Why can't we just invade & occupy Mexico?

[Philosoraptor]

Think of all the economic advantages, look at all the cheap labor there, why would they want to go north to America when they can work for low wages in factories that we build?

No more outsourcing to India and China, no more millions of Mexicans coming in, no more guest worker program, no more hiring of illegals.

Bomb their government infrastructure, topple their leaders, you know, follow the Iraqi model. Columbus did it, we can do it too. Simply plant an American flag, have an official signing, and there you have it. We conquered Hawaii, why not Mexico?

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

1. It's too late. They are on the verge of conquering us. eom

[firefox_fan]

2. Good idea. Why not? We have a strong military!!!

What's the point of having it if we don't use it? Also, it would benefit the economy, just to produce more weapons and stuff...

[Philosoraptor]

3. Perhaps it's because they are Christians.

Better to just suck the life out of them than explode them.

[lapfog_1]

4. Nah, they are running out of oil!

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cantarell.htm

we only invade countries that have potential for increased production...

Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, with Canada and Russia as potential hostile takeover targets.

[razorman]

5. No need to conquer.

Within a few years, they will all have moved up here, and we can simply go down there and move into the empty houses.

[Philosoraptor]

7. Absorption.

[monktonman]

10. I often think that about people from New Jersey

Every fall, they invade Vermont, coming here for "leaf peeping".
Like they dont have any frickin trees in Jersey.
I figure I could get a nice beach front home or a cottage in the pines.

But seriously, We dont have to invade. Really all we have to do is BUY Mexico.
Alot like the corporations have done to America.
Since Castro is never gonna die, we could make Mexico our new Cuba.
We could send all of our gangsters down there to build casinos and whorehouses.
Wouldn't that be cool?

Or we could STOP DOING BUSINESS WITH THEIR CORRUPT GOVERNMENT!
Tell them no more cookie until they clean up their act and provide a country that people WANT TO LIVE IN!
No kick backs, no more oil revenue, no more investments, etc.
They would be putty in our hands and we could reform that country in a matter of months.
But alas, just fucking with them is much more fun.

[razorman]

23. As long as we act as a pressure-relief valve for Mexico,

there will be no incentive for their government to change. That's why we need to stop the influx somehow.

[smirkymonkey]

38. Think of all that beachfront property.

Greedy American Realtors would kill for that opportunity!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. Uh, maybe because we already did it in the 1840s?

And it's impolite to go back for "seconds"?

[DemBones DemBones]

16. I don't think governments are bound by that etiquette. nt

[On the Road]

19. You Beat Me to It

James K Polk decided we only wanted the northern 40% of the country.

[ewagner]

8. Annexation? Statehood?

Sounds reasonable to me :) :evilgrin:

[Jade Fox]

9. Because they don't have any oil.

Nor do they have the strategic location of Hawaii.

[alfredo]

15. Yes they do have oil and the bush family is heavily invested.

I believe it was the bush's who first capitalized on off shore drilling near Mexico. There was a recent oil deal that was favorable to the bush family. It came at a time when bush and Fox were talking immigration. I had a feeling the hands off on illegals and the oil deal were somewhat connected. I don't remember where I read about the bush/Mexican oil deal. I wish I could remember.

[krispos42]

28. Mexico is like our #2 or #3 oil supplier.

I think after Canada.




Hmmmm.... why HAVEN'T we invaded Mexico? It'd be like a commuter war!

[TahitiNut]

37. Mexico is #2 supplier of oil to the YewEssAy ... behind Canada, slightly ahead of Saudi(sic) Arabia

YTD Jun 2007 imports in 000 bbls ...

CANADA 1,846
MEXICO 1,471
SAUDI ARABIA 1,358
VENEZUELA 1,070
NIGERIA 1,089

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

Mexico ranks 10th overall in the world's Net Exporters of oil - 6th in production and 11th in consumption.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables1_2.html

[NickB79]

45. Their oil production is crashing

The Cantarell oil field is declining at 25%/yr now, which is proving to be an absolute catastrophe to their economy.

