Mexico and the U.S.: Flying Low

Regarding Mexico’s fight against organized-crime gangs, the U.S. administration is moving in waves: a few weeks of silence, followed by days in which all of the agencies involved speak, get into it and give their opinions. To not go any further, just yesterday the general director of the FBI, John Muller,* took the liberty of saying that the fight “has not been successful.”** Do they have the right to speak? Of course they do; what they don’t have is moral authority. Americans are partially responsible for this lack of success. Not only have they not done their part, there are signs to the contrary: They take great pains that the situation deteriorates so much that it justifies a more direct intervention every time by U.S. government agents in the management of security agenda on the south side of the Río Grande.

It is necessary to keep this in mind in any analysis that tries to understand things. At the end of the day, you cannot forget that what is at stake is the viability of the Mexican state as an autonomous, independent nation. I realize that sounds harsh, but it is not an exaggeration; it is the concretion of Manifest Destiny.

Good Samaritan Ambassador Pascual often, perhaps unwittingly, throws light on this purpose. He went to Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua, Mexico, to offer the presence of more U.S. agents in the nation, supposedly to help us. Do me a favor. Since then, the proposal fell on fertile ground, because in Ciudad Juárez what the citizens crave is peace, order and progress; and if the Mexican authorities cannot handle the job, then the doors must be opened to the Americans. Nobody is questioning the size of the U.S. government’s responsibility in the deterioration of the living situation in Juárez. Nobody tries to explain why Juárez is one of the most dangerous places on the planet, and El Paso is one of the safest on the continent. Nobody is calling the ambassador to talk about gangs of Mexican gunmen that are organized in Texas prisons and that operate in the county streets with absolute impunity and the gunmen who pass border control every day. They come and go with assault weapons, money and drugs.

Juárez’s case is replicated in cities like Reynosa, Matamoros and Tijuana, and even in Ciudad Victoria and Monterrey. If an American politician arrives to offer help, the answer would be the same: They pass it, take control and tidy up. If they have to run for the border, it’s no problem for us. The idea is that if the town asks them to, they, the Americans, would be ready to come and get us in line. Despair and weariness are the fuel of a growing annexationist tendency that should first be denounced and then attended to. Native readers of those areas, or those that have friends or relatives in those areas, do not let me lie.

The case of American planes that fly in domestic skies should be reviewed and reversed. How do we know what they are looking for? Are we going to believe they do it for our own good? Who will deliver the accounts? If Calderón authorized it, he can also take it back. The key to understanding the uncomfortable neighbors is this: Think wrong, and be right.

Americans can help a lot. They can, for example, stop being stingy in the case of the Merida Initiative. They should also lower drug use of their own citizens, stop the injection of dirty money into their financial circuits and seriously fight against Mexican gangs that are hiding in their cities, which are used as hideouts. They could also attack the problem that originated in cocaine-producing countries: Columbia, Peru and Bolivia. They could do that, but they don’t do it because their objective is not to stop drug trafficking but rather to take control of the Mexican security agenda. Moreover, what they want is to give more armed agents and more fights (let’s say) recognition. I dare say that those planes are designing faster and more secure access paths for the Marines into the center of the country for when it is necessary.

*Editor’s Note: Robert S. Mueller III is the current FBI director.

**Editor’s Note: This quote, while accurately translated, could not be verified.