|
CounterPunch
March 22,
2003
The Threats of Empire
Mexico, Watch
Out!
By SAUL LANDAU
"We're all Americans!"
-- Solidarity statement of French President Jacques Chirac after
9/11.
"If you're really Americans, you
better do what I say or else!"
-- George W. Bush, in a private discussion with God, before his
Press Seance on March 5, 2003.
"Any country that doesn't go along
with us will be paying a very heavy price." This warning
came from an unnamed U.S. diplomat to Mexican officials if they
voted against the U.S. war resolution in the Security Council.
The White House ordered U.S. officials to go directly to the
capitals of UN Security Council countries to issue these "warnings."
Right after the 9/11 events occurred,
much of the world, including long-time adversaries like Fidel
Castro, offered messages of solidarity. "Nous sommes Americains,"
President Chirac said, summing up the feelings of most Europeans.
Since that time, George W. Bush, as spokesman for a small group
of imperial zealots, has more than reversed that positive sentiment
over the subsequent year and a half. Indeed, he may have interpreted
the pro-American sentiment as meaning that the rest of the world
will now obey his orders -- especially around the issue of waging
war against Iraq, which he mystically links, since he has no
evidence, to the 9/11 tragedy.
The world has responded to Bush's bullying
approach with fear and loathing. In mid March, most of the world
fears the United States. Pollsters regularly report that Europeans,
Asians, Africans and Latin Americans think that the United States,
not Iraq or North Korea, constitutes the greatest threat to peace.
It has become apparent as a result of
U.S. maneuvering to entice the UN Security Council to support
Bush's war that Washington will use whatever it deems necessary
to force the UN body into the facade of an agreement.
The tactics to reach consensus over the
last months may have set new levels for international bribery,
blatant coercion and public prevarication, but the methods themselves
date back to other U.S. imperial plans. Washington has become
addicted to running the world and to using other governments
to accomplish its ends: to make the nations of the world obedient
to U.S. policy demands, however they may fluctuate.
Over the last 50 years, the CIA used
covert operations to overthrow disobedient governments in Iran,
Guatemala, Brazil, Chile and Nicaragua. That's the short list.
It invaded dozens of others to remove governments or government
leaders. In the 1980s alone, think of the constant intervention
in several Central American nations, the invasion of Grenada
and the "arrest" of General Noriega in Panama. In addition,
the U.S. has routinely bribed and intimidated other governments
to "cooperate" in its covert schemes and dirty tricks.
Mexican government officials should take
heed of newly declassified documents that reveal that from 1964
on, the Johnson Administration used Mexico as a source to spy
in Cuba. The spying continued into the 1970s under Nixon.
In early March, the Mexican Proceso magazine
published some of the hitherto secret papers obtained by Kate
Doyle of the National Security Archives. The documents should
not only embarrass those Mexican officials who connived with
the CIA back then, but serve as an admonition to President Fox
as well.
Under President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz (1964-70)
and his successor Adolfo Lopez Mateos (1970-76), the Mexican
government cooperated with Washington to carry out spying and
harassing operations against Cuba and persons traveling to that
island. The Mexicans imposed one condition, however: Washington
would publicly accept the veneer of Mexico's independent status
(re: Cuba) and recognize Mexico's sovereign right to maintain
relations with Cuba. Washington readily agreed and from then
on pretended annoyance at Mexico for retaining her ties to Cuba.
Meanwhile, the CIA used Mexican territory and its government
officials for espionage and dirty tricks.
In addition to the documents, the Archives
obtained transcripts of President Lyndon Johnson's taped phone
conversations, which extended the espionage field into Cuba itself.
Indeed, as Susan Ferriss writes in the March 6, 2003 Palm Beach
Post, "Johnson struck a secret deal with Mexico in 1964
that converted at least some of Mexico's diplomats in Cuba into
Our Men in Havana -- spies who passed information about the island
and its Soviet allies directly to the White House."
By July 1964, the United States had twisted
every other government arm in Latin America to force them to
vote to expel Cuba from the OAS and almost every other regional
organization, but also to break all relations with the communist
island. The CIA plotters, however, encouraged Mexican officials
to parade their supposed "rejection" of Washington
pressure and show the world how solidly independent they were.
Indeed, shortly after his inauguration, Mexico's new President
proclaimed his everlasting friendship with Cuba's Fidel Castro.
Yes, with friends like Diaz Ordaz...
Internally, Mexico used its alleged pro-Cuba
stance to offset its repressive policies against its own left.
As Mexican police and army units tortured and murdered revolutionaries
throughout the country, Presidents Diaz Ordaz and his successor
Lopez Mateos held up the Cuba card to show their international
"revolutionary" commitment.
In 1967, I went to Mexico to transfer
to the Cubana flight to Havana to film a public television documentary.
I witnessed some of these CIA shenanigans. First, the Mexicans
forced Cuba-bound travelers from the United States who wished
to return through Mexico to obtain permission from the Gobernacion
Ministry (Interior).
