LatinaLista — Rick Reyes joined the Marine Corps in 2000. He served in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 as an Infantry Rifle Man. He returned from duty early 2004 and went into business for himself starting his own independent mortgage company.
Rick Reyes
Yet, Reyes’ experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq changed how he saw the continuing role of the U.S. military in this region of the world. It wasn’t long before he joined Iraq Veterans against the War (IVAW) and joined forces with the grassroots social justice organization Brave New Foundation‘s campaign Rethink Afghanistan.
On April 23, 2009, former Marine Corporal Rick Reyes appeared in Washington before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He told the congressional committee that they needed to rethink their strategy of supplying more troops into Afghanistan.
In the following Guest Voz piece, former Marine Corporal Rick Reyes shares his personal experiences of what he witnessed while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and why he feels that his “patriotism was exploited for political gain.”
Editor’s note: The Rethink Afghanistan campaign wants Congress to consider three questions before approving a $94.2 billion supplemental wartime spending bill. The campaign’s organizers feel the answers to these questions can clarify the future success of anymore military presence in Afghanistan.
I was on liberty in Australia, with a few buddies at a club I can’t remember sometime around midnight, when it happened. The music shut off and an announcement came on: “America is under attack. Head back to your ships.†This was the worst—the impossible.
This was September 11, 2001.
Back at my ship, ambulance sirens blared. Hundreds of Marines stood on deck, anxiously awaiting word. Someone said the Pentagon had been bombed. My platoon sergeant stood up and delivered a fiery speech filled with “No one fucks with America!” and “We’re going to kick some ass!”
Later that night, the same sergeant turned to me and asked me if I was ready. Without giving it a second thought, I replied, “This is what I joined for.â€
Flash forward to a few weeks ago, as I recalled those words testifying before Senator John Kerry and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I sat where a young Kerry was once seated as he woke the country up to the grim realities of the war in Vietnam. I explained to the Committee that I always desired to serve my country, ensure basic freedoms, and fight for justice and the American way.
This had been my dream since childhood, a way to honor my Mexican immigrant parents who worked tirelessly to give my family a better life, a way out of an East Los Angeles neighborhood plagued by gang violence. But what I witnessed and experienced in Afghanistan and Iraq has forever shattered this once noble ambition.
As an infantry rifleman in the Marines Corps, I saw so much of these wars through nightly patrols. We were trained to approach a point of interest on foot, coordinating with translators whose sole vested interest in supplying us intelligence was to earn money and other forms of aid. We would gather information that often proved faulty, and question locals to the point we felt comfortable conducting a
raid.
After receiving an order, we would ransack homes, breaking windows, doors, families, lives, chairs and tables, detaining and arresting anyone who seemed suspicious. The problem, of course, was that it was impossible to distinguish militant Taliban members or al Qaeda from innocent civilians. Everyone became a suspect.
In one case, my squad leader gave me orders to pursue possible terrorists. Upon following my orders, leaving the scene in which we had set up a perimeter. My four-man fire team and I followed this suspect undetected for about 100 yards along an exposed ravine. When they were four feet away from me, I drew my M-16 pointing it directly to one of the “suspects†face, yelling “get down on the groundâ€.
We threw them to the ground and beat them in search of non-existent weapons, and broke limbs in the process. Another time, we detained, beat, and nearly killed a man only to realize he was merely trying to deliver milk to his children. These raids compelled me to tell Congress we have been chasing ghosts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Amazingly, these patrols were all the same, whether I was in the desolate desert terrain near Camp Rhino, the US-led coalition’s first strategic foothold in Afghanistan, or stationed outside Basra in Iraq. The terrain was different, but what remained the same was the manner in which we carried out missions, the unconscionable acts of violence and collateral damage that followed, and the ever-present paranoia that every Muslim could be a terrorist.
These raids even ended the same way. We would compensate the family whose whom we just invaded, offering to fix or pay for broken furniture before moving onto the next village where kids threw rocks at us and gave us the finger. To my knowledge, I never detained or arrested anyone guilty of a crime.
