Our readers write: US intervention in Mexico?

Our March issue featured the story “Plan Juárez: Echoes of Chiapas on Mexico’s Northern Border” from Frontera NorteSur news service, noting how Mexican President Felipe CalderĂłn’s militarized response to the escalating violence on the Rio Grande mirrors the counterinsurgency against the Zapatistas a decade ago. Our Exit Poll was: “If violence continues to escalate in northern Mexico, will the US intervene militarily? Will it happen this year?” We received the following responses:

From Russ, somewhere in cyberspace:

The US will not intervene, directly. “Advisors” could be sent in, per a request by the Mexican government. Otherwise, it will just be an opportunity for our economy to be drained more by the military industrial complex.

World War 4 Report replies: We’re not sure. There is precedent for US military intervention, but—precisely because of this—not for the Mexican government inviting in military advisors. After repeated US interventions, it is considered an affront to Mexican nationalism. Unilateral intervention is actually more likely.

From Wajid Ali, somewhere in cyberspace:

The US will not involve itself unless there is the threat of violence in Mexico affecting American security.

World War 4 Report replies: The right-wingers on Capitol Hill are already saying the violence in Mexico is affecting US security. They may be wrong, but in politics, perceptions are everything…

From Diana, somewhere in cyberspace:

Yes!!! They’ve been dying to since the petroleum wasn’t privatized.

Will it happen this year?

Maybe(Hopefully not!)

World War 4 Report replies: Hopefully not, indeed. However, it looks like the petroleum actually is being privatized, albeit quietly and piecemeal…

From Michael Johnson of the Señor Pescado Sustainable Seafood company in Myrtle Beach, SC:

if so, then every military fuck in USA will die with their family Viva La Raza… stay the fuck out of other people’s country and they will leave us alone

World War 4 Report replies: Why don’t you come out and tell us how you really feel, Mike? Isn’t it amazing how left-wing and right-wing rhetoric is almost identical these days? The xenophobes and interventionists would say: “stay the fuck out of other people’s country and we will leave you alone”…

From Jan Martell of Triangle Free Press in Durham, NC:

The US intervenes to destabilize countries that appear to be gaining greater control over their resources. Mexico is in a destabilizing spiral right now, which suits us just fine, since we’re overextended militarily—besides keeping larger swaths of South Asia destabilized, there’s Africa to think about…

World War 4 Report replies: Who is this “we” to whom you refer? I certainly don’t want to see nightmarish violence in Mexico—do you? Now, if by “we” you mean the US political establishment, you might want to use the pronoun “they,” because I am not a member of it, and I assume you aren’t either. More to the point: The US political establishment wants to see resource-rich countries destabilized if they are exercising national control over those resources, and otherwise bucking TĂ­o Sam (see Venezuela). CalderĂłn’s Mexico is dismantling the structures of national control over the petroleum and other critical resources, as noted above. Mexico is one of Washington’s last remaining compliant client states in Latin America. The last thing the US political establishment wants is to see it destabilized.

From “Locoto,” somewhere in cyberspace:

Uhhhh,,,any objective look at Mexico would indicate that it has already happened–just not so much with uniformed official military–as opposed to the USAID, DEA, DHS, CIA and other “non-military” forces already there.
The question might be better stated as “will the US officially invade Mexico to augment existing personnel, and to bring peace, security and “democracy” (like the US is supposedly doing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan among other nations)?
Or in other words, will the USA continue to try to make Mexico into even more of a 51st state than it is?
My answer: does a bear shit in the woods?

World War 4 Report replies: Typical lefter-than-thou song-and-dance. The worst-case scenario is always “already” here. Utterly ahistorical. You cannot accuse this web site of failing to cover the Merida Initiative and other actually-existing mechanisms of US imperial control in Mexico. But “military intervention” means what it says—actually introducing US military forces on Mexican territory unilaterally, as in Veracruz in 1914 and Chihuahua under the Pershing expedition in 1916. There is a very big difference between that and the status quo.

Furthermore, “51st state,” however distasteful a prospect, is far too optimistic. States have federal representation. Occupied territories (Iraq, Afghanistan, Puerto Rico), do not…

See our last post on Mexico’s narco wars

See our last Exit Poll results.

Please leave a tip or answer our new Exit Poll.

  1. I am a resident in Laredo
    I am a resident in Laredo and want to say that this war with the Zetas is not something that just ends at the river. People from all over Laredo are constantly being kidnapped and taken south of the border. People are calling in constantly to the police station saying that family members and friends are missing. The cartel has very very strong ties to Laredo politics, houses are being shot up in south laredo constantly. I received a call that major bag exchanges were taking place outside a hotel in north Laredo. The Police were called numorous times after people ran back inside the hotel, scared because these cartels were armed. The Police did not show for 45 minutes. Long after they were gone. CNN showed one report of a shooting on Falcon Lake outside of town that killed one man, the killers being Zetas. This is happening constantly. There is nothing we can do, the policital pull here is corrupt, and in the heart of it, in Nuevo Laredo, right across the river, the media has been blacked out. BLACKED OUT. Journalists are scared for their lives because many of them have already been killed. There is no police in Nuevo Laredo, only military. I am confused as to why this is not being taken more seriously. The cartel is crossing on American soil, kidnapping civilians, shooting houses, and its being considered a local gang problem? Why is our media not digging deeper into what is really happening here? We are not safe.

  2. People in Laredo are constantly being kidnapped?
    If this is true, there has to be some documentation of it, with law enforcement if not the media. We challenge you to produce some documentation rather than just making assertions.

  3. USA Intervention, please!!!
    I was born and raised in Monterrey Mexico, once a peaceful and prosperous city.

    Now I am 36 but since I was a kid I’ve heard how much we would like to be part of United States in stead of Mexico. Ultra-nationalists would be found in central or southern Mexico.

    If this is just the foreplay for taking the north of Mexico as part of US… What are they waiting for?

    This is the richest city of the country, we are very different than Mexicans you would find in central or southern Mexico and definitely, we are very different to those wet-backs you find everywhere in US.

    I’m sure that if a plebiscite is carried on in my state, Nuevo Leon, to find out if we want to join the US, we all would be surprised.