Bomb Mexico… really? Or, something else.

If only people like US Member of Congress, for Georgia Marjorie Taylor-Green, echoing the ravings of Donald Trump had been suggesting the US needs to “launch airtrikes on Mexico“… ostensively in reaction to the inability of the United States to get a handle on its fentenyl and opiate abuse issues ., , this could be laughed off… but it isn’t.

Rerpublican Party member of Congress have been swift to join Taylor-Greene.

The Chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, apparently suggested bombing Mexican “drug labs” during his previous position within the Trump Administration. Although Comer has refused to comment on the allegation, “The GOP chairman’s extreme pronouncements are part of a bigger push by House Republicans to appear tough on border issues”.

While such calls, mostly from Republicans, to “brand” (ill-defined) Mexican “cartels”(and, with the kidnapping and murder of US citizens in Matamoros… for reasons that are still unclear…the calls include powerful Senators, Lindsay Graham and John Kennedy) as foreign “terorists”. This would — at least from the United State’s (and several of the more powerful nations around the world) give the US a self-proclaimed right to use military force in Mexico.

Trump’s Former Attorney Geneval, Bill Barr, following his former boss in comparing the so-called “cartels” to ISIS, also speaks with open disdain of AMLO’s “abrazos no balazos” policies (best not translated as “hugs not bullets”, but “embrace, not erase”… basically provide the social and economic services to the population that makes criminal activity less attractive).

Which lends itself to the suggestion that fentinyl … in itself … is not what is really bothering US policy makers.

Simultenously… and probably not by accident… his has been coupled with moves by both the State Department and and various US “think tanks” and CIA cut-outs like the Natinal Endowment for Democracy to reframe the recent political reforms in Mexico (espcially in the electoral bureaucracy) as an “assault on Democracy” there is a very real sense that the US… Democrats and Republicans… are both attempting to stem Mexico’s move towards the international left.

Following the relatively large demonstrations in late February organized by the parties of the opposition (mostly PAN and PRI, though apparently the handiwork of Mexico’s one-man version of the Koch Brothers, Claudio X. Gonzales and his “Va Por Mexico” movement (or is it now Unid@s?… he keeps changing the name as his various sponored organizations fall apart, or fail to take off) ostenively in defense of the present structure of the Electoral Institute (INE for its initials in Spanish), tweeted out a message suggesting that the present government is somehow “undemocratic”… short-hand US diplo-speak for “We want to save you from yourselves — an argument picked up by neo-conservative “influencers” David Frum and Anne Applebaum in their house-organ, The Atlantic.

Perhaps those of you obsessed with “drug cartels” should be more concerned with the recent conviction of General Garcia Luna after an abbreviated trial… Garcia Luna’s protectors and promotors going back to the Clinton Administration’s Ambassador to Mexico, Jeffrey Davadow, and his support by every CIA, DEA,State Department since the Clinton Administration, there is every reason to assume the trial was cut short BEFORE Garcia Luna could testify about US connectins and tacit support for the “cartels”. There’s not much need to note that “cartels” couldn’t function without functionaries within the US (perhaps including the so-called “deep state”) to distribute the goods, and handle receivables.

While so far, the Biden administration has “poo-pooed” the simplistic “bomb Mexico” talk, one doesn’t need to put on a tin-foil hat to recognize a two-pronged attack on Mexican polical independence, with people like Greene and Lindsay Graham getting the attention while the overt support for the Mexican right by the US government is just overlooked… similar in ways the Obama Administration (and Sec of State Hillary Clinton) worked to undermine left leaning Paraguay… and justify a coup in Honduras.

Mexico’s adminstration has been firing back at the outrageous and frankly stupid “kill ’em all, and let the Lord sort ’em out” (as have others — here and here, for example) to much less publicity in the United States. And… perhaps… not publicized to let people overlook that fentinyl is something of a stalking horse for what the United States really wants from Mexico: backing away from nationalization of it’s resources, and the on-going “demand” that it buy corn from midwestern (and Republican leaning) exporters. Coupled, of course, with Mexico’s independent foreign policies, and the strong liklihood that the next Mexican adminstration will deepen and broaden the “Fourth Transformation”.

SOURCES:the

Donald J Trump, “President Donald J. Trump Declares War on Cartels” video (Trump Make America Great Again, 5 January 2023)

David Badash, “Marjorie Taylor Greene calls for US military strikes on Mexico” (Raw Story, 6 March 2023)… link in text

Josh Christenson, “Bill Barr likens Mexican drug cartels to ISIS, demands Biden send military” (New York Post, 3 March 2023

Natalie Kitoeff, “Más de 100.000 personas protestan en México contra las modificaciones al INE” (New York Times, 26 February 2023)

William P. Barr, “The U.S. Must Defeat Mexico’s Drug Cartels” (Wall Street Journal, 2 March 2023)

Kurt Hackworth, “No AMLO is Not Undermining Mexican Democracy” (Jacobin, 4 March 2023)

David Frum, “The Autocrat Next Door” (The Atlantic, 21 February, 2023).

Anne Applebaum, “How Do You Stop Lawmakers From Destroying the Law?” (The Atlantic, 1 March 2023).

Maciek Wisniewski, “Democracia estadunidens” (la Jornada, 4 March 2023)

Hernán Gómez Bruera, “Lorenzo y la ”mafia electoral‘” (El Universal, 3 March 2023)

Jennifer Benderey, “House GOP Chairman Calls It ‘A Mistake’ That Trump Didn’t Bomb Meth Labs In Mexico” (Huffington Post, 7 March 2023)

“Avanza proyecto de republicanos de EU para declarar como terroristas a cárteles mexicanos” (Forbes, 8 March 2023)

Fareed Zakaria “Mexico’s populist demagogue president is gutting fair elections” (Washington Post, 10 March 2023)

Ottenberg, Eve, “Some Congress Members Need to Sit Down and Shut Up” (Counterpunch, w1 March 2023)

Christopher Fettweis, “Ripping up Trump’s ‘battle plan’ of attack on Mexico’s cartels” (Responsible Statecraft, 3 April 2023)

Eric Martin and Jennifer A. Dlouhy, “Business Urge Biden to Use ‘Every Tool’ in Mexico Eneergy Spat” (Bloomburg, 10 March 2023)

Phillip Linderman. “Close the Border to Change Mexico’s Policies” (American Conservative, 29 March 2023)

Jude Russo, “Mexican Catechism” (American Conservative, 5 April 2023)

Alexander Ward, “GOP embraces a new foreign policy: Bomb Mexico to stop fentanyl” (Politico, 10 April 2023)

Isabella González, “López Obrador llama “oportunistas” a los republicanos que proponen el uso del Ejército estadounidense para combatir a los cárteles,” (El País, 9 March 2023)

“AMLO vive en negación sobre narco.- Graham” (Reforma, 3 April 2023)

Reuters, “4 claves de la disputa por el maíz transgénico entre México y Estados Unidos” (El Economista, 4 March 2023)