I witnessed firsthand the ineffectiveness of U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, I didn’t fully grasp the extent of these failed foreign policies of our government’s deception until I returned home from war. Realizing there never were weapons of mass destruction, and that we would have difficulty tracking terrorists with very little accurate intelligence, I felt as though my patriotism had been exploited for political gain.
A select few were profiting from this war, while the majority of Americans would shoulder the enormous tax burden.
To me, the lesson learned in Afghanistan and Iraq was that the U.S. flexed way too much muscle. We have ships, planes, helicopters, tanks, hovercrafts, trucks, humvees — everything imaginable. But how effective is this military might against extremists who blend in with innocent civilians and fight guerilla warfare that attack from behind and flea into oblivion?
Moreover, how effective can it be when we leave civilians in these countries little alternative but to support these extremists?
Congress must hear more voices like ours before escalating this war any further. More veterans need to speak out, and as a society we must get beyond the public perception that veterans are a product of war. We are not a product.
We took an oath to serve and protect, to make sacrifices for the greater good. It’s an oath everyone ought to honor, and not just by thanking us for our service. In my mind, we are not seeing more veterans speak out because there is a sense that if they do, they will be letting go of something they truly believe in; they will be going back on their oath and their sacrifices will have been in vain.
That is not the case.
We, as Veterans, must take responsibility for what has happened, continues to happen and speak out.
Comment(17)
Evelyn
The same way our government devastates the lives of the innocent Iraqi people is the same way the U.S. gov has devastated the lives of the Native Americans Indians here then in Mexico and in South America. Do we really expect these people to lie down and die?
Rick states “Moreover, how effective can it be when we leave civilians in these countries little alternative but to support these extremists?” That is why we have dictatores who are adored by their people like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales who are friends with Iran. Do we want these people near the U.S.? Isn’t it better to have foreign policies that make friends instead of enemies?
I can already hear some of the ignoramuses calling Rick Rayes an American hater for telling the truth. Some people dont like facts.
They would reather lap up lies and live in denial and a dream fantasy world where everything is beautiful and lily white.
hissy
I don’t believe him. He sounds like a criminal ro me…he could have refused to beat people half to death if he is telling the truth.
Evelyn
Stolen Birthright: The U.S. Conquest and Exploitation of the Mexican People
By Richard D. Vogel
In the mid-1960s, U.S. employers crossed the border into Mexico to take advantage of the large pool of unemployed Mexican workers created by the termination of the bracero program. The Mexican government, under the pressure of mass unemployment and unwilling to reform Mexico’s economy, accommodated the U.S. by adopting the Border Industrialization Program (BIP) in 1965, which permitted the establishment of maquiladoras on the Mexican side of the international border. These businesses were allowed to import components tariff-free for assembly in Mexico and then re-export the finished products, with a nominal tariff, back to the United States. Maquiladoras were granted further tax advantages. Foreign-owned companies that located in Mexico and employed Mexican workers were required to pay only a 5 percent housing tax on wages and a few token fees to the Mexican government.
The exploitation of Mexican workers through the maquiladora system, now almost 40 years old, continues to be a source of massive superprofits. Capitalists, always focused on the bottom line, save up to 75 percent on labor costs as compared to American workers and avoid all of the social costs of industrialization that they would have to pay north of the border. American firms have responded to the lure of cheap labor and tax advantages enthusiastically — by 1990 there were more than 1,500 maquiladoras exploiting more than 400,000 workers operating in Mexican cities along the border. By 1995, these numbers more than doubled and the plants had begun spreading into the interior of the country. In June of 2001 the number of maquiladoras peaked at 3,763. At that time, 1,347,803 Mexican citizens were working in foreign-owned plants inside of Mexico.
