Mexicans Dying in Bush's War

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/

Proxy Soldiers in Bush's War
Mexico Fiercely Opposes the Iraq War, But Mexicans Are Dying There Every Week

By JOHN ROSS

"She died on Friday thinking about coming home to eat beans and carnitas."

Father of Sgt. Isela Rubacalva

MEXICO CITY.

When Lance Corporal Juan Lopez Rangel was killed in a firefight near the rebel city of Fallujah in Al Anbar province just west of Baghdad on June 21st, his grieving parents, who now live in a small Georgia town, were determined to bury the proud marine in his hometown of San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato Mexico, a dusty crossroads in the shadow of the desolate Sierra Gorda where the only action after dark are the all-night funeral parlors and from which Juan Lopez and his family escaped when he was 15 for a new life on the Other Side.

-snip-

The U.S. marines paraded solemnly through the empty streets of San Luis de la Paz, stopping in front of the old house on Zaragoza Street where Juan had been born and where now he was being mourned. "Your son was a hero in our country" the marine spokesman told Juan's parents, presenting Francisco Lopez and Delfina Rangel with a neatly folded U.S. flag. Then with the pallbearers in place and the U.S. Marine Corps leading the way, the final procession set out for the town cemetery.

But a few blocks short of its destination, the passage of the cortege was blocked by a dozen armed Mexican soldiers who demanded that the marines surrender their "ceremonial" arms or be held in violation of Mexico's tough firearms laws. When the honor guard refused, the marines were escorted back to the vehicles that had brought them to San Luis and surrounded by the Mexican troops until Taps had sounded at graveside.

The message of this poignant tableau was clear: the Mexican army would not tolerate armed foreign troops on Mexican soil, particularly those of a nation that has repeatedly invaded Mexico.

-snip-

Even as Taps was being sounded over Juan Lopez's bier up in Guanajuato this past July 4th weekend, several thousand anti-war protestors were taking advantage of the U.S. holiday to build a mock-up of Abu Ghraib prison in front of Garza's embassy on Mexico City's Reforma boulevard. The demonstrators laid out 12,000 white paper crosses on the sidewalk to honor the Iraqis killed since the American invasion began 16 months ago. A hooded student perched precariously on a cardboard box, electric cables attached to his genitals, a dark icon of the Yanqui "liberation" of Iraq for which Juan Lopez had just given up his life.

-snip-

Juan Lopez Rangel was the 36th and most recent U.S. soldier of Mexican descent to die in Iraq (since this was written two more G.I.s of Mexican descent have appeared in the New York Times daily list of the dead.) By this reporter's count, 20 of the dead soldiers were born in Mexico and 16 were the children of migrants who had gone over to the other side to find their fortune in El Norte. The number of Mexican deaths in Iraq equals the number of Mexicans awaiting execution on Texas death row.

-snip-

General Sanchez was recently passed over to take over the Southern Command which oversees all U.S. military operations in Latin America, a post he was expected to fill, and it now seems unlikely that he will ever achieve the fourth star he has long coveted. Although some Mexican troops charge that General Sanchez has been unjustly scapegoated for the Abu Ghraib abuses by Rumsfeld and the Pentagon brass, the career of this Latino role model is kaput, one more Mexican victim of Bush's illegal war in Iraq.
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[noahmijo]

1. Another reason to be disgusted by "Viva Bush!"

You can bet no one from my Mexican side of the family would be caught presenting that shit.


Come mierda Bush!!!