U.S. troops at a staging area for General John J. Pershing's
1916 incursion into Mexico to apprehend Mexican renegade
Poncho Villa, who raided U.S. territory in retaliation for U.S.
support of dictator Victoriano Huerta.
La Jornada, Mexico
Mexico: The Birthplace
of U.S. Interventionism
"Although
Mexico shares a history of U.S. invasions, occupations and direct military
attacks with Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Argentina,
Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Granada, and Honduras … our long common
border has made our country the iconic case of the U.S.' long-established interventionism throughout the world."
Mexico is the only
underdeveloped capitalist country with a land border with the United States,
the hegemonic head of the imperialist global system. It is also unique in Latin
America for having had a conventional war with the country (1846-1848). Significantly,
Joel Roberts Poinsett,
the first U.S. ambassador to our country, distinguished himself by his
interference in our domestic affairs and his insistence on acquiring the
northern or interior provinces, which were then completely conquered through
force of arms and formerly bequeathed to the United States in the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in February 1848.
Lands 'ceded' by Mexico to U.S.
after Mexican-American War.
Gastón
García Cantú, in his classic book The
North American Invasions of Mexico, (ERA Editions, 1971), cites the
opinion of [Spanish officer] Félix María
Calleja, brigade commander of San Luis Potosi and a leading expert on the
interior provinces. Already in 1808, Calleja considered that the United States,
"by its proximity, interests, and relationships, should always be
considered our natural and permanent enemy." His work also offers a time
line stretching from 1799 to 1918 -before
independence and during the Republic - in which he details 285 acts of
aggression against our country, including early plans for the occupation of Mexico
by New Spain; armed expeditions pursued by militias or adventurers; the capture
of schooners flying the Mexican flag and the illegal imprisonment of their
crews; the revolt of Anglo settlers against the government on the part of separatists;
the abduction and molestation of soldiers stationed at the border; acts by filibusters
that included the taking of towns; constant encroachment on our nation's
territory by Yankee troops; cattle-rustling; the pillaging and burning of homes
under the protection of the authorities of this country; diplomatic
interventions comprised of unacceptable demands that violated our sovereignty;
the presence of warships and marine landings at various ports along the Gulf of
Mexico and the Pacific, etcetera. Garcia Cantú maintained that the government's
policy toward the United States was one of the most important parameters for
assessing the performance of whatever government was in office.
So, although Mexico shares a
history of U.S. invasions, occupations and direct military attacks with Cuba,
Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Argentina, Paraguay, Puerto
Rico, Guatemala, Granada, and Honduras - to say nothing of the clandestine
operations suffered by these and other countries in Latin America - our long common border has made our country the iconic case of the U.S.' long-established interventionism throughout the world.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
In his closing statement at
the Latin American Conference on National Sovereignty, Economic Emancipation
and Peace, which took place in March of 1961, Lázaro Cárdenas,
founder of the Movement of
National Liberation, stated, "The fundamental force blocking the
development of Latin America is U.S. imperialism. Its intimate alliance with national
oligarchs and the ruinous effects of its economic and cultural penetration,
show it to be the principal cause of the general stagnation that prevails in
Latin America today. The defeat of imperialism is a fundamental requirement of
any plan for developing our countries."
Painting
by John Gast (circa 1872) called American Progress
is an
allegorical
representation of Manifest Destiny. In the scene, an
angelic
woman (Columbia, a 19th century personification of the
U.S.)
carries the light of "Civilization" westward. American settlers,
stringing
telegraph wire, follow her. American Indians and wild
animals
flee into the darkness of the 'uncivilized' West.
There is no major event in
contemporary national life without the negative involvement of the United
States. Since Victoriano
Huerta's coup d'état against Madero
(1913), in which the U.S. ambassador played a decisive role; there was the invasion and
military occupation
of Veracruz for several months in 1914, and the theft of customs revenue
that was never returned; the 1916 entry of troops into Chihuahua during the
failed pursuit of Francisco
[Pancho] Villa; the so-called Bucareli Treaty, in
which Álvaro
Obregón agreed to pay compensation to U.S. citizens affected by the armed
revolutionary movement (1910-1917) and was coerced not retroactively apply Article
27 of the Constitution with respect to U.S. oil companies; its active presence
in the popular student-movement of 1968, through the extensive U.S. Embassy
staff, one of the largest and most important in the world, which was discussed in
Channel Six's July documentary The American Connection
[video in Spanish only].
The timely publication by La
Jornada of the WikiLeaks documents has laid bare the reach of current U.S.
intervention - diplomatic, military, and by intelligence services - in our national
affairs, and has highlighted the collaboration of Felipe Calderón's
government, who, emulating Santa Anna,
has handed over our sovereignty to their U.S. mentors, just like their PRI and
PAN party predecessors did.
The North
American Free Trade Agreement, the Security
and Prosperity Partnership of North America and the Merida Initiative
constitute the documents of Mexico's formal surrender to its U.S. counterpart.
They amount to the incorporation of our country - under conditions of
structural economic dependency, without any consultation with the people and
with the Senate's slavish carelessness, into the U.S. economy, the warmongering
policies and global terrorism that George W. Bush imposed on the world, and
that Barack Obama, with his political and military actions, is developing in
full.
The group Peace with
Democracy, in its Appeal to the Mexican Nation, warned in November 2007
of the process of comprehensive occupation that has diverted our nation into
the project of "globalization" and the hegemony of " collective imperialism"
that today so dominates immense regions of the world and led by the United
States of America. Four years later, this process has deepened and spread, and without
a doubt, constitutes the most formidable challenge for any national project
that emerges from the depths of downtrodden Mexico.
