Student Researchers: Rebecca Newsome and Andrea Lochtefeld
Faculty Evaluator: Ron Lopez, PhD
from
ProjectCensored Website
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Sources
Center for International
Policy, May 30, 2007
Title: “‘Deep Integration’ - the Anti-Democratic Expansion of NAFTA”
Author: Laura Carlsen
Global Research, July 19, 2007
Title: “The Militarization and Annexation of North America”
Author: Stephen Lendman
Global Research, August 2, 2007
Title: “North American Union: The SPP is a ‘hostile takeover’ of
democratic government and an end to the Rule of Law”
Author: Constance Fogal
Stephen Lendman lives in
Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog at
sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen
to The Global Research News Hour on
RepublicBroadcasting.org,
Mondays from 11 am to 1 pm CT.
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Leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico have been meeting to secretly expand
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with “deep integration” of a
more militarized tri-national Homeland Security force.
Taking shape under the radar of the respective
governments and without public knowledge or consideration, the Security
and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)
- headquartered in Washington - aims to integrate the three nations into a
single political, economic, and security bloc.
The SPP was launched at a meeting of Presidents
George W. Bush and Vicente Fox, and Prime Minister
Paul Martin, in Waco, Texas, on March 31, 2005.
The official US web page describes the SPP as,
“...a White House-led initiative among the
United States and Canada and Mexico to increase security and to enhance
prosperity...”
The SPP is not a law, or a treaty, or even a
signed agreement. All these would require public debate and participation of
Congress.
The SPP was born in the “war on terror” era and reflects an inordinate
emphasis on US security as interpreted by the Department of Homeland
Security. Its accords mandate border actions, military and police training,
modernization of equipment, and adoption of new technologies, all under the
logic of the US counter-terrorism campaign.
Head of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff,
along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of
Finance Carlos Gutierrez, are the three officials charged with
attending SPP ministerial conferences.
Measures to coordinate security have pressured Mexico to militarize its
southern border. US military elements already operate inside Mexico and the
DEA and the FBI have initiated training programs for the Mexican Army (now
involved in the drug war), federal and state police, and intelligence units.
Stephen Lendman states that a Pentagon
briefing paper hinted at a US invasion if the country became destabilized or
the government faced the threat of being overthrown because of “widespread
economic and social chaos” that would jeopardize US investments, access to
oil, overall trade, and would create great numbers of immigrants heading
north.
Canada’s influential Department of National Defence; its new Chief of
Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier; and Defense Minister Gordon
O’Connor are on board as well. They’re committed to ramping up the
nation’s military spending and linking with America’s “war on terror.”
The SPP created the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC)
that serves as an official tri-national SPP working group. The group is
composed of representatives of thirty giant North American companies,
including General Electric, Ford Motors, General Motors, Wal-Mart,
Lockheed-Martin, Merck, and Chevron.
NACC’s recommendations centered on “private sector involvement” being,
“a key step to enhancing North America’s
competitive position in global markets and is the driving force behind
innovation and growth.”
The NACC stressed the importance of establishing
policies for maximum profits. The US-guided agenda prioritizes
corporate-friendly access to resources, especially Canadian and Mexican oil
and water.
The NACC’s policy states that,
“the prosperity of the United States relies
heavily on a secure supply of imported energy.”
US energy security is seen as a top priority
encouraging Canada and Mexico to allow privatization of state-run
enterprises like Mexico’s nationalized oil company, PEMEX. In January 2008,
Halliburton signed a $683 million contract with PEMEX to drill fifty-eight
new test holes in Chiapas and Tabasco and take over maintenance of
pipelines.
This is the latest of $2 billion in contracts
Halliburton has received from PEMEX during Fox’s and current Mexican
president Felipe Calderone’s administrations, which the opposition warns has
become the public front for US monopoly capital privatization.1
US policy seeks to insure America gets unlimited access to Canada water as
well.
1. “Mexican Farmers Protest NAFTA Hardships,”
People’s Weekly World, February 7, 2008.
