Mexico to Redraw Drug War Relationship with the US After Mexican Generals
Arrest
The United States gave Mexico no warning about the imminent arrest of one of
its top generals following Attorney General Bill Barrs failure to provide
the Mexican government information on American drug cartels.
by Raul Diego
November 06th, 2020
By Raul Diego
The arrest of Mexican General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda at LAX in October
was the culmination of a secret operation carried out by the U.S. Justice
Department and the DEA. The operation was not disclosed to the Mexican
government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) before his generals
capture.
In one of his daily morning addresses after the fact, AMLO admitted that the
news caught him by surprise a statement he later retracted in an effort to
save face and avoid scrutiny into the lack of any provision in Mexican law,
or in bilateral drug war agreements signed with the U.S., to compel their
powerful northern neighbor to disclose specific details of ongoing
operations.
Such a bold attack on the sovereignty of another nation is not exceptional
behavior for the only superpower on the block, which has historically
bullied, blackmailed, and murdered leaders around the world. Nevertheless,
the unilateral detention of a foreign military official to face a criminal
proceeding in a United States court is a watershed moment in the forty years
of the so-called war on drugs.
From the beginning of the disastrous policy, trying foreign nationals in
American courts has been a permanent feature. Extradition has figured
prominently in drug war tactics. The U.S. demands it as a condition for all
of its partners in the ostensible fight against organized,
multi-billion-dollar drug cartels, which since the late 90s has been led by
U.S. Southern Command.
The issue nearly toppled the Colombian government during the violent clashes
of the Pablo Escobar years, as the drug kingpin made extradition the center
of his crusade against his state persecutors. The invasion of Panama just a
few years earlier signaled Washingtons aggressive intentions to the rest of
Latin America when it deployed Navy SEALS and other special forces to
capture one of its oldest covert assets in Manuel Noriega.
The case of General Cienfuegos, who was apprehended at an airport without
any prior arrangement with the Mexican government, reveals the flagrant
contempt Americas federal law enforcement agencies have for the laws of
other nations. At the same time, the absence of a formal extradition request
on the part of the U.S. could be a clue about the true motivation behind the
high-profile arrest, which has AMLO thinking twice about his relationship
with the United States surrounding drug war policy.
In a recent interview with Proceso, Mexicos Secretary of State, Marcelo
Ebrard confirmed that a decision has been made to revisit all cooperation
agreements with the DEA as a result of the Generals arrest. Everything
will have to change, Ebrard said and warned that although there would be
cooperation, it would be on different terms.
Operation Godfather
Six days after the DEA announced the results of a large, multi-agency
operation targeting the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) called
Project Python (which netted over 700 arrests and millions in cash, arms,
and narcotics) the Mexican government requested information from the U.S.
Justice Department about American drug cartels in a letter addressed to U.S.
Attorney General Bill Barr in March.
Through the official missive, AMLO and his foreign minister asked the DoJ to
provide more actionable details regarding American drug cartels. Among those
mentioned in the letter to Barr are the Hells Angels, Bandidos, Gangster
Disciples, and Calle 18, whose extensive links to Mexican cartels like CJNG
demand that any relevant information on these organizations be shared with
Mexico.
The request is based on revelations made a month before by Arizonas DEA
Special Agent in Charge (SAC), Polo Ruiz, who admitted in an interview with
Proceso cited in the letter, that American drug cartels have established
their own territories in the United States, and while they do work with
Mexican cartels, operate independently.
The agents admission marks the first time an active DEA official has ever
recognized the existence of these groups, spurring the Mexican government to
bring it up directly in official state-to-state correspondence after the
agency published a list of corporations identified in Project Python as
money laundering outfits. All the companies named via Treasurys Office of
Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) were Mexican and omitted any mention of
American companies.
Barrs response came about a month later in mid-April. Americas top cop
assured AMLO that he had instructed representatives of the DEA in the U.S.
Embassy to get together with their Mexican partners and counterparts as soon
as the COVID-19 crisis permitted. As for the queries about American
companies, Barr extended nothing more than hearsay from DEA agents who
claimed to be working on the matter with the Mexican Treasury.