[blueworld]

11. We can't drink the water. There's always tequila, though n/t

[Strelnikov_]

12. Because the PetroFreedom Quotient is trending very bearish

It's appears their petroleum production is collapsing, and their lack of large reserves to liberate indicates that they are poor candidates for Liberation Through Democracy^TM.

[whistle]

13. No more outsourcing to Indiana and Chicago either, what an insane suggestion

...Let's look at the demography of Mexico:

<snip>
Demographics of Mexico

Population................. 103,263,388
Male population............ 50,249,955
Female population.......... 53,013,433
Population growth.......... 1.0%
Birth rate................. 19.0/1,000
Death rate................. 4.9/1,000
Infant mortality rate...... 18.1/1,000
Life expectancy............ 74.5 years
Nationality Mexican

Soureces: Demographic bureaus INEGI, CONAPO and CDI

<link> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Mexico

Mexicans might actually welcome regime change, but I doubt if they would ever consent to an occupation by any foreign country and certainly not the United States. Such a suggestion is preposterous, arrogant and totally unrealistic. It sounds like neoconservative think tank babble.

How about this idea, we impeach Bush and Cheney right now, install Nancy Pelosi as president along with Mike Gravel as VP, pull the U.S. out of Iraq by December and win over the American voters by the fall of 2008 so that most or all of the reThuglicans now in congress are either voted out or resign, elect a democratic president and vice president and install a democratically constitutional government back into office. Then we can chart a sane course for America for the next fifty years and build a peaceful world. How does that sound?

[Philosoraptor]

17. Stop making sense, people will think you're crazy.

[WinkyDink]

14. I thought we had!

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:GOVJfliJxF8J:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican-American_War+mexico+war&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

[ThomWV]

18. Because They Beat Us To It .... pretty plain to see I'd say.

[TahitiNut]

20. Because we don't invade our corporate colonies??

Since 1/6th of all Mexican citizens reside in the U.S., it seems there's more than enough of a vote here to elect as more progressive government ... if they wanted to. Instead, it seems that the deliberate failure to enforce our laws (or align our laws with our willingness to enforce them) has served as a "pressure relief valve" for the ruling class in Mexico.

[EFerrari]

21. You know how much it cost to put that government in?

And now you want to bomb it?

Who would do such a thing?

[IndyOp]

30. Viva AMLO! Viva SFExPat!

It cost us many pretty pennies, indeed, to help the neoconservatives of Mexico steal the election from Andres' Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO).

Why would we want to bomb our own oil wells and processing facilities -- the ones that AMLO was thinking about nationalizing, that now remain safely owned by multinational corporations that own THE WHOLE WORLD.

:hi:

[EFerrari]

We might want to, though, someday, as we are in Iraq.

I hope not!

:hi:

[Philosoraptor]

33. It'd be a shame to invade & not bomb.

Of course, I'm being sarcastic.

[EFerrari]

36. We should probably come up with an exit plan first this time

because that whole "seat of the pants" thing doesn't seem to be working. :hi:

[Fovea]

22. How about the 100 states of America.

Just add the 32 divisions of Mexico to the US.

It would be like the re-unification of Germany, and would keep us busy for a while.

Oh, and Puerto Rico and Alberta while we are at it... that makes 84.

Texas needs to be broken up into 5, so that gives us The Corporate Republic of Houston, San Antonistan, Midlandia, Lubbuka-Faso, and Dallastan. That gives us 89 states.
http://www.staytitefence.com/fencing-supply/texas-fence-supply.htm

Adding Cuba gives us an even 90 states, of whom I suspect 33 or so would be Blue states. Guam and the Virgin Islands would bring us to 92, add Iraq and Israel and we have 94. Lebanon and Albania brings us to 96. And since we can't have Taiwan, Japan's four main islands brings us to a solid 100 states. This plan makes for a huge tax base, a big labor pool, a strong industrial economy, gives us oil out the wazoo for 35 years or more, and pretty much means a national guard that the sun never sets on.

