Mexico: How our president dishonors us

Editorial
La Jornada

President Felipe Calderón has dishonored our nation, said La Jornada in an editorial. On his recent trip to the U.S., Calderón “broke with 60 years of tradition” and laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. He claimed he was offering the flowers in memory of Mexican-American soldiers who died in U.S. military campaigns. But Arlington also houses the remains of American soldiers who did us wrong.

While the U.S. is now an ally, “for two centuries, the United States was the main threat to our national security and the most prominent violator of Mexican sovereignty.” Remember the Mexican American war, in which the U.S. stole half our territory? Or the six-month occupation of the port of Veracruz in 1914, a “criminal and unjustifiable attack” that doesn’t even rate a mention in most U.S. history books? Calderón’s lapse represents nothing less than “the surrendering of our sovereignty”—and our national dignity.