Overall, the exporting of industrial jobs to Mexico has been a boon to American capitalism, pushing corporate profits to all-time highs. In addition to cheap labor and low taxes, the Mexican maquiladora industry offers foreign employers additional advantages including subsidized rates for electricity and water, state financed industrial parks, and lax enforcement of environmental and labor laws. And key to the continuing exploitation of Mexican workers, the government of Mexico guarantees “a climate of labor peace” by controlling unions and preventing strikes or slowdowns by maquiladora workers.
Though American business has reaped huge profits from the maquiladora system, the effects on Mexican workers have been mixed. While many jobs have been created, current wages and working conditions in the maquiladoras resemble those in the U.S. a hundred years ago. The typical maquiladora workday consists of 9 to 9 1/2 hours of tedious assembly work at monotonous, repetitive operations conducted at accelerated rates under inadequate working conditions. The majority of workers are women in their teens and early twenties because they are easier to intimidate and work for less than men. Sexual harassment on the job is common and abuses are seldom punished. Employers give women pre-employment and periodic on-the-job pregnancy tests and fire pregnant women in order to avoid paying maternity benefits. Workplace health hazards are rampant, but workers, fearing for their jobs, seldom complain. To make matters worse, Mexican social security law, in practice, does not recognize occupational illnesses so workers receive no compensation if their health is ruined on the job. It is not surprising that the maquiladora employee turnover rate is estimated to be 20 percent per month.
To make matters worse, wages have been steadily declining in the maquiladora industries from $1.38 per hour in 1982 to less than $.50 an hour in 2001. The current maquiladora minimum wage of $3.50 per day is below subsistence level income even in Mexico. With the prevailing high prices of goods and services along the border, it takes four to five times the current minimum wage to pay for an average family’s basic needs.
Wages in Mexico never increase because these companies dont let them.
Evelyn
There Is A Way To Avoid Immigration Reform
When Marie Antoinette, the “It” girl of pre-revolutionary France, was told that the people were starving because they had no bread, she said “Let them eat cake.” She thought this was a reasonable solution — a way to solve the problem. But she was wrong, because she did not understand or acknowledge what the real problem was. The problem was that the people were desperately poor and could not afford to buy bread or cake.
Now, as then, the problem in this country and the world with “immigration” isn’t really a problem that can be solved by making visas, “guest” worker programs, or passports more readily available, will not be solved or even ameliorated by amnesty programs. The problem isn’t “immigration” — the problem is poverty. Desperate, grinding, hopeless poverty in which much of the world lives.
Two Percent of the people in the world own Fifty Percent of the world’s wealth. If we simply take that 50% away from those 2% and redistribute it, that would allow people to stay in their own countries and live decent lives. It is never a good thing, not a real solution, to promote policies and programs to make it easier for poor people to send their children to other countries to do slave labor, so they can send money back home. That’s not much of an answer to anything.
The “solution” being proposed of making it easier for people to immigrate is a bubble-headed approach, a denial of the reality. It is not progressive, liberal, or kind to suggest we should “help” the mothers of 12 year old children send their children to the U.S. to mow lawns and scrub our toilets. We’re not really “helping” when we do that.
The real problem is that the U.S. has, throughout its history, oppressed, militarily invaded, attacked Mexico and South and Central America, stolen resources, propped up dictatorships, tortured, murdered, disappeared people, sponsored despots and dictators, all for the sole purpose of driving the people into the dirt and leaving the entire continent subdued so U.S. multinational corporations can extract the wealth with minimal interference or expense.
That is why these countries have to send their children to the U.S. as slaves. Because the U.S. has destroyed their countries. Why don’t we just pay reparations to the people — people to people — and let them re-build their own lives. That along with staying out of their countries and letting them finally use their own resources for the benefit of their own people. That would be a real solution to the real problem — the problem of poverty, and of hoarding of wealth by the few. Let South and Central America finally be free to develop their own economies without interference from the U.S. If Mexico has any brains, they should look south instead of continuing to align themselves with the U.S. and against their Central and Southern American neighbors.
