The United States and Its Disposable ‘Allies’

By not wanting to recount the votes … it ended up recounting the damage done.

One of the most frequent comments on the Genaro García Luna* case by prominent analysts is that his arrest is incomprehensible after having lived in the United States for seven years. Added to that, he received awards and recognition from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the CIA, the State Department and all of the U.S. security agencies.

Perhaps the most obvious and accurate answer is that, in due course, the super cop of the Felipe Calderón administration was useful for his willingness to cooperate with U.S. agencies. Now, it is much more useful to them (we suppose) to build a different type of relationship with the Mexican authorities.

But this is not a new issue. The maxim that guides gringo foreign policy was stated by John Foster Dulles in the 1950s: “The United States of America does not have friends; it has interests.”*** (The Englishman Lord Palmerston said it a century earlier.)

So, the strategy of “use them and discard them” has been applied to all of Caribbean and Central American dictators, to name the closest; but for someone even closer, we might recall Victoriano Huerta.**

What is more, they don’t even spare themselves. It is enough to remember Oliver North, who went from being a “warrior for American freedom” to being forced out by the Iran-Contra Affair. Not to mention the fact that sentimentality does not fit in with Uncle Sam’s predatory political practices.

*Editor’s note: García Luna was a Mexican government leader and businessman.

**Translator’s note: Huerta was Mexican president and dictator from 1913 to 1914. He died in U.S. custody.

***Editor’s note: “Gringo” is a derogatory term for a foreigner, especially an American, in parts of Latin America.