The Marxist-Leninist Daily

The U.S. is currently preparing to send troops into Mexico in direct violation of her sovereignty and the strong demand of the Mexican people to keep the U.S. military out. President Barack Obama is "very interested in exploring military capabilities" by the U.S. in Mexico. Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, on a recent visit to Mexico said the "drug war" in Mexico is an "enormously serious problem that has grave implications." He also emphasized that, "I think because the leadership in Mexico has opened the doors and has a strong desire to connect, I'm encouraged by the change in engagement and the exchanges between our militaries." He emphasized that the "military-to-military relationship with Mexico" is the best ever.

The "change in engagement" reflects U.S. demands for the Mexican government to allow U.S. troops into the country and to cooperate with the U.S. military. It includes the blackmail of $1.3 billion over three years to fund U.S. training of Mexican forces and for "intelligence sharing," and equipment for spying. The funding and training, initially designed for use in the southern most area of Mexico, may now be used in other areas, including along the border with the U.S.

In addition, the Pentagon is also claiming Mexico and Pakistan are the "world's two most crucial states in danger of failing." Military and government officials add that Mexico may become a "narco state," where the government "cannot protect its citizens." Such "failure to protect" is then used by the U.S. to justify intervention, as it is already doing in Pakistan.

The indication is that the U.S. will be stepping up its intervention, including the use of aerial drones for bombing inside Mexico, as is occurring against Pakistan, and sending troops in, as is occurring in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pentagon reports that military forces and National Guard are now being prepared for use on both sides of the border "to make sure they are ready when the time comes." Clearly it is the U.S. that will dictate when that time is and it is the U.S. that will continue fomenting and organizing the "drug wars" so as to justify such intervention.

The peoples of the U.S., Mexico and all Latin America are well familiar with U.S. use of "drug wars" to generate instability, violence and justify repression and military intervention. It is the U.S. government that organized and fostered the flooding of Los Angeles with crack cocaine in the 1980s and the organizing of gangs in Los Angles and Colombia and now Mexico. The government has repeatedly been exposed for funding, organizing and providing weapons for these gangs and insuring massive amounts of drugs are brought into the country at great profit. For Mexico alone these profits are estimated at $25 billion.

The "drug wars" were used to impose the mass incarceration of African Americans, not only in Los Angeles but across the country. They have been used to justify years of U.S. intervention in Colombia, beginning with "training" and escalating to use of U.S. troops, openly and covertly, to target resistance and further justify U.S. military intervention. Now the same is being used against Mexico and very likely to greatly militarize both sides of the border. The aim is increased military dictate by the U.S. to block resistance and secure a larger "home front" for the U.S. war machine that includes Mexico and her peoples and resources.

Left: Lifetime resident of Granjeno, Texas, Daniel Garza, 76, poses with a sign at his home protesting the building of the border wall between Mexico and the United States, February 4, 2009. Right: U.S. Border Patrol agents block the path of a protestor at Border Field State Park in San Diego Saturday, February 21, 2009. Protestors gathered at the park to protest the Department of Homeland security's plan to limit access to the park and the border fence.

The U.S. has a long history of annexing Mexican lands and attempting to repress and control her people. Mexicans have a long history of fierce resistance to all such invasions and of continued rejection of U.S. troops inside the country. There is also a long history of cooperation and unity between Mexicans and Americans, especially along the border. This has been seen recently in the growing opposition to the death wall being constructed along the border, including the spy cameras and use of killer drones. It can also be seen in the mass May Day actions and others where workers of all lands have stood together as one to demand immigrant rights and the rights of all.

It is not military cooperation that is needed, but people to people cooperation and united action against U.S. military intervention. Voice of Revolution stands with the people of Mexico in demanding, No U.S. Troops in Mexico and in strengthening common efforts to build relations of mutual respect and benefit. This requires an end to the death wall, an end to militarization of the border and legalization now for all immigrants!

No U.S. Troops in Mexico! No to the Border Death Wall! Build People to People Relations of Mutual Respect and Benefit!

Admiral Mullen Visits Mexico to
Increase Military Cooperation

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen recently visited Mexico to discuss strengthening cooperation between the U.S. and Mexican militaries. He met with Mexican Secretary of National Defense General Guillermo Galvan and Secretary of the Navy Admiral Mariano Francisco Saynez. The trip took place at a time when drug wars have been fomented in Mexico, fueled by U.S. weaponry and U.S.-organized and funded drug cartels.