Connie Fogal of Canadian Action Party says,
“The SPP is the hostile takeover of the
apparatus of democratic government... a coup d’etat over the government
operations of Canada, US and Mexico.”
UPDATE BY STEPHEN LENDMAN
A fourth SPP summit was held in New Orleans from April 22 to 24, 2008.
George Bush, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
and Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon attended. Protesters held what
they called a “people’s summit.”
They were in the streets and held workshops to
inform people how destructive SPP is, strengthen networking and
organizational ties against it, maintain online information about their
activities, promote efforts and build added support, and affirm their
determination to continue resisting a hugely repressive corporate-sponsored
agenda.
Opponents call the “Partnership” NAFTA on steroids. Business-friendly
opposition also exists. The prominent Coalition to Block the
North
American Union (NAU) is backed by the Conservative Caucus,
which has a “NAU War Room,” a,
“headquarters of the national campaign to
expose and halt America’s absorption into a North American Union with
Canada and Mexico.”
It opposes building “a massive, continental
‘NAFTA Superhighway.’”
This coalition has congressional allies, and on January 2007, Rep. Virgil
Goode and six co-sponsors introduced House Concurrent Resolution 40,
which expresses,
“the sense of Congress that the United
States should not engage in (building a NAFTA) Superhighway System or
enter into a NAU with Mexico and Canada.”
The April summit reaffirmed SPP’s intentions -
to create a borderless North America, dissolve national sovereignty, put
corporate giants in control, and assure big US companies most of it. It’s
also to create fortress-North America by militarizing the continent under US
command.
SPP maintains a website. Its “key accomplishments” since August 2007 are
updated as of April 22, 2008. The information is too detailed for this
update, but can be accessed from
this link.
The website lists principles agreed to:
-
bilateral deals struck
-
negotiations concluded
-
study assessments released; agreements
on the “Free Flow of Information”
-
law enforcement activities
-
efforts related to intellectual
property, border and long-haul trucking enforcement
-
import licensing procedures
-
food and product safety issues
-
energy issues (with special focus on
oil)
-
infrastructure development
-
emergency management,
...and much more.
It’s all laid out in deceptively understated
tones to hide its continental aim - to enable enhanced corporate
exploitation with as little public knowledge as possible.
Militarization includes the US Northern Command (NORTHCOM),
established in October 2002, which has air, land, and sea responsibility for
the continent regardless of
Posse Comitatus limitations that no longer
apply or sovereign borders that are easily erased. The Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
also have large roles.
So does the FBI, CIA, all US spy agencies,
militarized state and local police, National Guard forces, and paramilitary
mercenaries like
Blackwater USA.
They’re headed anywhere on the continent with license to operate as freely
as in Iraq and New Orleans post-Katrina. They’ll be able to turn hemispheric
streets into versions of Baghdad and make them unfit to live on if things
come to that.
Consider other militarizing developments as well.
On February 14, 2008, the US and Canada agreed
to allow American troops inside Canada. Canadians were told nothing of this
agreement, which was drafted in 2002. Neither was it discussed in Congress
or in the Canadian House of Commons. The agreement establishes “bilateral
integration” of military command structures in areas of immigration, law
enforcement, intelligence, or whatever else the Pentagon or Washington
wishes.
Overall, it’s part of the “war
on terror” and militarizing the continent to make it “safer” for
business and being prepared for any civilian opposition.
Mexico is also being targeted, with a “Plan Mexico” that was announced in
October 2007. It’s a Mexican and Central American security plan called the
Merida Initiative, supported by $1.4 billion in allocated aid.
Congress will soon vote on this initiative, likely well before this is
published. It’s a “regional security cooperation initiative” similar to Plan
Colombia and presented as an effort to fight drug trafficking.
In fact, the Merida Initiative is part of SPP’s militarization of Mexico and
gives Washington more control of the country. Most of the aid goes to
Mexico’s military and police forces, with a major portion earmarked for US
defense contractors for equipment, training, and maintenance.
The touchy issue of deploying US troops will be
avoided by instead employing private US security forces, i.e., Blackwater
and DynCorp.