Mexico required that the traveler possess
official U.S. State Department permission to travel. Then, the
process began, which took a couple of days and cost, in bribes,
about 100 pesos (about $30 dollars in those days). After checking
in at the Cubana counter at the Mexico City airport (the only
air route to Cuba in the hemisphere), we went to a special room
at the airport. There, uniformed Mexican officials demanded that
I and the other members of the film crew pose for photographs,
as we held numbers over our chests. Following that, we moved
to the next obstacle. A man wearing a Mexican immigration police
uniform then typed on an ancient Underwood our answers to a six
page questionnaire, probing into personal and political affairs
of each individual. I asked the official why he did this and
under whose orders he operated. Instead of answering he threatened:
"Answer my questions or we shall deport you."
When the CIA agents, dressed as Mexican
officials, had finished photographing and interrogating the passengers,
other uniformed officials shepherded the travelers to the farthest
point of the airport, about a half a mile walk with carry-on
bags. Then we boarded the oven-like Soviet built Cubana plane,
which apparently did not get permission to use the cool air pump
used for other commercial aircraft. What seemed like eons later,
yet another uniformed official "inspected" the plane
and when the heat appeared to get to him he gave the nod to take
off. Needless to say, the passengers cheered as the plane took
off.
I underwent this experience twice more
in 1968 and again in 1969 on subsequent film expeditions. Once
in Cuba, I had to get the Gobernacion document validated by the
Mexican consulate in Havana (another bribe). Failure to do this
meant one had to return to the United States via Madrid or Prague.
The new documents shed more light on
CIA operations previously aired by Philip Agee. A CIA official
who resigned and told all, Agee estimated that "the [Mexico
CIA] station's annual budget even then was $5.5 million. And
the Mexicans were very cooperative. With Mexican security's help,
the station was able to tap as many as 40 telephone lines at
once. The president of the country at the time, Diaz Ordaz, was
a very close CIA collaborator. So was his predecessor."
In his August 1975 Playboy interview, Agee claimed that "Mexican
president, Luis Echeverria (1976-82), also was a station contact
--when he was Diaz Ordaz' minister for internal security [under
Diaz Ordaz]."
In 1969, Fidel Castro revealed to me
yet another CIA ploy. The Cuban government had purchased from
a Mexican company a hydraulically operated sugar cane cutting
machine. This cutter had the ability to cut the cane at the right
place on the stalk even on uneven terrain. When Cuban technicians
assembled the machine, however, it immediately malfunctioned.
Referring to the accompanying instruction manual, they found
gibberish in place of real repair instructions.
Edward Lamb, the factory's owner, investigated
the problem and discovered that the CIA had sabotaged the machine
and rewrote the instruction manual, with the cooperation of Mexican
authorities.
Similarly, in the early 1970s, the CIA
poisoned a batch of pineapple seedlings Cuba had purchased from
a Mexican enterprise so that when they arrived in Cuba, the baby
pineapples plants had all died.
Under Nixon, the CIA operations became
downright gangster-like in their texture. In 1970, a young American,
Cuba-bound woman told me of her adventure. She and five other
American anti-war activists arrived at the Mexico City airport
where Mexican CIA agents, flashing phony badges and real guns,
kidnapped them. The armed agents placed them in two cars with
locked rear doors and drove them non-stop, except for bathroom
breaks, to the U.S. border. Once there, U.S. Immigration authorities,
expecting the delivery, took the six and told them to go home.
These few examples, of thousands, constitute
illegal interference in routine commercial and travel behavior
between Cuba and Mexico. They could not have transpired without
the active complicity of the Mexican government. In its 71 year
long rule, the PRI Party clung to the myth that it represented
the spirit of the revolution of 1910 that aimed at overthrowing
the ruling corrupt clique. In fact, as the new documents show,
Washington found it relatively easy to bribe and intimidate Mexico's
top officials.
Now, Mexico occupies a strategic seat
as one of 10 nonpermanent members of the UN Security Council.
Once again, U.S. officials revert to their successful tactics
of the past: bribes and intimidation. They even trotted out Henry
Kissinger, a world class intimidator, to warn Mexico of the consequences
of opposition to the U.S. war position.
But conditions have changed. Mexican
voters ended the seven decades of PRI rule in 2000 when they
chose Vicente Fox of the PAN party as their new chief executive
officer. As Mexico has democratized slowly over the years, public
opinion now carries some weight. Fox has not delivered on his
promises. Indeed, he has vacillated and reneged on key pledges,
like delivering a treaty with Washington to legalize more than
three million Mexicans living in the United States. He has discovered
that no amount of servility has induced Washington to concede
on even minimal issues.
In Mexico's political cartoon world,
Fox has earned a brown nose for his avid butt-kissing. Now Mexico's
UN delegate on the Security Council must vote with or against
the United States. Washington, as always, says: "Vote our
way, or else!" Mexican public opinion polls indicate that
90% or more of the adult population oppose U.S. war policies
with Iraq.