Mullen said the "drug war" in Mexico is an "enormously serious problem that has grave implications." He added, "We have shared responsibilities for the cause and shared responsibilities for the solutions." He said, "How we work those shared responsibilities is very important." Mullen praised the readiness of Mexico to "cooperate militarily," saying the "military-to-military relationship with Mexico" is in the best shape ever. "I think because the leadership in Mexico has opened the doors and has a strong desire to connect, I'm encouraged by the change in engagement and the exchanges between our militaries," he explained.

Mullen emphasized that the combined capabilities and military cooperation between Mexico and the U.S. can defeat the "drug wars." Mullen also said that the tactics the U.S. has learned in the "war on terrorism" could be utilized in the "drug war." These include intelligence sharing, various spying methods and equipment, use of unmanned aerial killer drones, indefinite detention, and more.

Mullen also said that while the military has a role to play, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Agency are also involved. "There are fairly far-reaching areas of cooperation, and these are very much ongoing," Mullen added.

The visit to Mexico culminated a trip to Latin America, where Mullen also visited Brazil, Chile, Peru and Colombia. The main purpose of the visits was to connect with military leaders and foster military relations. Speaking to U.S. plans to further dominate the Americas, Mullen said, "I have been and will be a proponent of focusing on Latin America — the relationships, the strengths and the challenges," Mullen said. "None of us can do it alone. The challenges continue to grow, and they must be addressed collectively."

The U.S. is spending $1.4 billion over the next three years to bring U.S. troops and equipment into Mexico to train the Mexican military and strengthen U.S. command over it. The plan is similar to that imposed on Colombia, also in the name of the "drug war," which has further destabilized that country and increased U.S. interference.

On returning home, Mullen briefed President Barack Obama. Military officials said Obama was "very interested in exploring military capabilities" that the U.S. has that could help Mexican forces. Defense Secretary Robert Gates also said the Pentagon may help train Mexican forces and provide intelligence and other resources.

Inside Mexico, the people are forced to contend with mounting violence. The government has already mobilized 45,000 military personnel. In Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, there are about 7,000 soldiers patrolling a city of 1.4 million people. That is one soldier for every 200 civilians in a city with a population density of more than twelve thousand people per square mile, or sixty soldiers per square mile.

At the same time, the Texas governor has asked the federal government to bring in 1,000 more National Guard troops, and Arizona's governor is asking for 250 more, in addition to the 150 already patrolling the state's border with Mexico.

While Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have said use of military personnel will be a "last resort," they also emphasized that DHS and the Pentagon are making preparations to deploy the National Guard "to make sure they are ready when the time comes." The government is also promoting hysteria about Mexico to justify such intervention. The Pentagon's Joint Forces Command called Mexico and Pakistan the world's two most critical states in danger of failing. Attorney General Eric Holder called the situation in Mexico a "national security threat." The State Department issued a travel warning telling Americans it was too dangerous to travel to Mexico. This promoting of a "failed state," and the military preparations and demands for "military cooperation," all indicate that the U.S. is preparing to send troops into Mexico. While claiming the aim is to "end the drug wars," actual experience, in the U.S. and Colombia, is that the U.S. military fosters and funds the drug cartels to foment instability and violence and justify U.S. military intervention.

Destabilizing Mexico

As reverse migration rocks Mexico, drug and violence have engulfed the entire country, inundating cities along the U.S.-Mexico border. The newest murderous offensive raises concerns about the ability of the Mexican government to protect its citizens and to regain control of the streets. As a result, the United States will be coming to the rescue. Barack Obama has announced that he is considering the deployment of National Guard troops to contain the violence. Ironically, most of the drugs that enter the United States from Mexico, have been funneled to the Mexican drug lords through CIA rendition flights from Columbia and Afghanistan. Could there possibly be a connection between U.S. global policies and the destabilization of Mexico?

***

Attorney General Eric Holder stated on February 25, 2009 that Mexican drug cartels pose a national security threat, and issued a direct warning to these cartels that they will be destroyed.

