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The U.S. EmbassyIn Mexico CityCenter for U.S. Operations in Latin America |
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The U.S. EmbassyIn Mexico CityCenter for U.S. Operations in Latin America |
| The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City has one of the biggest staffs of any U.S. embassy in the world. Located on Avenida de la Reforma, this fortress-like building has consistently - since the era of the Cold War and now in the era of the Drug War - played a significant role in the maintenance of the United States' economic, political, intelligence, and military hegemony, not just in Mexico, but throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. |  |
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If you look carefully at the photo above and to the left you will notice a series of antenae and other communication devices on the roof. The embassy is an important node in a hemispheric anti-drug surveillance and communication network that integrates military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies from both the United States and Latin America. The problem is that this surveillance network is not only used to combat drugs. |
| As Cold War ideology was used by the United States to rationalize numerous interventions in Latin America, the Drug War serves as a way for a continued policy of counter-insurgency and low-intensity conflict against political movements in the region. With the advent of more sophisticated computer-based communication and weapons systems, the United States and its proxy armies, may engage in high-tech low-intensity conflict, what others are calling Information Warfare or Cyberwar. |  |
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For a much more elaborate explanation of the United States' use of the Drug War as its new ideological crutch for justifying continued military, intelligence, and law enforcement in Mexico and elsewhere south of the border, see my thesis, The Drug War and Information Warfare in Mexico. In particular, take a look at Chapter Three on the Militarization of Mexico. |
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