Claws out
US "soft power" ... narcos, "threat to democracy", blah-blah-blah
It's said that “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you”. Although, if you're not paranoid, they may still be out to get you. With the failure of both the #narcopresidente” bot campaign during the elections, and the rather thin, and inclusive trio of “news” stories... from ProPublica, DW, and the New York Times (as well as a book by Annibal Hernandéz) all claiming … based on “anonymous sources” that AMLO may have, at some point in one of the three Presidential elections, have received (or rather, his campaign had been OFFERED) some funding from organized crime figures, none of which did all that much to sway voters away from the 4T candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, we might have expected that line of attack was done and dusted.
While it remains to be seen who was behind the campaign … and why (the usual suspects being the DEA, still licking its wounds after being slapped into submission by the Lopez Obrador administration)... one might have expected these kinds of unsubstantiated stories to just quietly go away. Not so... “Boz”, James Bosworth, who writes on US “strategic” and geopolitical affairs, writes – unskeptically – that
The emerging story of El Mayo's arrest includes strong indications that Sinaloa's governor, an ally of AMLO, was being paid off by the Sinaloa Cartel. Most analysts have suspected that AMLO's government had some sort of arrangement with one or several criminal groups, but the arrests could confirm some of the details. The corruption story will turn out poorly for MORENA and will harm AMLO's legacy on security issues, which is likely why the president has reacted so viscerally to the events. (Boz@substack.com, 20 August 2024)
Certainly, “El Mayo's” arrest raises some serious issues within Mexico, but who are these unnamed “many” analysts, and for whom are the analyzing? We're never really given any indication of what exactly these “arrangements” might be (if they exist) and why this is “corruption”. One doesn't need to rely on (unnamed) intelligence sources to assume that of course there are “arrangements” between states and various unsavory characters: Perhaps Boz is referring to the delayed arrest of Oviado Guzmán back in 2018 (at the start of AMLO's tenure) to prevent a firefight beween soldiers and excaped convicts in a military housing unit right about the same time schools had let out for the afternoon and there would be unacceptable civilian “collateral damage”. And, it wouldn't be unehard of anywhere on the planet for well-financed, but “problematic” individuals and organizations to at least attempt to buy good-will from whichever political force was most likely to interfere the least with their operations... or at least hoped might be less harmful to their activities. Think of the NRA, or “big pharma”, or “big oil” openly making “campaign donations” (what outside the US are called “bribes”) to politicians of both US parties. Which, no one has been able to say, were accepted by, or even solicited by, AMLO... let alone Claudia Sheinbaum.
Yes, the “El Mayo” story suggests Mayo may have been providing some sort of information, or having some sort of agreement, with some level of government, but the reason for Mexican concern is not tht he might “spill the beans”, so much as the US refuses to account for whether US operatives were involved in what was, indeed, “treason” in the legal sense...which in Mexico includes kidnapping a citizen for the benefit of a foreign country.
Boz was not a “one off” however, This popped up on my “facebook” account from Mexico Despierto (a die-hard conservative page) a day or so ago:
Which prompted Jose Antonio Estrada Giron to respond with a long list of “bad actors” in previous administrations:
What is undeniable is that García Luna is in prison, as well as Yarrington, Veytia and Villanueva and they are not the only PRIAN drug traffickers. Do you want a list???
Ramírez Crespo
Guadalupe Sánchez,
Los Moreira Mendoza,
Acosta,,
José Luis Abarca,
Fausto Vallejo and his son Dalma
Karum Dalia Santana,
Arquímedes Oceguera,
Eugenio Hernández, Flores
Fidel Herrera
And the list goes on...
Speaking of drug trafficking, I remind you that Echevarría allowed the growth of the Guadalajara Cartel, his nephew openly negotiated with them. Here is a list
Governor Celis and his relationship with Félix Gallardo
The conversion of the DFS into a repressive body of dissidents and an ally of Félix Gallardo
Salinas' cooperation with the federation and with the Gulf Cartel
The alliance between Hank and Amado Carrillo
The alliance between García Luna and Calderón
Do you want to talk about illicit financing?