The warning came as the attorney general and acting Drug Enforcement Administration chief Michele Leonhart announced the completion of the final phase of DEA's "Operation Xcellerator," which targeted the Sinaloa cartel, a major western Mexico drug operation that has been expanding its reach into the United States.[1]

Meanwhile, the blood shed in the Mexican cities continues to be extensive and has expanded its tentacles of violence to various cities in Mexico. Lawlessness, corruption, murders, decapitations, and kidnappings have taken the Mexican cities by a storm, giving rise to a new radical group calling itself the Juarez Citizens Command that is threatening to strike back against lawlessness that has gripped Mexico for a long time. The group stated that they are going to strike back by killing one criminal a day until order and peace is restored. Similar groups are popping up all across Mexico.[2]

In its last report, the US Department of justice disclosed that 17.2 billion dollars in cash entered Mexico in only the past two years as a result of money laundering operation in their country. The report advised that Mexico and Colombia are the principal destinations of narco resources that operate in the US and that "the laundering of drug money is a global industry" with transnational organizations present in various countries.[2]

According to a DEA undercover operative, the Mexican drug cartels have gained more and more of the American market. They have grown bolder in their attempts to expand their operations in Mexico and the United States. They now control the ruling party in Mexico and operate the biggest drug business on earth right here in the USA.[2]

Mexico's drug and violence problem now engulfs the entire country, inundating cities along the U.S.-Mexico border. The robust drug cartel reduced its position in the western mountains, and lunged into the heart of national power in Mexico City. The capital that was once relatively immune to such contemptuous boldness of drug killings has become the scene of multiple assassinations of high-ranking federal police officials in about a week. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Mexico this year in drug-related violence and about 6,290 in 2008.[11]

Mexican police and soldiers are battling a wave of drug-related violence across the country, particularly in northern areas bordering the US. The Mexican Federal Government launched a campaign against drug-related violence more than two years ago involving the deployment of around 36,000 troops across the country.

The situation in Mexico has become so dire and out of control that U.S. Defense secretary Gates stated on March 01, 2009 that the US is in the position to provide more help to Mexico in the fight against drug cartels operating near the U.S. border.[4]

Not surprisingly, the violence has over-spilled into the United States. Brian Ross of ABC news reported that Phoenix Arizona has become the kidnapping capital of America, with more incidents than any other city in the world outside of Mexico City, and over 370 cases in 2008 alone. Phoenix police Chief Andy Anderson told ABC news that if the situation doesn't stop here and is not turned around, it will spread across the nation. Another law enforcement officer compared the Arizona border to that of Pakistan.[5]

Apparently, Mexico is in a losing battle with drug cartels whose escalating violence is providing cover for Marxist insurgents to become active. The newest cartel murderous offensive raises troubling questions about the ability of the Mexican government to provide safety and security for its citizens, and heralds a future of bloody anarchy if officials cannot regain control of the streets. As a result, the United will be coming to the rescue. President Obama recently announced that he was looking at possibly deploying National Guard troops to contain the violence but ruled out immediate military force.[6]

Ironically, while we are beating the drums of national security and intervention, the Associated reported on March 13, 2009 that Forbes magazine ranked Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most violent drug cartels on its list of billionaires, with an estimated $1 billion fortune, at No. 701, between a Swiss oil-trading tycoon and an American chemical heir. Guzman, Mexico's most-wanted fugitive, is believed to head the Sinaloa cartel. President Felipe Calderon said Thursday that "magazines are not only attacking and lying about the situation in Mexico but are also praising criminals."[8]

Analysis: Who Benefits from the Destabilization of Mexico?

KNX News radio station a subsidiary of Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) reported this week that most of the guns that land in the hands of the drug cartel allegedly came from the black market in the United States. Ironically, most of the drugs that enter the United States from Mexico, have been funneled to the Mexican drug lords through rendition flights from Columbia (cocaine) and Afghanistan (opium) to Mexico, then, rerouted to the US through the Mexican drug lords. Per example, On September 24, 2007, a Florida based Gulfstream II jet aircraft, number N987SA, crashed in the Yucatan. As it turns out, not only was the plane used on at least three CIA rendition flights from Europe and the United States to the Guantánamo torture chamber, but it was loaded with tons of cocaine when it went down. El Nuevo Herald reported that the CIA plane was loaded up with 3.3 tons of coke in Medellín, Colombia, and was used to ferry "hundreds of delinquents," including alleged members of the Taliban, to Cuba for water boarding and other specialties.[10]

Historically, most of the illegal activities especially in drugs and human trafficking, originate in the poorer and the less developed areas of the world, then, moves across borders to rich, developed country markets. In order for this process to take place, criminal organizations are fostered, subsidized, and protected by high level government officials, in order to launder money throughout the international banking systems and to increase the global cash flow. The IMF has reported in 2003, that 1.5 trillion US dollars a year is laundered through banks, where 500 to 600 billion dollars of that money is from drug trade and the aggregate size of money laundering in the world could be somewhere between 2 to 5 percent of the world's GDP. It has also been a well known and documented fact in the press and in congressional records that the US intelligence agencies have dealt and circulated drugs in the US and abroad for many years.