Operation Godfather, as the scheme to capture Cienfuegos was called, was
executed without the knowledge of any of the multiple Mexican anti-narcotic
agencies ostensibly working in concert with the DEA and came months after
Barrs deafening silence on the matter of shared intelligence with Mexico.
The former Mexican Secretary of National Defense is facing three counts of
drug trafficking and one count of money laundering in a U.S. District Court
in Brooklyn, NY. His defense attorney also Bill Cosbys attorney was the
lead prosecutor for the largest money laundering case in U.S. history, known
as Operation Casablanca, which targeted several Mexican banks and Mexican
bank officials in 1998 just before Mexico lifted a ban on foreign banks,
which were expelled from the country by President Lopez Portillo more than a
decade earlier a crucial turning point that preceded the exponential
growth of drug cartels in Mexico and which I covered at length in part two
of my documentary series, Borderline: The Unhinged Truth About the Drug
War.
The soft invasion
According to J. Jesús Esquivels article in Proceso, Mexico has 54 DEA
agents operating largely at their own discretion inside Mexican national
territory. Douglas Valentine, interviewed by MintPress for this report,
suggests there are likely hundreds of additional undercover agents roaming
the country.
Valentine unpacked the secret history of federal drug law enforcement in the
United States in two recently-published books that trace the involvement of
American intelligence agency, military, and federal law enforcement
personnel in the facilitation of world-wide drug trafficking operations. His
earlier work on the Phoenix Program established Valentine as a leading
investigative journalist working to shed light on some of the darkest
activities of the U.S government.
On the arrest of General Cienfuegos, Valentine asserts that it is exactly
what it looks like, meaning that the brazen affront to Mexicos national
sovereignty was a message to its leadership discouraging any further
inquiries (like the one made in the letter to Barr) seeking information
about American drug cartels in order to identify the real distribution
networks and the flow of illicit gains through the American and
international banking system, that ultimately make the drug trade possible.
A Mexican cant bring drugs into the United States, say 500kg of drugs, and
do anything with it, explains Valentine. There has to be an infrastructure
and people waiting to receive it. Motorcycle gangs like the Hells Angels,
Bandidos and other groups collectively referred to as the Dixie Mafia,
mentioned in Mexicos March request are used as frontmen by powerful
American organized crime groups, says Valentine. But, points out that the
major markets like New York, L.A., and others are controlled by the mob.
The Hells Angels arent going to be able to New York City and distribute
it, says Valentine, and to have those systems set up, you need the mafia,
which has police protection, political protection. Such are the networks
that Bill Barr seems to be protecting by rebuffing Mexicos request and
pulling a mafia Don move on its southern neighbor by hanging its dirty
laundry for the world to see.
The CIA knows from its surveillance of communications and its agents inside
the Mexican army who all the top people are, and they can drag them out
into the sunlight anytime they want to preserve the pretense of law
enforcement, justify budget increases or send veiled warnings to other heads
of states when they are asking too many questions.
The incredible reach of U.S. intelligence and agencies like the DEA, FBI,
and ICE, to name just a few, into Mexicos military and law enforcement
establishment is a reality that began to take shape in the 1940s through a
burgeoning relationship between Mexican law enforcement and American
intelligence. These ties have grown exponentially since Reagan made the war
on drugs a matter of national security and opened the door for the Defense
Department to get in on the action through bi-lateral drug war treaties,
like the Merida Initiative signed by George W. Bush and his then Mexican
counterpart, Felipe Calderón in 2008.
Similar bilateral agreements exist all across Latin America and have given
the United States a privileged position within the law enforcement and
military operations of many countries throughout the region. Over the course
of the war on drugs, American influence over the increased militarization of
police in Mexico, Colombia, and other countries have allowed them to shape
security policy to a large degree.
The results for Mexico have been catastrophic. Death tolls often surpass
those of the wars in the Middle East and around the world. An especially
gruesome incident in 2011 expertly covered by Ginger Thompson, exposed the
sheer disdain by agencies like the DEA and the FBI for the lives of innocent
people, who in this particular case were left at the mercy of a
notoriously murderous cartel leader after the drug enforcement agencys
dubious handling of sensitive intelligence.
