SPP –the Security (super sic!) and Prosperity (super sic!) Partnership of North America, which served as a cover-up of the handing over of Mexico’s oil and which hasn’t provided “security” or “prosperity”, as it can be easily witnessed in Mexico’s territory–;
3) and now Plan Mexico (a clone of the failed Plan Colombia), only renamed as the Merida Initiative.
The three phases –NAFTA, SPP and the Merida Initiative– are part of the US unilateral agenda imposed to a castrated, archaic Mexico in which the [former Secretary of the Interior] Joseph Marie Cordoba-[former president Ernerto] Zedillo couple, along with their allies [Central Bank president] Guillermo Ortiz Martinez, [former Secretary of the Treasury] Angel Gurria, and the Werner Wainfield brothers –Alejandro, Mariano and Martin, currently one of the directors of Banca Mifel (Voces del Periodista, no. 2007, 4/01/09) and a Goldman Sachs’ employee–, successfully dismantled the Mexican financial system, now obscenely controlled by the Wall Street-City axis.
After the Merida Initiative was approved by the Calderon-Beltrones Congress, Bob Gates is fulfilling his Bush-era promise and has set up the stage, in the Obama administration, in order to incorporate “neoliberal Mexico” to NORAD, as detailed in the analysis by European military think tank De Defensa (4/09/09).
According to it, the Pentagon “is equating Mexico with the Southern border of the US in the cheerful (sic) planning of the war on drugs”, as corroborated by general James E. “Hoss” Cartwright during the April 6 conference in which Secretary of Defense Bob Gates set out his budget proposal for next year.
General Cartwright, a strategist of military globalization, was a US Marine and is second in command to admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When asked by a journalist to comment on “Mexico’s participation, for the first time in history, in some binational military exercises in Florida” under the authority of the Southern Command, a brazen General Cartwright confirmed that the “cooperation” (super sic!) will be “both at the service level, for training, and then at the operational level, with the Commander of NORTHCOM, for support in the drug conflicts that Mexico’s working its way through but also for general support in the Mexican government's ability to defend its country (extra sic!).”
Apart from the Hollywoodesque Al-Qaeda threats to Pemex, is there any country or coalition of cartels expressing interest in invading Mexico, while Calderon and [current Secretary of the Treasury Agustin] Carstens affirm that Mexico’s team of the “best economists of the world” is handling the crisis well? The double “support” disclosed by General Cartwright, the unexpected “saviour” of Mexico and its oil, while the US plays as almighty God, “will be more robust (sic) than it has been in the past, by a significant (sic) amount.” [De Defensa] made a very serious charge: “the Pentagon is making the decisions regarding operational cooperation and it has lobbied in order to pressure the Mexican army to accept them.” So, wasn’t it Calderon’s, Beltrones’ and Sarukhan’s initiative that the Northern and Southern Commands defend the Mexican territory and its oil?
The new Pentagon, with a limited budget due to the two-fold financial and economic crisis of the US, has set the stage to carry out a new type of irregular warfare [also called “fourth generation warfare”] (Bajo la Lupa, 12/07/08), and Mexico will be its first guinea pig on a global scale. Nothing is new anymore.
The cheerful General Cartwright did not even attempt to hide the new Pentagon’s “transition” toward irregular warfare, which includes Calderon’s war on drugs -and its hidden agenda of handing over oil and the Mexican security through military force-, which requires specific training and equipment that will be provided by our neighbor and saviour, the US.
De Defensa is amazed at the “remarkable density” of General Cartwright’s response and makes a scathing comment: “this is the Mexican army being publicly involved in an exercise with the US army.” So long for discretion and caution, let’s welcome instead a joint operation under the two-fold pincer-like command of the Northern Command -for the war on drugs in the Mexico/US border and its shameful wall- and the Southern Command -for the defense of the Mexican territory-.
Could it be that the US, in a clear stage of decadence, fears that some of its innumerable global enemies could infiltrate its Southern border and/or the Caribbean, its two most vulnerable spots? Is the Pentagon advancing its defensive lines toward the Panama Canal, connecting Plan Mexico with Plan Colombia? Will this end up gobbling Mexico and the small countries of the Caribbean and Central America?
[De Defensa] writes that “the Mexican armed forces will have to follow the new U.S. doctrine that will be developed - but without discussion (sic).” It also suggests that the dispute over the border is “a step toward the annexation to the Pentagon,” and that it is also a “great test for a new doctrine” through which the military presence of the US will now be “structurally massive.” It is not for nothing: this new doctrine traps Mexico under the only two operational commands of the US for the Americas. Is Mexico the new tectonic plate –in geopolitical terms– between the decadent North and the rising South of our fractured American hemisphere?
- Originally published in the column Bajo la Lupa of the newspaper La Jornada, April 15, 2009 , Mexico City.