So, is there a connection between our global policies and the destabilization of Mexico?

It would make sense to assume that Mexico is going to become a national security risk for the United States, which in turn will justify our Samaritan military aid and intervention to help the Mexican government contain the Mexican drug cartel. Therefore, Mexico will become a safer place for transnational corporations like Chevron and Exxon-Mobil. In addition, this process will pave the way for the security and prosperity partnership to unravel, as well as the privatization of Mexico's oil and natural resources and their takeover by the global corporations. As a result, a massive transfer of wealth and power to the new North American Union Government will unfold.

Are we going to witness more conflict within our borders due to economic woes, or contrived attacks, which in return will solidify further the iron hand of our new democratic government?

Are we going to witness another major economic collapse like the prospective commercial real estate disaster that will cause major reverberations in the stock market, will induce further impoverishment of the population, and will lead to more bailouts leading to higher inflation, new currency, and poorer standard of living?

Are we heading toward civil unrest incited by the economic woes that will lead to the balkanization of America ?

Or, are we simply going to be led like sheep to the slaughter house where we will give up our freedom to satisfy our primal needs like food, shelter, and safety, then, become totally impoverished, micro-chipped, and controlled, and finally be forced into accepting the new global order?

References

1. ABC News, February 25, 2009. Holder Vows 'Cartels Will Be Destroyed' Operation Targeted the Sinaloa Cartel; Highlights Spread of Drug Gang Violence
2. The American Chronicle, January 20, 2009, The Revolution in Mexico has begun.
3. UPI, January, 21, 2009. New Juarez police chief decapitated after 4 days.
4. Associated press, 03-01-09, Gates says military can help Mexico in drug war.
5. AFP, March 2-9, 2009, Issue 9/10. Arizona as dangerous as " Pakistan," say top phoenix cop.
6. McClatchy Newspapers, March 12, 2009. Obama: Troop move to Mexican Border under consideration.
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oszA...
8. Associated Press, March 13, 2009. Mexican Drug Lord makes Forbes Billionaire list.
9. KNX News, (1070), March 11, 2009.
10. El Nuevo Herald, 11-29-2007 04:37 PM. Avión usado por la CIA y la DEA traficaba drogas
11. Associated Press, March 9, 2009. Obama discusses U.S. military assistance to Mexico for drug war.

Fourth Fleet Steams South -- Return of the Gunboat

The resurrection and imminent dispatch of the United States Fourth Fleet to patrol the coasts of Latin America invokes the bad old days of Monroe Doctrine impositions and gunboat diplomacy for many citizens of those southern latitudes.

This April [2008], the U.S. Navy announced the reactivation of the fleet that historically operated in the south Atlantic during World War II, dueling with Nazi U-boats. Activating the Fourth Fleet "demonstrates U.S. commitment to our global partners," Admiral Gary Roughead explained, adding a threatening fillip: "The Fourth Fleet will send a strong signal to all Navies operating in the region."

Roughead maintains that the fleet's focus will be on drug interdiction and "conducting training exercises" and its activation is "non-hostile." Frank Mora, a professor at the U.S. War College in Leavenworth Kansas told the Miami Herald, he thought the Fleet could be used in "environmental emergencies" and to control "youth gangs."

The reactivated flotilla will sail in the strategic area overseen by the U.S. Southern Command or SOUTHCOM based in Quarry Heights, Panama and is to be homeported at Mayport in Jacksonville Florida. The fleet is expected to group together 11 war ships homeported at Mayport, including an aircraft carrier (reportedly the soon-to-be commissioned "U.S.S. George H.W. Bush") and a nuclear submarine. To allay Latin leaders' fears, Undersecretary of State for Hemispheric Affairs Tom Shannon was deployed to South America during July.