AMLOs promise to take a different tack on confronting the cartel problem in
Mexico by reducing its dependence on state violence might be raising alarm
bells in Washington, motivating actions like Operation Godfather to put the
fear of god in the leadership of Americas largest trading partner.
A shot in the dark
If AMLOs desire to reshape the bilateral relationship between the United
States and Mexico is sincere, then we could be looking at a real turning
point in U.S.-Mexico relations and a return to an era when Mexicos
political class regarded its distant neighbor to borrow a phrase with
far more suspicion.
By all appearances, Mexicos president seems to want to help his own people,
which is more than generations of Mexicans can say about most former
presidents. Compared to mega grifters like ex-president, Carlos Salinas de
Gortari, who stole millions directly from pensioners and set the stage for
the re-introduction of foreign global money-laundering outfits like HSBC
into the country, AMLO is King Solomon.
Bill Barr AMLO
Barr, left, speaks with AMLO in Mexico City, Dec. 5, 2019 after Trump
suggested the US would classify cartels as terrorist organizations. Photo |
MPPO via AP
The Mexican president has been taking a lot of heat since taking office in
2018 from upper and middle-class sectors over what they consider his radical
leftist policies. Large demonstrations have been taking place in Mexico City
over the last several weeks calling for his resignation. But, the majority
of Mexicans, who are not part of these economic brackets, support his
presidency and appreciate his populist rhetoric.
At the very least, AMLO has stated unequivocally that the Mexican government
has no plans to foot the bill for General Cienfuegos legal fees, which
could hover between $800 and $1,000 per billable hour according to reports.
The suggestion that Mexico should tap the federal budget to pay for the
Generals high-priced defense team came from the opposition party (PRI)
leader, who put forward a proposal to protect the Mexican armed forces from
foreign law enforcement agencies.
The nature of such legislation might well be at the core of the issue
surrounding the unilateral detention of a military general and goes to the
heart of the transnational justice system, which the U.S. has been
informally implementing through its drug war policies and which poses a
fatal threat to the sovereignty and self-determination of any independent
nation in Latin America and beyond.
Mexican standoff
Its no secret that high-ranking members of the Mexican military have been
vital cogs in drug trafficking operations carried out on Mexican soil. It is
the only entity in the country with the capacity to move the narcotics
clandestinely from ports of entry in Mexico up to the American border,
according to Valentine. Cartel leaders often answer to one or another
official at some level of the Mexican federal government, ranging from a
hotshot federal police chief to the president of the Mexican republic
itself.
The corruption of Mexicos institutions is legendary among its own people,
who rarely give politicians or anyone in a position of authority the
benefit of the doubt. Contempt of power is a cultural idiosyncrasy and no
one who intends to hold any kind of office or rank in Mexico is above
reproach in a country where impunity rules the day.
In the United States, however, the vast network of military, law
enforcement, and intelligence operatives crawling all over the dark
underbelly of the global drug trade are exempt from scrutiny. Their
principal roles in the movement of illicit drugs all over the world runs
contrary to the carefully-crafted do-gooder narratives churned out by
Hollywood since the collapse of the American socio-political consciousness.
The corruption and impunity in America hides behind its own legal code and
is jealously guarded behind a rhetorical veneer of exceptionalism that the
Church committee, Vietnam, and the string of political assassinations had
all but shattered in the 1960s. More recently, the seminal work of
journalist Gary Webb exposed the nexus between the global drug trade and the
American establishment, which has rebounded in remarkable fashion to conceal
the extent of the corruption and impunity, once again.
William Barr, himself, was one of the very people directly involved in
sweeping the sordid past and atrocious activities of programs like MKULTRA,
COINTELPRO, and Iran-Contra under the rug. As U.S. Attorney General, he
continues to do the same when uncomfortable questions arise about the role
that American drug traffickers, corporations, and banks are really playing
in the ostensible fight against drugs.