Evelyn
These countries listed below are those whose people have suffered on this American Continent, because of the U.S. gov. meddling in their affairs with the purpose of stealing their wealth.
In recent years 80s and 90s there have been more incidents with CIA involvement in the same countries and others. Those documents are yet to be declassified.
CIA Support of Death Squads
by Ralph McGehee
Posted on RemarQ, 9 October 1999
The information below is from CIABASE files on Death Squads supported by the CIA. Also given below are details on Watch Lists prepared by the CIA to facilitate the actions of Death Squads.
Bolivia Brazil Chile Columbia Costa Rica Cuba Dominican Republic
El Salvador Guatemala Haiti Honduras Mexico Nicaragua
Panama Paraguay Puerto Rico Uruguay
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/death_squads1.htm
Liquidmicro
You are plagiarizing articles Evelyn and not giving links or credits to the actual author. Your There Is A Way To Avoid Immigration Reform article is from Open Left Reforming Immigration Laws Is Not The Answer. The Problem Is Poverty, Not A Lack Of Passports. and you leave so much out.
One of the pet projects of many progressives in the U.S. and in other countries is the support of movements to “reform” immigration laws. Essentially they propose that anyone who is living in a country without having the permission of the country to be there should be granted amnesty, a right to stay and to become a citizen. They also propose that all other people should be allowed to move freely into the magnet countries, to work, live, go to school, use all the public services available to citizens, and to become citizens if they choose.
The people who support these “reforms” of immigration laws are entirely short-sighted in their analysis, although they may well be compassionate in their motivations.
The end result of these “reforms” will simply be to flood developed countries with the desperately poor people from third world countries, to smash all countries down to poverty, destroy nations that now provide a decent living for their own citizens. Moving millions of poor people into a developed nation has the effect of draining the resources of the developed nation. The surge of desperate workers also has the effect of bringing down wages, working conditions, benefits, and eliminating job security.
It is simply a fact that when there is a labor shortage, workers have more power in negotiating with their employers for better wages, benefits, working conditions, and they have more job security because it is difficult to replace them. And the opposite is also true: when there are thousands lined up to fill one job, the wages plummet, benefits are non-existent, job security is eliminated. This is simply a fact.
This also goes against your carp of wanting Cookie to show you a document siding against your assumption that “Illegal Aliens” are burdens. Your own article you stole from sides with my side, and Cookies argument that you are unable to refute.
Thank you
Thanks for your article. I wish we could hear from the experiences of soldiers in wars. You can tell us first hand experiences and not the corporate or religious agenda that we get from the mainstream news outlets. I’m tired of all the lies, cheating and deaths that surround America’s soul. We the people are not like this. Government and religion, in ideology, was not set up to be like this.
Liquidmicro
Richard D. Vogel, you mean the “Socialist” writer? The same one who leaves out so much of the history he is trying to use to “blame” the USA over the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
You do realize that he also blames the Government of Mexico for the exploitation of its own people, and his only real beef is with the area along the border, as he states: With the prevailing high prices of goods and services along the border, it takes four to five times the current minimum wage to pay for an average family’s basic needs.
Evelyn
Liquidmicro :
“Richard D. Vogel, you mean the “Socialist” writer? The same one who leaves out so much of the history he is trying to use to “blame” the USA over the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.”
Stated the spin master manipulator!
Tell me liquid what part of his article do you disagree with?
What facts that he used do you dispute?
Show credable proof.
Or, are you just trying good ole fashioned smear and talkin out the back side that conservatives have perfected to a tee? I call it blowin hot air!
Evelyn
You are plagiarizing articles Evelyn and not giving links or credits to the actual author. Your There Is A Way To Avoid Immigration Reform article is from Open Left Reforming Immigration Laws Is Not The Answer. The Problem Is Poverty, Not A Lack Of Passports. and you leave so much out.