The Undersecretary's visit to Brazil proved abrasive. He was met by raucous demonstrators in Brazilia and closely questioned on the floor of the Brazilian Senate about the Fourth Fleet's revival - one lawmaker recalled how in 1964, U.S. ambassador Lincoln Gordon had threatened to land marines stationed right off the Brazilian coast if leftist president Joao Goulart did not resign. Ex-Brazilian president Jose Sarnay warned of U.S. Fourth Fleet designs on the enormous Tupi deep-water oil field that may hold as many as five to eight billion barrels and could turn Brazil into one of the top five petroleum producers on the planet.

"Criminals out of Palmerola" (left) and "Yankees Out" written on a wall during a protest against the U.S.
militarization of Latin America, outside the U.S. Palmerola military base near
Comayagua, Honduras, October 6, 2008.

The U.S. Navy currently operates out of six Latin bases - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Quarry Heights, Panama; Aruba, Curacao; Comalapa, El Salvador; Comayuga, Honduras; and Manta, Ecuador - the last-named about to be shut down by Ecuador. Incensed by Washington's participation in the March 1st bombing of a FARC guerrilla camp in the Ecuadoran jungle - Manta is believed to have provided logistical support for Colombian helicopters - President Raphael Correa has resolved not to renew the U.S. lease on that facility when it expires in 2009. An educated guess has the base being relocated to La Guajira, Colombia close to the Venezuelan border which will not make Hugo Chavez happy.

Those attentive to Latin American history do not view the U.S. Fourth Fleet's intentions as "non-hostile." U.S. Naval blockades of Cuba in 1963 during the Soviet-American missile crisis and of revolutionary Mexico in 1914, stir bitter memories. The U.S. Navy turned the Caribbean into an "American lake" from 1914 through the late 1920s, parking its fleet in Santo Domingo and repeatedly invading Nicaragua.

U.S. Navy flotillas land troops on sovereign soil, their long guns take out distant targets, and bombing raids and reconnaissance flights are launched from aircraft carriers. Just the presence of the Fourth Fleet in Latin American waters smacks of strategic intimidation.

From Brazilia, Undersecretary Shannon flew south to Buenos Aires to deliver the good news that the Fourth Fleet would not enter Argentina's territorial waters or inland rivers "without being invited." Shannon's timing was impeccable. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's six month-old regime, which has been roiled by months of mobilizations led by big soybean farmers, was on maximum alert - the "soyeros" have blocked the nation's highways since last January after Fernandez tacked a 15 per cent tax on exports in order to finance programs for the poor.

Bi-lateral relations between Washington and Buenos Aires have been in the tank since the U.S. charged supposed bagmen for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez with financing Fernandez's campaign. The so-called scandal of the "Maletas" ($800,000 USD was alleged to have been smuggled into Argentina in a suitcase or "maleta") is a scenario that Queen Cristina (as she is taunted by political opponents) labels "garbage."

Writing in the Mexican daily La Jornada, left Latin American analyst Raul Zebichi concludes that Shannon's voyage to Buenos Aires to sell the Fourth Fleet to Fernandez during the soyero crisis amounted to "deliberate destabilization." The sailing of the Fourth Fleet is "naked aggression by Washington to regain its hegemony" on a continent where U.S. influence has been impressively diminished by the serial victories of the Latin American electoral left.

Undersecretary Shannon then moved on to Bolivia where that majority indigenous Andean nation's president Evo Morales is viewed by Washington as one of the ringleaders of the anti-American wave sweeping the southern continent.

Bolivia is not a target for the U.S. Fourth Fleet, having lost its access to the ocean in the Guano War of the late 19th century. Nonetheless, Morales denounced U.S. ambassador Phillip Goldberg's support of the right-wing "autonomy" movement that is promoting the secession of five Bolivian provinces, reading Shannon e-mails sent by U.S. AID officials to Bolivian citizens threatening aid cut-offs if they continued to support his government.

Only in Colombia, the first stop of Shannon's checkered journey, did he find some satisfaction. Touching down soon after the immaculately scripted "rescue" of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 hostages held by the weakened FARC guerrilla army, Tom Shannon laid on the blarney. The Fourth Fleet's intentions were honorable and "non-hostile." The war ships will safeguard commercial shipping lanes and provide additional drug interdiction.

