Mexico fears backlash from vote on Iraq

SignOnSanDiego.com ^ | March 15, 2003 | Jerry Kammer

[MoscowMike]

By Jerry Kammer COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

March 15, 2003

WASHINGTON – As Mexico faces up to heavy U.S. pressure to vote its way in the Iraq crisis, it also confronts the possibility of a widespread U.S. backlash.

"If the perception of the average American is that his neighbor abandoned him at this crucial time, the stigma would last for generations and be made manifest in a multitude of individual actions," Mexican analyst and historian Enrique Krauze warned this month in a Mexico City newspaper.

Krauze cited danger of commercial boycotts, restrictions on trade and widespread resentment at the White House, in local and state governments and in the U.S. press. He fretted that Mexicans living in the United States might suffer "discrimination, persecutions, etc."

Krauze's pessimism is widely shared by Mexican diplomats here, some of whom acknowledge that they are praying that the U.S. resolution that would authorize a possible war with Iraq will never come to a vote. Indications are that Mexican President Vicente Fox, facing overwhelming public opposition to the war, would invoke Mexico's tradition of nonintervention and either vote "no" or abstain. Either way, he would antagonize the White House.

Mexico's ambassador to the United States was active this week trying to head off the sort of hostility that is pestering France, featuring boycotts on cheese, mocking jokes and bitter commentary on French diplomacy and French character. Juan José Bremer urged U.S. appreciation for "the remarkable progress" Washington and Mexico City have achieved in managing what he called "the most intense bilateral relationship in the world."

President Bush increased that intensity last week in statements that provoked alarm in Mexico, where they made front-page news. While Bush said he did not expect "significant retribution from the government" against Security Council member nations that didn't line up with the United States, he pointedly left open the possibility of a popular backlash.

The president's comments caused consternation among Mexican-Americans, who longed for the pre-Sept. 11 era when Bush and Fox were "the two amigos" pledging unflagging friendship and celebrating the increasing economic and cultural integration of their two countries. They also spoke optimistically about the prospects for an immigration deal that would legalize the status of millions of Mexicans living illegally in the United States.

But in the tensions of the post-Sept. 11 era, that coziness has been dissipated.

Antonia Hernández, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, said this week that Bush's March 3 remarks, which came in an interview with reporters from Copley News Service and other news organizations, would encourage anti-Mexican sentiment.

Mexico expert Robert Pastor said his recent appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor" TV show on the Fox network convinced him that there is real danger of an anti-Mexican backlash.

"He just leveled into Mexico," Pastor said of the show's host, Bill O'Reilly. "I can assure you that these things resonate out there," he said.

Peter H. Smith, professor of political science at the University of California San Diego, said Bush's comments were widely perceived in Mexico as a threat and may have eliminated any possibility that Fox would line up with the United States at the United Nations.

"The costs to Fox of taking the U.S. side would be very high, higher than they would have been if they hadn't received those threats," Smith said. He said Fox could not afford to be perceived as submitting to pressure from an American president.

Moreover, said Smith, the concession Fox most wants from the United States – an immigration deal – is out of the question. "We simply cannot do to that in the post 9/11 environment," said Smith, adding that heightened security concerns make it politically impossible to agree to a deal that would be seen as a loosening of the border.

Harvard professor and Latin American scholar John Coatsworth said Mexican fears of a widespread backlash are exaggerated. "Mexico has yet to recognize that it has immense strength in the relationship with the United States that it has not yet begun to exploit," Coatsworth said.

[MoscowMike]

Howdy Folks

Mexico despises our nationhood, does not recognize our international border's integrity, teaches its population that the American Southwest is Mexican territory, they export their criminals across our frontier, consume billions of public dollars, avoid taxes, ship their wages out of the USA, their military routinely blasts away at our Border Patrol with fifty caliber machine guns, corrupt politicians aid and abet the shipment of drugs into the USA which destroy the lives of countless American young people, dangerous communicable diseases pour across with the human wave that Mexico actively supports.....

And now they side with saddam while America fights for it's life against international terror and its state sponsors.

They have been a sad excuse for a friend in the past, and consistent with that despicable, selfish history, the government of Mexico demonstrates once again that, while they LOVE to consume the fruits of the liberty they deny Mexican citizens, they do not give a tinker's damn for American lives and property.

I think Mexico's failure to back up America in the United Nations is the last straw.