~
My mistake, I thought I had posted a link to the article liquid as you can plainly see I NEVER DO! The link is up with the article and the article name change at the forum where you found it. You arent man enough to admit that though. Because you are still a master of spin you are going to spin a web and turn a simple mistake into a major catastrophe.
Since you have the link why didnt you put all the rest of it up GENIUS! See if Marisa has enough room to post it all.
If you would have asked for the link to the article instead of trying to spin and minipulate this issue, I would have given it to you gladly.
I see that article as an answer to a way out of immigration reform Mr Spin Master, that is why I changed the name. It’s a eye catcher. Who in their right mind would be interested in an article with a name that boring and that long on the other forum. I just pasted it here without remembering I had made the change.
You have elevated me to god like status liquid. I am not a god and I do make mistakes. Trying to make a MOUNTAIN out of a molehill will get you nothing but exposed.
Now having said that, why didnt you post the link to the article Liquid were you afraid people would see this? You leave so much out.
Well here it is!
Current TV had a two-hour special on about immigration around the world, and they showed the desperate measures taken by the poor to reach a developed nation where there might be jobs. One segment was on Africans who cross the ocean in rafts to reach Italy in the hope of finding work there. Many die on the voyage. For those who survive, once they arrive in Italy, the illegal immigrants are unwanted, live under bridges, and have miserable lives. But even sleeping on the ground under a bridge is a better life for them because there is no work in their own countries.
One segment showed young people from Guatemala who jump onto tanker trains (they call it the “Death Train”), hang onto bars to ride through Mexico. Among the dangers are that they may slip, lose their grip, fall asleep, or get hit by something and fall off the train, get run over by the train, and have arms or legs cut off. This amputation from the trains is so common that there is a special recovery home in Mexico which provides help to all the people who have lost arms and legs because they fell off the trains. Once they reach northern Mexico, they still had to walk for three days through the desert to reach the United States. http://www.deansbeans.com/coffee/deans_zine.html?blogid=653
(Waiting For The Death Train)
Why do they do it? Because there is no work in their own country, there is extreme poverty, and they need to find work, at whatever the risk, so they can send money home to support their families.
The United States has a long and disgraceful history of intervention, use of military, secretly funding death squads, training military right-wing dictatorships in torture, fomenting coups, destroying efforts at democracy never mind socialism, opposing efforts to use the resources for the benefit of the people, in Mexico, Central America, and South America. We have created such chaos, disruption, and despair throughout the region that there is nothing there for the people, so of course they try to leave. But where should they all go? Why shouldn’t they stay in their own country and be paid reparations for the harm we have done. Or even just “help” so they can support themselves on their own land. See http://www.serendipity.li/cia/death_squads1.htm:
“Central America, circa 1979-87. According to Americas Watch, … 40,000-50,000 Salvadoran citizens killed by death squads and government forces during this period; still higher numbers in Guatemala. Chomsky, N. (1988), The Culture of Terrorism, p. 101”
“Central America, 1981-87. Death toll under Reagan in El Salvador passed 50,000 and in Guatemala it may approach 100,000. … Death toll in region 150,000 or more. Chomsky, N. (1988). The Culture of Terrorism, p. 29”
“Central America, 1982-84. Admiral Bobby Inman, former head of NSA, … complained that the CIA was hiring murderers to conduct operations in Central America and the Middle East. Toohey, B., and Pinwill, W. (1990). Oyster: the Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, pp. 215-6”
Of course this ignores the direct involvement of the U.S. in staging the coup in Chile in 1973 to overthrow Allende and install a military dictatorship, and our support for similar coups, military dictatorships, and bloodbaths against the citizens in Argentina. Not to mention our ongoing military occupation of the nation of Columbia to support another cheap despot and dictator.
Whenever there is massive immigration from one country to another, we need to look at the reasons. Sometimes it’s war, sometimes it’s drought or other environmental problems. But in this country, the cause of immigration from Mexico and from Central America is extreme poverty and destruction of their own countries. Since the U.S. has treated much of the area as a colony for decades, using our military to prop up dictatorships and supporting our corporations in stealing the wealth, the U.S. should begin paying reparations to the people of the countries that we have harmed.