It didn't take much effort to sell President Alvaro Uribe, George Bush's top flunky in Latin America, on the idea. Uribe even offered Barranquilla as a homeport away from home for U.S. war ships. Fourth Fleet deployment to Colombia will provide much needed backup for Washington's anti-drug, War on Terror Plan Colombia, a $6,000,000,000 boondoggle that has succeeded in expanding the nation's cocaine acreage by 27 per cent in 2007.

If Uribe was supportive of the Fourth Fleet's reactivation, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was decidedly not, declaring the move to be "an act of war" and fretting about Yanqui sabotage of offshore oilfields. In the Caribbean, Fidel Castro, an 82 year-old columnist for a Cuban communist youth paper, sneered that the Fourth Fleet is "the flotilla of intervention." Castro has had first hand experience with U.S. Naval blockades.

One immediate response of Latin America's leftist leaders to Washington's unilateral revival of the fleet has been the formation of UNASUR, a 12-nation mutual security pact that pointedly excludes the U.S. Spearheaded by Brazil, the continent's economic powerhouse, UNASUR seems designed to boost Brazilian armament industry sales as much as to stave off U.S. stabs to reestablish its hegemony over Latin America.

Mexico, which is banking on deep-water oilfields in the Gulf (an area under Fourth Fleet purview) to revive its sinking reserves, does not seem alarmed about the war ships on the eastern horizon - despite the rather touchy dispute over whether Mexico or the U.S. has title to those deep-water tracts. The U.S. Navy trains Mexico's Navy and supplies it with state-of-the-art weaponry. Under the Merida Initiative, sometimes tagged Plan Mexico, the Mexican Navy is slated to receive Orion tracking planes and souped-up interdiction craft, part of the $1,400.000,000 USD war chest to rearm Mexico's security apparatus - despite its reputation as one of the worst human rights abusers in the Americas.

Equipment received via the Merida Initiative, actually a hefty subsidy to U.S. defense contractors, will forge what Uruguayan political writer Carlos Fazio dubs "the third link" by which the Mexican security apparatus is annexed to Washington. Indeed, just the need for spare parts will tie the Mexican military to the Pentagon for the life of the planes, helicopters, swift boats, and transport carriers Plan Mexico will buy.

Actually, the Merida Initiative, born in the Yucatan city of that name in a surge of enthusiasm during Bush's first encounter with Mexico's Felipe Calderon in 2007, almost didn't make it to the wire. When the U.S. Senate, urged on by Vermont's Patrick Leahy, voted to impose human rights oversight on the package, Mexico almost backed out, accusing Washington of interfering in its domestic affairs.

The Senate bill would have mandated civilian trials for Mexican military personnel accused of human rights violation and would have strengthened the hand of non-government human rights organizations to watchdog how Merida Initiative equipment was used. The measure would also have pressed for an investigation into the 2006 murder of independent U.S. journalist Brad Will by Oaxaca security forces - indeed, the human rights components of Plan Mexico were largely due to the persistence of Brad's friends who were sometimes escorted from congressional hearings for vehemently pushing their case.

The bill's human rights provisions were rejected by all three sides of Mexico's political spectrum. Legislators compared the call for compliance with the odious "certification" process by which the U.S. Congress "certified" Mexico's cooperation in Washington's Drug War each year through the mid-1990s, a source of much distrust. But Mexican politicos were not alone in their contempt for the new Plan Mexico - Bush White House drug czar John Waters accused Leahy and his Democratic cohorts of "sabotaging" the agreement, and Homeland Security chieftain Michael Chertoff warned that the human rights provisions were "unacceptable."

The Senate bill was sent back to Congress for rectification but reemerged with an almost identical text - even the call for resolving Brad's murder was left intact. Yet in the magic realist mindset that passes for politics here, President Calderon, his Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, and Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa chose not to acknowledge the unreconstructed language and signed off on the grant. Espinosa made much of the affirmation that no U.S. soldier will set foot on Mexican soil as the result of the Merida Initiative - a phenomenon never contemplated by the agreement in the first place.

George Bush signed the Merida Initiative into law June 30 and in mid-July Chertoff flew into Mexico City for discussions on implementation and to "evaluate eventual risks to mutual security."

