Wednesday, June 11, 2014

TONATIERRA TLAHTOLLI: Operation Endgame in Arizona 2014


ENDGAME
The Ploy, now the Play: Fill in the Blank.
Greyhound Bus Station Phoenix, Arizona 2014


An anti-immigrant commentator, referring to the "humanitarian crisis" of the children and families who have recently come across the Rio Grande as refugees (from the south) in groups numbering in the hundreds, said, "It's the last nail in the coffin of immigration reform." But it's much more than that.  We are living now in the implementation phase of the last facet of President Obama's Department of Homeland Security "Operation Endgame”.

Since the time of President Reagan, the US government security apparatus has forged a military scenario to deal with the projected chaos in Mexico should the political and economic situation of the country degrade and millions of people would move towards the border with the US in search of respite and sanctuary. This plan, originally known as RX84, was designed under the command of Colonel Oliver North, who was removed from office when it was discovered how he and Reagan had colluded illegally in the arms sales of weapons to Iran with proceeds sent to the Contras in Nicaragua and El Salvador. However Operation Endgame actually began implementation in 2003 after the attack on the twin towers, with the goal of sweeping and removing all undocumented aliens out from the entire United States. The objective was the removal of 15 million people by 2012. The plan did not meet its final objective, but not for lack of enthusiasm by its principle agent of enforcement President Barack Obama.  Barack Obama has deported over two million people under the regime of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) department, but as Chapulin Colorado says they "did not count on our cunning." If you deport two million, four million will return home by land, sea, underwater tunnels, by plane, by train. There is no way to dry the sea.

But this is no victory. Just because the plan did not meet its targets for 2012 doesn’t mean that Operation Endgame is not continuing to go forward.  One aspect of Operation Endgame was to reformulate the US military base system to house millions of people who could be prosecuted and detained indefinitely in domestic concentration camps that could be institutionalized legally, including for the financial benefit of corporations and private security firms such as the Halliburton consortia.
Of course, this move must be camouflaged as a necessary response to address a humanitarian crisis such as, well how about having to take care of hundreds of children fleeing the violence in Central America and now in custody of ICE under deportation proceedings in the extreme desert heat of Arizona? Who is opposed to helping a child? But remember we are not talking about family reunification here. What is in play is the lives of hundreds of refugees who will be detained by ICE for months and possibly years, until it is decided what is to be done with them. Up to 60 percent will be returned to their home countries after the private prison industry services collect their charge of thousands of dollars per child from the public coffers.
However, the anti-immigrant commentator is right. This "humanitarian" crisis will shut down any chance of immigration reform passing in the US congress in the foreseeable future.  One aspect of the Republican strategy was to call to “secure the border” as criteria prior to reform and with this scenario they will again elevate their pronouncement that the border is not secure and any just immigration reform legislation would attract millions of new economic refugees.

By the way, this recent exodus of refugees has been fueled by the US foreign policy that enabled the coup in 2009 against President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras who was democratically elected by the people of Honduras and replaced by Porfirio Lobo of the ultra right-wing National Party, whose economic policies have created the crisis that provides the explanation for the reality that 75% of people crossing the Rio Bravo into Texas are from this part of Central America.
Most children who are being held in detention by ICE say they are fleeing their homelands for fear of violence. This also is a product of the mass deportations of gang members who were purged from the US prisons and exported to unleash crime waves in the countries of origin of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.  The blowback from these crime waves, exacerbated by the general economic and political collapse of the failed neoliberal regimes in Latin America, was what the masterminds of Operation End Game considered. The sending of busloads of ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement) detainees to cities like Tucson and Phoenix in the middle of summer is a shock doctrine tactic designed to create the justification for the next step of the ENDGAME: normalizing the use of domestic military bases as centers of concentration for the management, control of detainees, in this case ICE.  In your case, .............

Salvador Reza

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Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win
Kali Akuno of US Human Rights Network
SOUNDCLOUD
Interview with Tupac Enrique Acosta
 

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