Washington Agenda

This year’s Memorial Day activities marked a week dominated by changes in the Pentagon, while the government remained alert to the rescue efforts after the tornadoes and floods that have hit the states of Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Alabama.

The commemorative activities for Memorial Day, the day that the United States pays tribute to soldiers fallen in action, marked the beginning of a week in which the president, Barack Obama, will designate the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a responsibility that will fall on the shoulders of General Martin Dempsey.

The naming of Dempsey, one of the men who will be an important interlocutor of the Mexican Armed Forces, will take place this Monday, shortly before the ceremony that the president will head at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery.

General Dempsey, a veteran of the Gulf War and the occupation of Iraq, will form part of the changes that will occur beginning this September, when the current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, will retire and his position occupied by Leon Panetta, the current director of the CIA.

Dempsey will take the role of the Admiral Mike Mullen, an old acquaintance of the Mexican heads of Defense and the Navy, General Guillermo Galván Galván and Admiral Francisco Saynez.

The reconfiguration of the heads of the Pentagon comes at a time when the United States is preparing to pull their troops back from Afghanistan starting in July. This comes as the war is almost about to celebrate its first decade, and in the opinion of an increasing number of citizens, has lost its reason for being after the death of Osama bin Laden.

According to the most recent poll by the Associated Press, 59 percent of the population is strongly opposed to the war in Afghanistan while only 37 percent maintain their support.

The memorial activities for the fallen soldiers marked the beginning of a week in which the Obama administration will follow very closely the rescue and reconstruction efforts in the states of Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Alabama after one of the worst periods of tornados and floods in recent history.

Just yesterday, President Obama visited the punished landscape of Joplin, Missouri, the city that was torn apart by a tornado that claimed the lives of 116 and left in its wake a registry of more than 200 disappeared.

Obama’s visit to the disaster zone to try to comfort those that had lost their homes and loved ones, was the third such visit in less than a month. These visits reflect the growing and troubling increase in catastrophes, the worst in the last 60 years, which have left behind a provisional total of 520 deaths so far this year.

During this week, President Obama will also hold meetings with the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties. The objective of these encounters, which will take place between Wednesday and Thursday, will be to redirect the dialogue and negotiations to solve, once and for all, the explosive topics of the deficit and the budget. The negotiations, difficult for both sides, will mark the return to domestic reality for Barack Obama after his diplomatic tour of Europe and the beginning of a new round of inevitable events leading up to the presidential elections of 2012.