Mexico and US Shoot To Kill

Relations between Mexico and the United States have never been easy. They never will be. It is not a relationship which is optional; we are obligated to maintain it until the end of time. Geography glued us to each other on this earth and that will not change. So there is nothing more we can do but accept it and move the relationship toward an era of civility as much as possible.

I say that it has never been an easy relationship because in the Mexican-American War of 1846-1847, there were no narcotics or arms trafficking problems, nor was there a Central American immigration problem, and the United States invaded us anyway, confiscated half of our territory, killed the “Boy Heroes” in Chapultepec Castle, and put the starred and striped flag on the highest flagpole at the National Palace. After that, the most sensible thing to do was not to deal with them again for centuries and centuries, but instead, here we are.

The relationship is so intense that 30 million Mexicans, born here or in the U.S., live in that invasive, heartless, and fanatical country. In some cities, there is a majority of Mexican residents. The economic exchange is colossal and the web is so complex that every time the “gringo” government threatens us with taxes, the first to complain are its own business owners.

Every generation has had its problems. Currently, drugs and weapons are the main cause of permanent tension between both countries. It is a death spiral. Mexican drug traffickers have been tasked with satisfying the “gringos’” insatiable appetite for drugs. They are stocked with enough narcotics to supply every county in that gigantic country. Those drugs inflict a terrible death toll there.

From there to here, following the same route that the drugs take only backward, the U.S. sends us all kinds of weapons which are responsible for huge massacres in our country. That is to say, as the title of this piece reads, it was already very serious before Donald Trump arrived in the White House, but his election was equal to making a white supremacist president, something which has added to the hateful rhetoric that makes everything worse and causes Mexicans and “gringos” to growl at each other, show their teeth, and keep their finger on the trigger.

Trump encourages fascist fanatics who keep assault rifles in their homes, because there, as we all know, it is easier to buy a gun than cough syrup. So we have the worst of all possible worlds: two countries with enormous problems and Trump to make things even worse.

On our side we have President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who at this point, is doing well with his aspiring Miss Universe rhetoric, that kind of “world peace” and “turn the other cheek” talk, although at this point, I don’t know if it will be for good or for evil. He prefers to stay out of things and let Marcelo Ebrard do what he can so that Trump doesn’t blow his top and end up sending in the U.S. Marines. Given how things are, it does not seem like such a bad idea to build a wall along the border. A tall and impassable one. It would be a way to start fresh and act like the U.S. doesn’t exist, and have other neighbors, we’ll say Canada and Guatemala. We’ll have problems, whatever they may be, but perhaps we’ll be able to try to solve them by talking, negotiating, and not shooting to kill.