October 12, 2004
SADDAM'S OFFERING OIL VOUCHERS, CAN YOU BEAT THAT?:
Challenging Rest of the World With a New Order: The election will show if the president's foreign policy has been persuasive at home. It has clearly divided America's friends. (ROGER COHEN, DAVID E. SANGER and STEVEN R. WEISMAN, 10/12/04, NY Times)
Jorge Castañeda, Mexico's former foreign minister, has two distinct images of George W. Bush: the charmer intent on reinventing Mexican-American ties and the chastiser impatient with Mexico as the promise of a new relationship soured.The change came with the Sept. 11 attacks. "My sense is that Bush lost and never regained the gift he had shown for making you feel at ease," said Mr. Castañeda, who left office last year. "He became aloof, brusque, and on occasion abrasive."
The brusqueness had a clear message: the United States is at war, it needs everybody's support and that support is not negotiable. Mexico's hesitant stance at the United Nations on the war in Iraq became a source of tension. Yet Mr. Castañeda said, "I was never asked, 'What is it you need in order to be more cooperative with us? What can we do to help?' "
We're at war and this guy wants baksheesh? Too bad for Mexico we had a coalition of the willing, not the bribed.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 12, 2004 9:05 AM
Can't wait for the GWB Tell-All Memior.
Posted by: some random person at October 12, 2004 9:31 AMThe Mexicans were hesitant because they were talking to Chirac and Schroeder at the same time.
They had already made their decision. Too bad.
Posted by: jim hamlen at October 12, 2004 10:23 AMThe Mexican elite, of which Castaneda is a member, has a pathological hatred of the US, and has always tilted towards Europe. Unlike most of them who are educated on the continent of Europe though, Castaneda was educated in the States and has some understanding of the world on our side of the Rio Grande. Fox and Castaneda were in no position to offer the US any substantive assistance owing to the imperatives of Mexican 'governance.' Even if Bush had given them truckloads of money and a full amnesty for illegals and an end to any immigration restrictions on Mexicans including a waiver of the 5 year waiting period for citizenship, they still would have offered us little more than a plate of frijoles refritas. Their ruling class would rather eat their young than be perceived as aiding the gringos.
Posted by: Bart at October 12, 2004 10:55 AMthe Mexican (rather than Arab) term for bribe is "la mordida" (i.e. literal term for an insect bite).
Posted by: judd at October 12, 2004 1:13 PMre: la mordida.
How could he know that when Mexico isn't even a part of the Eastern Time Zone?
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at October 12, 2004 2:05 PMIt has clearly divided America's friends.
Rather, it has divided America's friends... From her hangers-on.
France, Germany, and certainly Russia were never close to America; we just had shared goals for awhile.
The US already prevents a Mexican revolution by allowing illegals to come to the US to get away from the consequences of 70 years of incompetent PRI governments.
What more do they want ?
How about the SW back for starters?
At some point in time, I just might be tempted to toss them the keys and turn off the lights and water.
You want it, you provide for it.
Posted by: Sandy P at October 13, 2004 12:38 AMSandy P:
Rather, the US should annex all of Mexico.
Combine Mexican assets with American management and infrastructure, and the sky's the limit.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 13, 2004 6:08 AMIt seems my telegram to Mr. Castaneda worked
--Zimmerman
Posted by: Mike at October 13, 2004 9:32 AMMichael,
The problems in the unification of the two Germanys should give us pause before undertaking such a program as you suggest.
Posted by: Bart at October 13, 2004 9:33 AMMike,
From the article:
"When Madeleine Albright spoke, you knew she spoke for the Clinton administration," said Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister. "Nowadays you never quite know."
Zimmerman telegram indeed.
Posted by: Eugene S. at October 13, 2004 10:04 AM