Our Oil Goes to Their Wars

The United States is, and will continue to be, involved in the Iraq War as well as other conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and Asia: Palestine, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Enrique Peña Nieto administration just handed over Mexico’s oil to the U.S. and opened the door for U.S. private investment in strategic resources belonging to Mexico’s national territory.

As militants of the Islamic State continue to seize territory, the Islamic State has been silently organizing an effective administrative structure, composed primarily of older Iraqis who run the finances, weapons, local governments, military operations and recruitment, according the Aug. 28 edition of The New York Times.

The self-declared caliph of all Islam, Abu Bakr al-Baghadadi, heads the Islamic State organization. According to The New York Times, the caliph selected his leadership team during the years he was held in a U.S. prison in Iraq. “He had a preference for military men, and so his leadership team includes many officers from Saddam Hussein’s long-disbanded army,” including lieutenant colonels Fadel al-Hayali and Adnan al Sweidawi.

“The pedigree of its leadership … helps explain its battlefield successes: Its leaders augmented traditional military skill with terrorist techniques refined through years of fighting American troops, while also having deep local knowledge and contacts … ‘These are the academies that these men graduated from to become what they are today,’” [the article added, quoting Iraqi researcher Hisham Alhashimi]. A surprising interactive map [in the online article] shows the advances of this armed group in the key region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

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The United States is, and will continue to be, involved in the Iraq War as well as other conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, including Palestine, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. A true quagmire, the list is long and complicated. As a military superpower, the U.S. now sees that the oil and other resources needed to sustain its wars are far from home, and its access to them is becoming less secure and more random. At the same time, the U.S. has watched as other superpowers — China, Russia, India, Germany, Japan and Pakistan — have increased their economic, political and military spheres of influence, as well as their clients and interests.

Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration (representing Mexico’s large financial interests — not just any old political mafia, as some would say) just gave away Mexico’s oil to the U.S., a superpower engaged in wars; and he opened the door for U.S. private investment in Mexico’s strategic natural resources. And the gift was made to the White House and the Pentagon right here — on the border. It was not given to the other side of the Atlantic or the Pacific. Mexico is completely tied to our neighboring superpower’s military strategy as well as the interests of U.S. financial centers.

The 1917 Mexican Constitution has been undermined. Like a country with no rule of law (despite being weighed down with laws and regulations), we are at the mercy of narcogangs and widespread criminality — and their international finances are now completely intertwined with Mexican finances. Stated bluntly, we have become a satellite of the U.S.

In addition, we can now detect an emerging offensive to silence any groups that resist or oppose energy reforms — including indigenous peoples, labor and grassroots organization, teachers, education, university autonomy, the national university (UNAM) and the Polytechnic University, as well as any other community group or organized force that could protest or oppose the road to disaster that the PRI government and its allies are imposing on the Mexican nation.

According to several surveys, a solid majority of the population is opposed to energy reforms, specifically to the handover of Mexican oil to the United States and its private interests. But this majority lacks the organizational tools and resolve to resist the offensive. Poverty, unemployment, the decline in wages, organized crime, the use of military and police to repress social movements, the signs that labor and political leaders are backing down and becoming submissive to the regime, subordination and corruption in justice institutions, the complete but illegal monopoly over television and other media outlets, the neglect of public education, health services [and] public transportation, and the uncontrolled increase in institutionalized corruption — all these are contributing factors to why social resistance is no longer successfully organized.

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General Lázaro Cárdenas became the president of Mexico in December 1934, after campaigning throughout the entire country, pushing local forces to organize. Recovering oil resources and our national sovereignty were his priority, in the face of private businesses and their governments. But it did not start there. As he had already shown in his administration in Michoacán, his priorities were to address the most urgent and pressing need of the people, and to increase their confidence in themselves and their social pressure.

In 1935, a wave was unleashed to organize hourly wage earners. Unions that had been tied to individual businesses transformed into unions tied to industrial sectors, including the national petroleum industry union. Organizations were formed in sectors where none had existed previously. A wave of strikes and protest movements found favorable support in the labor and reconciliation boards as well as in the judicial system. These authorities consistently ruled in favor of workers’ rights and claims. The call became a daily reality.

In addition to organizing workers, 1936 saw a radical agrarian reform and the distribution of some 20 million hectares of good lands (that had formerly been held by large landowners and foreign corporations) to peasants as either community land — known as ejidos — or as private lots. With the ejido came schools, rural teachers, universal primary education, agricultural credit programs (planting, harvesting and improving crop quality), as well as the collective discussion of projects and problems associated with the ejidos. More than a few times, arms were used to defend these gains against the violence levied by the former landowners and their security guards.

At the time, Mexico provided resources and weaponry to the Spanish Republic, and later gave asylum to Republican exiles. She opened her doors to persecuted politicians. She defended independence for Ethiopia against the invading Italian fascists. On March 18, 1938, the very day that oil was expropriated, Mexico refused to recognize the annexation of Austria by the German Nazis. On Oct. 2, 1938, when Czechoslovakia had been invaded by German troops, the Mexican president noted in his diary that the imperialist countries will one day meet with greater forces who will stop them in their crazy path of conquest and abuse. At this point, our oil had already been recovered for the Mexicans.

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Organized forces that represent the political opposition have carried out two campaigns to collect millions of signatures, which according to national law were required in order to call for a national referendum demanding the repeal of energy reforms that had given away the ownership of Mexican oil.

Although the campaigns were run separately — one led by the Movement for National Regeneration (MORENA) and the other by the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) — reports indicate that they had collected the required number of signatures for the Supreme Court to hold the referendum.

I do not doubt the veracity of the reports. Nevertheless, I have a question shared by many others, including 200 intellectuals who, together with Elena Poniatowska, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Miguel Concha and others, signed a petition: Why two campaigns and not one? Why not one document if the proposition and content are the same in both campaigns? The duplication is disorienting and demotivating for supporters. None of the organizers of these campaigns has provided a satisfactory or reasonably grounded response.

I should add that it would be challenging for a campaign — even if backed by millions of signatures — to succeed in the face of a coalition of interest groups who have imposed these reforms from their base in the government, especially if the campaign is not backed by substantial and sustained organized movements to tackle and resolve the most distressing issues of these bitter times: indigenous people, wages, health, workers’ rights, education, natural resources, immigration, dirty wars, repression, narcos and criminality, femicide, corruption — the list could go on, given the vast number of grievances of the Mexican people.

The most recent grievance is the handover of our oil to big capital, the U.S. military apparatus, and a diverse group of wealthy interests comprised of bureaucrats, businesspeople and landlords.

The issue is not whether oil comes first or last. Everything goes together. As social movements join the cause, become better united, or see their spirits dampened, the yearnings and grievances are under attack, including our rights, holdings and lives. They are being devoured by the monsters of war and money. Such is the magnitude of our challenge.