Instead of demanding more liberal immigration laws, we should demand real assistance for the people of those nations. Instead of finding a cot for some recent child immigrant to sleep on, we should send them back to their own homes (to their own mothers) with money to build houses, and with investment programs to create jobs, with the education and tools to develop sustainable agriculture to feed themselves and their communities.
How do we pay for this? We have a wealth tax. Take the 50% of the wealth that is owned by 2% of the population. Simply take it away from them. Tax it, or assess a fee on it. Call it whatever, but take that wealth, liquidate, and use the money to rebuild these countries. It’s really very simple. And I’ll bet 98% of the people in the world would support that policy. As for the other 2%, if they don’t like it, tough.
The problem is not immigration. The problem is poverty and the destruction of their own countries. Let’s help them rebuild so the children can stay home with their own mothers, which is as it should be.
“World Wealth Levels, Year 2000”
“The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth according to a path-breaking study released today by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER).”
Other findings:
The richest 1% of adults own 40% of the world’s assets.
The richest 10% of the people own 85% of the world’s assets.
The bottom 50% of the people in the world only own 1% of the wealth of the world.
A household that has $2,200 per adult in total assets ($4,400 total assets for a married couple) is the top 50% of the wealthiest people in the world.
The study also has a factor which it uses to describe the inequality of wealth in the world, which is very high. The number they calculate using their own formula is 89%, which they describe as meaning that if one person took 99% of all the wealth, and the other 9 people in a group had to share the remaining 1% of the total wealth, that is how our world is divided up today.
Authors of The World Distribution of Household Wealth, December 2006, include
James Davies, Professor, in the Department of Economics at the University of Western Ontario, and Edward Wolff, Professor of Economics, New York University. For full article, see:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-12/unu-pss120106.php
http://nabnyc.blogspot.com/2009/04/reforming-immigration-laws-is-not.html
Evelyn
This also goes against your carp of wanting Cookie to show you a document siding against your assumption that “Illegal Aliens” are burdens. Your own article you stole from sides with my side, and Cookies argument that you are unable to refute.
~
Aren’t you forgetting the WHOLE other side of this article? The real reasons immigrants come here.
You cant cherry pick through the article and give credence only to what is convienent for your racist agenda without being called a HYPOCRIT liquid!
Liquidmicro
As usual Evelyn, your inability to comprehend what has already been stated is hilarious. I suggest you re-read my 2 comments above, you might not look so inept if you attempt to respond coherently.
What’s funnier is you chastise me for doing what you have done, You cant cherry pick through the article and give credence only to what is convienent for your racist agenda without being called a HYPOCRIT liquid!, and yet you cherry picked the article to begin with along with plagiarizing it, I only pointed out some of the information you left out. Marisa has asked before not to print entire articles as it takes up bandwidth, so to link to them and give only the point you are trying to make.
I did link to the BLOG post directly at Open Left where it is also posted and which comes up before his actual Blog post on his site, look at the comment again. Its funny when you get caught in lies like this, and this hasn’t been the first time on LL that you have been caught doing this, you attempt to point the finger at everyone else but yourself.
Are you going to allow plagiarism to be used on your site Marisa? I’m sure NABNYC would like to know who is using his information and not giving him his just acknowledgments.
Evelyn
What’s funnier is you chastise me for doing what you have done, You cant cherry pick through the article and give credence only to what is convienent for your racist agenda without being called a HYPOCRIT liquid!, and yet you cherry picked the article to begin with
~
E
If you weren’t so busy trying to spin everything you would have noticed I posted the FIRST few I repeat FIRST few paragraphs of the article unlike you that went through it and cherry picked and only posted what would further your racist agenda.