Oddly, the day the Homeland Security boss went home, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration leaked an intriguing story to the daily El Universal: Mexican drug war troops had discovered a car bomb factory in Culiacan, Sinaloa, where a bloody battle between cartels has taken over 500 lives since the first of the year. The DEA suspected that the Sinaloa cartels' hit men were being sent through Chavez's Venezuela (where else?) to Iran (where else?) for advanced terrorist training.

Preposterous? Under current security arrangements, the Iran gambit could become a pretext for the U.S. military occupation of Mexico, which on the face of it is of course highly unlikely. But Plan Mexico folds into the ASPAN - the North American Agreement on Security and Prosperity, a sort of security and energy NAFTA. Much as NAFTA was aimed at integrating the economies of its three member nations, ASPAN proposes to integrate security and energy structures - a goal greatly advanced by Plan Mexico.

In addition to ASPAN, Mexico has been designated the U.S.'s southern security perimeter by NORCOM, the United States Northern Command, which is responsible for keeping terrorists out of North America. The suggestion that Iran-trained terrorists are car-bombing a few hundred miles south of the border could have the stealth bombers on the runways at NORCOM headquarters in a hollowed-out mountain in Colorado in a jiffy.

Foreign minister Espinosa's affirmation that Plan Mexico will not land U.S. troops on Mexican shores flies in the face of the facts. Since 2006, the Yanks have offered at least 60 training courses to Mexican army and navy troops inside Mexico - 700 Mexicans are trained in the United States at the Center for Strategic Forces in Fort Bragg North Carolina under the provisions of the IMET program. U.S. Naval trainers offer courses at Veracruz on the Gulf Coast and Manzanillo on the Pacific.

But the physical presence of U.S. military personnel on the ground here is mooted by the Pentagon's reliance on civilian mercenaries. SY Coleman, which advertises itself as "a warrior in the global war on terror" on its web page, has been recruiting pilots "with experience in international military conflicts" to fly reconnaissance over Mexico's Caribbean off-shore platforms, an inviting terrorist target. Blackwater WorldWide just opened its western training facilities in a huge warehouse several hundred yards from the U.S. - Mexican border on the Otay Mesa in San Diego, and in July provided security for John McCain on a Mexico City campaign stopover according to knowledgeable sources, that notorious mercenary army's first known sighting inside Mexico.

Blackwater has recently been awarded big boodle Department of Defense drug war contracts and appears to be bulking up to challenge DynCorps which holds the franchise on privatizing Washington's War on Drugs in Latin America.

With the Yanquis' Fourth Fleet working Latin America's Atlantic coast, the United States Coast Guard patrols its Pacific flank. During the last week in July, the Coast Guard and the Mexican Navy found themselves under submarine attack - a 36-foot submergible with five tons of Colombian cocaine aboard was spotted by the Americanos' radar 100 miles off Oaxaca and towed to port where the crew was jailed.

In addition to cocaine, Pacific shipping lanes are also important to liquid natural gas tankers, another inviting terrorist target, operating under contracts with Spanish energy titan REPSOL between Peru and LNG terminals in Manzanillo in southern Mexico and the Sempra Corporation's Ensenada facility hard by the U.S. border. In fact, the Ensenada terminal, which provides San Diego with energy, was to have been located in that U.S. port city but fears the plant could be taken out by terrorists moved it to Mexico.

Deploying the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which is homeported in San Diego, to Latin America's west coast, is surely being weighed by Navy brass.

What does presumptive President Barack Obama think about all this updated gunboat diplomacy? The only clue voters have as to Obama's Latin policies was a speech he delivered months ago to win the hearts and minds of the gusano-laced Cuban American National Foundation in Miami in which platitudes were a dime a dozen - no end to the Cuban embargo, Hugo Chavez was "dangerous," Colombia's Uribe a "democratic hero." Given this repertoire it doesn't sound like much is going to change when Obama takes the helm of state. All the pieces are in place - Plan Mexico, Plan Colombia, ASPAN, SOUTHCOM, NORCOM, and NAFTA - to keep the Consensus of Washington thriving during an Obama presidency.

"What's good for Latin America is good for the United States of America" the presumptive president told the gusanos in Miami, failing to annunciate the other half of the equation: what's good for the United States is usually very bad for Latin America.

* John Ross is in the heat of the first draft of "El Monstruo - Tales of Dread & Redemption In The Most Monstrous Megalopolis On Planet Earth." Write johnross@igc.org

No U.S. Troops in Mexico!