Unlike the 1960s, when Johnson allowed
Mexico to maintain its facade of independence, the 2003 U.S.
policies brook not even a thin covering of disobedience. In his
unrelenting pursuit of war with Iraq, Bush demands that President
Fox, and the other heads of state from the UN Security Council
members, betray the wishes of their own people, who have manifested
decisive anti-war sentiments. Like some of his predecessors,
Bush does not think twice about altering the fate of millions
of people in the world. He did take seriously the sentiment after
9/11. He understood what it meant when the French said: "We
are all Americans." Now he has added to that understanding:
"Since you admit to being Americans, you better do what
I say!"
Saul Landau
is the Director of Digital Media and International Outreach Programs
for the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, California
State Polytechnic University, Pomona. His new film, IRAQ: VOICES
FROM THE STREETS, is available through The Cinema Guild. 1-800-723-5522.
He can be reached at: landau@counterpunch.org
Yesterday's
Features
Ben Tripp
Blood
for Oil: the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint
Them Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic
Protest for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz-Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- Turkish Delights: a Pre-War Diary by Tariq Ali;
- The Plot to Frame the
Zapatistas: Talkers
and Cowards;
- Drugging Kids: The Plague of Neuroleptics;
- The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal:
a New Investigation.
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
Take a Bite Out of Phil Knight's Bottom Line: Buy No Sweat Apparel!
Alexander
Cockburn
Moran
and the Dixie Chicks; Hitchens and Horowitz
Peter Linebaugh
Terror
of the Petrolarchs
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Cooking
Intelligence for War
Anne Gwynne
Anger and Tears at Israel's Wall of Apartheid
Pablo Mukherjee
Why Certain Liberals Love the War
Adam Lebowitz
The Fire Last Time: Remembering the Tokyo Air Raids
Kurt Nimmo
If You Care About Elizabeth Smart, Why Not the Kids of Iraq?
John Ross
Endgame
in Baghdad: a Human Shield Returns Home to Protest
Fran Shor
The Grunts of Empire
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Muslim World and the West: the Roots of Conflict
Ben Tripp
Support Our Troops...Quick!
Dr. Susan
Block
Bukkake Bombing Crusade
Harvey Wasserman
The Emerging Superpower of Peace
Anthony Gancarski
Elizabeth Smart: the Face of War?
Seymour Melman
In the Grip of the Permanent War Economy
Joe Quandt
Do You Know What War Is?
Adam Engel
Indian Museum
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Richey, Becker, Perelman and Katz
March 8 /
9, 2003
Edward Said
Who's
In Charge?
Bruce Jackson
Elegy
for Two Giraffes and a Zebra
Perry Anderson
The Casuistries of Peace and
War
Joanne Mariner
Patriot
Act II's Attack on Punishment
William Lind
A Warning from Clausewitz on 4th Generation Warfare
Sam Husseini
Why
So Long for Iraq to Comply? Follow the Policy
Forrest Hylton
Business as Usual in Bolivia?
David Lindorff
Race and the Death Penalty in Pennsylvania
Ben Tripp
Is There
a Eurologist in the House?
Anthony Gancarski
W's Personal Jesus
Jon Elmer
An Interview with William Blum
Douglas Valentine
The Clash of the Icons
Norman Madarasz
Radical Politics and the Writer:
Maurice Blanchot
Gordon Solberg
There's
Got to be a Better Way
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Engel, Bernard
Weekend Website
The
White House
February 28,
2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Meet
the New Yorker's Chief Hack: Jeffrey Goldberg
Saul Landau
Now
It's Personal
Michael Neumann
A Plea for Hysteria
Karima Bennoume
The UN: Tool for Peace or War?
The Black
Commentator
The Rev. Sharpton and the Soul of the Democrats
Jennifer Loewenstein
Don't Turn Off the War
Richard Levins
Cuba's Biological Weapons: Why the World Needs More of Them
M. Shahid Alam
Is This a Clash of Civilizations?
Clay Conrad
Juries
and Judges: What's Relevant?
Ben Tripp
Speaking in Tongues: a Guide to Gibberish in the Age of Bush
Eliot Katz
To Declare Preemptive War is to Declare a Bankrupt Imagination
Kurt Nimmo
Paying Through the Nose to Kill Iraqi Kids
Matt Vidal
George W. Bonaparte
Mark Zepezauer
Why the Right Hates America
Mickey Z.
The Anti----War Talk I Never Gave
Jerry Kroth
Jung and the Space Shuttle Revisited
Shyam Oberoi
Chronicle of a War Foretold
Ron Jacobs
What If the Firebombing of Baghdad Were a Nightclub Fire?
Poets' Basement
Eliot Katz and Jim Cohn
Website of
the Weekend
Defense
Tech
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|