Liquidmicro
If you would have noticed, I posted the few paragraphs between the paragraphs you posted and left out. Please show where I have “spun” what was posted by NABNYC. Face it Evelyn, all you are is an internet jockey, hell bent on blaming people for not agreeing with your opinion. I’ve done nothing more than point that out through exposure.
Evelyn
Liquidmicro :
If you would have noticed, I posted the few paragraphs between the paragraphs you posted and left out. Please show where I have “spun” what was posted by NABNYC. Face it Evelyn, all you are is an internet jockey, hell bent on blaming people for not agreeing with your opinion. I’ve done nothing more than point that out through exposure.
~
It’s all there liquid, look at my posts on this issue.
I said from the beginning all you had to do was ask me to site my source and I would have been more then glad to give it to you.
But NO you went on to spin the issue. You have alwayse been a master manipulator that is why I never debate an issue with you.
You will spin it even though proof is in front of your face.
Liquidmicro
You will spin it even though proof is in front of your face.
What proof is in front of my face? Someone else’s thoughts and opinions? You do realize that you linked to other blogs, right? And those blog topics were nothing more than NABNYC’s, and the others, own opinions. So I ask you, show the proof, not others opinions.
What you have shown is proof of nothing. What it is, is an argument based on the opinion of the author and their beliefs. Its the same thing that Marisa posts, topic after topic, what she thinks, her opinions, and her beliefs which is what she advocates for. Some agree, some disagree.
Back to my points…. Vogel, if you read his article you linked to, has left out so much of the time frame of the era he is choosing to lay blame at the feet of the USA and fails to accrue the full history. Might I suggest you read the following article and look up the information it entails: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050416/news_1n16treaty.html
The story is an odd historical footnote, overlooked in textbooks and unspoken in the classrooms of south Texas. But it has been passed down, like a burning torch, from generation to generation among the descendants of the original European settlers of this harsh, flat region on the U.S.-Mexico border – land that belonged to Spain, then Mexico, then the United States. The Cárdenas and the Cantus and the Ballis, the Longorias and the Cavazos and the Zárates, families whose ancestors never crossed the border. Rather, they like to say, the border crossed them, in 1848, after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Their petition boils down to this: In 1941, Mexico signed a treaty with the United States, agreeing to compensate 433 south Texas families for the loss of 12 million acres between the Rio Grande and Nueces rivers. The land once belonged to their ancestors and was part of Mexico, then became U.S. territory when the 1848 treaty was signed. But Mexico never did pay – and it shows no signs it will.
Vogels other complaint in his article is the following: He also blames the Government of Mexico for the exploitation of its own people, and his only real beef is with the area along the border, as he states: With the prevailing high prices of goods and services along the border, it takes four to five times the current minimum wage to pay for an average family’s basic needs.
NABNYC’s approach is in believing NAFTA as the problem of what lies south of our border. He makes the USA out to be the robber barons of the now, and is yet to fault any other government of any other country for its own situation. Is the USA really so Politically Powerful? Are these people who are “put into office” in these foreign lands really sub-servent to the USA? Once they become the countries leaders are they not now doing what is best for themselves first, and then what might be best for their countrymen? What of the rags to riches climb of Evo Morales? Hugo Chavez? Surely they had no help from the USA.
NABNYC
Wow! This is so weird reading other people dissecting my post. Fun, but weird.
My basic position is that open borders and immigration is not a solution to the underlying problem of economic devastation in many countries in the world. We need a new approach devoted to creating sustainable local agriculture (eliminate agri-business; buy local and grow local), and economies and other help for our neighbors. More immigration is not the answer, it’s just creating additional problems.
The idea of staffing our military with third world young men desperate to try to get visas for himself and his family makes me sick. An Army from the ranks of the desperate poor with no real alternatives sounds like a mercenary force. The description of what is going on in the middle east is a nightmare, and I’ve heard a lot worse.
Anyway, yes, I appreciate having my blogspot included if anyone cites from my comments. And sorry if you think my title is boring.
Comments are closed.