Intervention and Betrayal

The U.S. wants to legitimize its aging de facto intervention in Mexico. During the last presidential term, through so-called “centers of bilateral cooperation,” Washington penetrated the security and intelligence agencies of the Mexican state, and now wants to allow its undercover agents to legally use firearms in Mexican territory. They’re pushing their initiative through Enrique Pena Nieto’s “new PRI.” First they softened him up, and now, just like they did with Salinas, Zedillo, Fox and Calderon, they’re forcing Pena to be the one who approves the use of firearms for their agents in Mexico.

The initiative to reform the Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives was sent to the Mexican Senate on Feb. 24. The goal? To allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to carry and utilize firearms in Mexico as part of a joint pre-inspection program, similar to the one they have with Canada. Beyond immigration authorities from one country “exercising their power in the territory of another,” the purpose is to allow U.S. agents to check the documentation of passengers in international air and sea ports in Mexico, as well as control and supervise commercial imports and exports on Mexican borders.

Washington’s plan, now thrown on Pena, proposes that agents carry 40 caliber (maximum) guns and that the president’s bodyguards, ministers and high ranking U.S. officials act with their firearms in Mexico “for their own protection.” According to Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Jose Antonio Meade, it’s about “harmonizing … without any ambiguity” Mexico’s legislation with that of the United States. He argued that the arming of U.S. agents in national territory is “important” and “relevant” for “increased competitiveness” and “shared prosperity” in North America.

Once bulwarks in the defense of stopping any U.S. intervention in Mexico, even Vicente Fox and Jorge G. Castaneda Gutman proposed an “intelligent transfer of sovereignty.” Meade well knows that agents from the CIA, Drug Enforcement Administration, ICE, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Pentagon and other intelligence agencies have been using firearms discreetly in Mexico for years. Recently, an ex-CIA official estimated that there are 25,000 clandestine officers from the U.S. in Mexico. Just last November, the Wall Street Journal revealed that officers from the U.S. Marshal’s Service, armed and disguised in uniforms from Mexico’s navy, participated at least four times a year in anti-narcotic operations in Mexican territory with the help of DEA and FBI agents. According to the Wall Street Journal, undercover agents from Washington also intervened in the capture of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, and a marshal was wounded in Sinaloa last July during another operation, this one against the group known as the Beltran Leyva brothers. He was rescued by a soldier from the Mexican navy and transferred to Culiacan and then Texas.

Since 2005, with the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, and then under the coverage of the Merida Initiative (2007), the U.S. has exponentially increased its political, military and intelligence interference in Mexico. The revelations in the Wall Street Journal, however, show that U.S. agents even operate here with resources from the Mexican state — like guns and uniforms from the navy — in activities that are only in the interest of national corporations. It’s an indication that Pena Nieto’s government continues to further hand over its sovereignty, “without any ambiguity” in the name of good ole “cooperation,” all while Washington supplies high power weapons to the same criminal organizations it says it’s fighting, as was shown in the Fast and Furious and Wide Receiver operations.

Pena’s “initiative” of arming U.S. agents in Mexico was left in his hands by President Barack Obama at their meeting in Toluca at the North American Leaders Summit on Feb. 19, 2014. The following April, during the Trilateral Meeting of North American Defense Ministers, Canada, the United States and Mexico agreed to look for answers to “transnational threats” together. At the headquarters of the Secretary of National Defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos asserted to Canadian Minister Robert D. Nicholson and his American counterpart, Charles Timothy Hagel, that “there is a geostrategic importance in North America that forces us to connect in new ways in order to attend to threats which are by nature diverse and multilateral.” In the joint declaration, the three ministers of defense and the Secretary of the Navy, Admiral Vidal Soberon, announced that “due to our countries’ deep geographic, demographic and economic connections,” the three countries share “mutual interests in defense” Oh, please. Cut the crap!

It’s clear that the language used in the SPP has implanted itself in the minds of those who are supposed to defend our national sovereignty. In its final section, the text was touched up by the all-powerful Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the report from which last October proposed a “unified security strategy” in North America and greater “energy connections” between the United States, Canada and Mexico. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, “It’s the hydrocarbons, stupid.” Pena understands all that but continues down the path the U.S. has laid out for him.