And, we aren't occupying anyone who's a state already.
Actually, if you have been paying attention, Iraq is actually three states, but if we merged Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia into Bubbastan, it would still work out right, numbers wise. Come to think of it, add Tennessee to Bubbastan and pick up Mauritius (Diego Garcia) while it is still above water for our true global presence.

We'd have to drop the 'of America' from our name, but perhaps it is time to rebrand the republic anyway.

[Philosoraptor]

35. Howzabout Romerica?

[Deja Q]

24. Oh come on. Surely Mexico got tired of that after Cortez had invaded, back in ~1519.

:crazy:

[Philosoraptor]

26. Someday Quetzalcoatl will come back & kick our asses.

On a chariot pulled by snakes. Or did that already occur and I just missed it?

[A HERETIC I AM]

44. He outsourced that job to Montezuma

You know - his "revenge"?

It occurs every time you go there and drink the water.

[wildhorses]

25. i thought we already had --

sumpin' about texas:shrug:

[Philosoraptor]

27. We did it before, and we can do it again...

[theHandpuppet]

29. We already did. It's called Texas.

Instead of building a wall we could just give Mexico it's land back and problem solved!

[Philosoraptor]

31. Didn't we buy a lot of land from France?

Who did THEY buy it from?

[Igel]

42. They had gotten it from the Spanish a year or two earlier.

Yes, New Orlean's "Spanish Quarter" is because Spain owned the territory--they got it in the 1770s, IIRC.

France had it before the Spanish got it (partly because Spain had so much and France wanted to keep up with the Conquistadores), trading mostly amicably with the natives in Louisiana, and using their territory to needle the British up in Canada, helping to set the Indians on the British. But they'd just claimed it, just like Spain claimed what's now Mexico and the US Southwest. The fruits of imperialism, and the wars between the children-states of imperialists fighting over land that the indigenous (or at least first known) inhabitants occupied and claimed for their own.

[Mark_Pogue]

32. Sounds very...........Republican

to me!

[treestar]

34. Economically we ought to

Their government must be what gets in their way.

The entire country looks like California. Why isn't it as wealthy?

I think we don't because then our population would be Spanish speaking to a high extent, maybe even the majority? You know how terrifying that is to some English speakers. :scared:

[mema42]

39. It would be wrong

Because it would be wrong unless the people wanted it and we supported them in starting their own government - not like Iraq. Besides I don't want to hurt those that don't deserve it, like most civilians.

[retread]

40. Again? n/t

[Redstone]

41. I know YOU are being sarcastic, but the Freeps aren't. They've discussed this seriously.

And they wonder why we call them wingnuts.

Redstone

[eppur_se_muova]

46. How about this gem from the Wingnut-In-Chief: Manifest Destiny again?

CounterPunch

February 7, 2003
Bush and the Return of Manifest Destiny
What Latinos Saw at the State of the Union

by JORGE MARISCAL

Hovering over the final section of President Bush's State of Union speech was a ghostly shade that perceptive Latinas and Latinos recognized at once. The old cucui (bogeyman) was none other than the spirit of Manifest Destiny, the ideology of racial and cultural superiority that guided the United States westward across the continent into Mexican territory, south into Central America and the Caribbean, across the Pacific, and beyond.

Writing in support of the annexation of Texas during the summer of 1845, politician John O'Sullivan invented the phrase "Manifest Destiny" to describe American expansionism. In an uncanny echo of recent statements by President Bush, O'Sullivan complained that other nations had raised questions about the emerging hegemony of the U.S. "for the avowed object of thwarting our policy and hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny."
***
more: http://www.counterpunch.org/mariscal02072003.html

I can never force myself to listen to Bu**sh**'s speeches, and I didn't see anything about this in the media at the time.

[conspirator]

43. Because most americans would flee to mexico and live like kings there nt

[leftofthedial]

47. because Bolivia hasn't harbored imaginary "terrorists" that

"hijacked" airplanes and "blew up" buildings in the US.

If Bolivia had done that, then, according to the bush doctrine, we could invade Mexico.

you silly.

[ellisonz]

48. Been there, done that...