[cajungirl]

Oh my, our boycotts are getting out of hand. What with the French, and the Dixie Chicks, and the peaceniks, and the eastern liberal establishments. We have to limit our major boycotts to one country at a time.

[Admin Moderator]

Please post the correct title of articles. Thanks.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

I don't know if I can give up Mariachi Bands. It's just too much to ask. Illegal immigration. Tuberculosis. I can live without.

[68skylark]

We have to limit our major boycotts to one country at a time.

I respectfully disagree. Personally I'm having no trouble keeping a good mental tally of all the ongoing boycotts.

[hispanarepublicana]

San Jacinto Day is April 21--Mexico better remember that the last time they messed with us, we fought for and won a huge territory from them (although they can have California and the Baldwins, Julia Roberts, Janeane Garafolo, George Clooney, all their electoral votes and Gray Davis back if they want it, and now they mow our lawns. I've been wondering why we don't declare Mexico a hostile neighbor and arm our borders for some time.

[thinktwice]

"Bashlash," is putting it mildly.

[The Wizard]

"If the perception of the average American is that his neighbor abandoned him at this crucial time, the stigma would last for generations and be made manifest in a multitude of individual actions,"

Finally someone gets it

[cajungirl]

Oh, your boycott quotient is better than mine for sure!! We need a website just for the damn boycotts. Pardon me but I am laboring under guilt for refusing to burn my mephistos and pour out my expensive french shampoo.

[thinktwice]

they can have California

Better yet, ceding Baja to the United States would do for reparations.

[Porterville]

Yep; they should be afraid of the backlash.

[doug from upland]

Yes, your stinking country abandoned us. You have been sucking off California's teat for far too long. It is time to send about 5 million of your illegal citizens back home from California immediately. We can pick our own crops and watch our own children and cut our own grass. If not, Americans will have that job. We well all be willing to pay a little more for it.

[Defiant]

Just as we can fight Al Qaeda and Iraq at the same time, in spite of Al Gore, so too we can boycott France and still send illegal aliens back home at the same time.

[DontMessWithMyCountry]

And I agree with you. I always read labels for their contents anyway; it's not a bit problematic to scan it for offensive terms like "France" or "Germany" or any other of our two-faced 'allies'. I even try to avoid purchasing anything 'made in China'. It feels good, actually, putting 'family first'. It's about time our people started thinking about all of us (functional and dysfunctional, haha) as 'family'; a house divided WILL fall.

[fortress]

Wow, the power of the American consumer

[x1stcav]

Boycott Mexico? Works for me.

I was living in San Diego for awhile in the late 90's. Went down into the south part of the city to buy some boat parts and you can't believe the crap the 'immigrants' had painted on the pylons supporting the overhead freeway.

These aren't immigrants; they're colonists.

I come from a California farming family. And, yeah, to my disgust,we employed a lot of 'mojados' back in the 60's and 70's. They were great people and hard workers. Funny thing was, there weren't a lot of wets before 1964 when the US Congress, as a sop to Cesar Chaves and UFWOC, refused to extend the guest worker program (Bracero) which had been in place since WWII. The difference was that they would come up here and work for 3-4 years and go home with enough money to buy a farm, a house, or start a business. Co-incidentally, the left (bastards) started the welfare revolution in the early 70's. Guess what? they started bringing their fammilies. Duh. The law of unintended consequences? Hah! They planned this all along.

I've spent a lot of time in the country, recognize it for its great parts, and its negative side, have great friends (my daughter is named Alejandra after one of them) and had some of the best business partners one could hope for. But enough is enough.

Militarize the border if thats what it takes. Start demanding of the 'amigos' special oil concessions for a start. Slap them back into place. We've been played the patsy for too long.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

They don't want UN mad at them.
They want to flood SW with CRIMINAL
INVADERS ala drug runing muslim
terrorists invading kosovo.
This way they hope the UN will
jump in and make America give up
atzlan.

[FITZ]

Also Cinco de Mayo ---of course that celebrates them beating the French so it'd be a toss-up.

[Aria]

I have a business in which some of the people have been overpaid and/or treated too well in comparison to their performance. What I've learned is that human nature generally tells such recipients of other's benevolence is that what they have received isn't valuable, but deserved and they can be real nasty when the gravy train ends. The Mexicans sound like this. They figure it's their right to take advantage of us.

[Experiment 6-2-6]

Perhaps we can put a link of boycotted countries/products/little girls alongside the link of captured/dead/at large Al Queda folks?