Sunday, May 16, 2010

The Arrogance of Mexico

The Washington Post has a story up called, "Tensions over immigration law may dominate Calderón's visit."

President Felipe Calderón arrives in Washington this week for a two-day state visit that was supposed to be a celebration of U.S.-Mexican cooperation in his drug war. Instead, it is likely to showcase Mexico's frustration over Arizona's tough new immigration law, which Calderón has described as anti-Mexican.
Here's a country that can't even control its own territory, has marauding drug gangs that threaten the state itself, endemic corruption of epic proportions, and that exports a huge segment of its population to the United States. According to the Post story, almost 10% of the Mexican population lives in the U.S.  Mexico even has harsh restrictions of its own on illegal immigration, yet its president thinks he can tell the U.S. government what to do regarding the internal laws of a U.S. state.
In Mexico, the political class from right to left has closed ranks to deplore the Arizona measure, which has dominated the front pages and TV news here. Elected officials from the three major parties are exhorting Calderón to challenge it in Washington
Rather than deal with their own self-inflicted problems, Mexicans would rather indulge in America-bashing, from Calderon on down. If Obama had any spine whatsoever, he would tell Calderon in no uncertain terms that the U.S. will not be lectured about its laws from Mexico, particularly when Mexico's failure to control its own borders, and its encouragement of illegal emigration has caused the very problem Arizona is trying to contend with.

Naturally I don't expect Obama to actually stand up for the U.S.  When does he ever? No doubt he will grovel and apologize, and commiserate with Calderon about those nasty Arizona Republicans and their horrible new law.

2 comments:

  1. I agree, but I'd feel better about telling the Mexican president to go spit if our "War on Drugs" weren't harming his country.

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  2. I'm all for ending the war on drugs, and I think Mexico would have some legitimate issues to raise regarding U.S. drug policy.

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