Do you remember “Amigos de Fox”?
Chapo's contributions to García Luna?
The Monex cards.
Those are proven facts, not rumors. Did you vote for that? Are you going to defend drug traffickers?
Mexico Despierto is a “private” page (not to be confused with Despierto Mexico – a non for profit political organization, that among other things, pimps cryptocurrencies), and there isn't all that much I can find on its moderators or funding. One moderator appears to be in the US, and his personal page deals mostly with the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students, generally a leftist issue, but given frustration with inconclusive investigation, pushing some to question the value of the 4T movement as a whole.
The others, one can't say. It doesn't appear they have any outside funding...nor for that matter, much influence. I only bring them up, as a example of the sort of propaganda being spread, and meant to weaken support for the outgoing and incoming administrations.
When it comes to funding... and obvious sources... there is that whole “Marea Rosa” movement... the “pink tide” which not only resembles a (badly organized) version of the “color revolutions” – fomented by the US, mostly successfully in post-Soviet eastern Europe and central Asia, but less successful otherwise – with hard to hide US backing. As has been widely noted, the “pink tide”-- supposedly meant to protect “democracy” … from the voters, apparently... sought to block reforms to the political system. And, incidentally, was financed internally by oligarchs like Ricardo Salinas Pliego who-- just incidentally – owes something over 60 billion (thousand million) pesos in back taxes and interest payments. That the group morphed into an open faction of the opposition coalition, and was under the banner of the “Mexicanos contrata corruption y impunidad” (also chaired by Salinas Pliego, until he stepped down in favor of a Pemex executive's widow whose generaous pension was based on a cover-up of her husband's suicide). MCCI's funding comes from two sources... “donations” from oligarchs, and – drum roll please – the United States embassy and the National Endowment for Democracy … the very same sources used by the United States to fund those earlier color revolutions.
MCCI is widely suspected of being the source for those #narcopresidente bots during the campaign, and of supporting the rear-guard attempts now to – if nothing else – prevent the winning coalition from gaining a legislative supermajority.
Their lack of success (nor for want to trying) notwithstanding, given the US “interest” in Mexico, when one attempt to discredit or weaken the 4T movement fails, try, try again. Last week, US Ambassador Ken Salazar mentioned that his own home state (Colorado) had an elected Supreme Court... but this will not do for US industries and multinationals, which have become used to court rulings that tend to take the economic impact of regulations (on mining, energy production, limits on fossil fuel extraction, importation of glyphosate laced corn) that the incoming government is promising to implement.... something elective judges might not be so reluctant to find an excuse to block. Thus, Salazar....presumably at the direction of his superior, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, has changed his tune... now “warning” Mexicans that should they begin electing federal judges, then there would be financial problems with US investors. “Nice little laws you have there... be a shame if we burned your financial situation”.
The US may be right to worry (i.e.resort to blackmail) when it comes to trying to thwart a change in the judicial system. The present US-Mexico-Canda treaty (USMCA or T-MEC in Spanish) ...the so-called “NAFTA 2.0” was worked out in the waning days of the Peña Nieto administration, and comes up for review in 2026... with a secure 4T administration, not a weakened, highly corrupted and despised one. One can't predict what the state of the US or Canada economically or politically will be, but it does mean Mexico will be in a much stronger position to negotiate in its own favor.
So,expect the sniping, alarmist rhetoric about drugs and immigrants to continue, no matter what administration is in the White House (and whoever is living at 24 Sussex Drive) and if anything, pressure against the Mexican state will increase... with more surreptitious financial support for “legitimate” opposition movements, more focus in US media on crime in Mexico (and pressure to “permit” more US “assistance” in country) and, one shouldn't be surprised, some rationale or another for sanctions on this or that public figure and (while one hopes not) direct intervention like that which may have played a part in el Mayo's “capture”.