Pancho Villa

The Real Danger Of Conflict With Mexico, As A Result Of Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign

Ronald 5 Comments

The United States shares the tenth longest international boundary, nearly 2,000 miles, with its Southern neighbor, Mexico.

In a world fraught with so many international crises and issues, the last thing the United States needs is to have tensions, and the danger of a real conflict with Mexico.

This tension is all due to Donald Trump, the GOP Presidential nominee, with his crude depictions of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, and his demand that a wall be built, with his insistence that Mexico will pay for the wall.

At a time when immigration is down from Mexico, Trump is threatening a deportation force to remove an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. He seems unable to get the point that trying to build a wall is logistically unrealistic, and that the cost would be extremely high, and trying to demand that Mexico would pay, could lead to bloodshed and growing dangers of terrorism, even more dangerous than the ongoing battle against the Mexican Drug Cartels.

We have had two particularly difficult periods in our history in relations with Mexico, and the resentments on the Mexican side remain from the Mexican-American War of 1846=1848 under President James K. Polk, and the conflict under Woodrow Wilson during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, which led to the Punitive Expedition invasion of Mexico under General John. J. Pershing in 1916-1917, after bandit Pancho Villa invaded Columbus, New Mexico in March 1916. The Mexican government collaboration with Imperial Germany, leading to the revelation of the Zimmermann Telegram in 1917, which helped to push America into World War I, also inflamed emotions.

Due to Donald Trump, we are now entering what can be seen as the most dangerous time in US-Mexican relations in the past hundred years.

The First Terrorist Attack: Columbus, New Mexico (Pancho Villa) March 9, 1916!

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Most who study American history know of the British attack on Washington, DC on August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812.

They know of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, leading to World War II entrance.

Of course, they know of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, leading to the War on Terrorism.

But almost no one knows of the attack on Columbus, New Mexico, on March 9, 1916 by Mexican bandits led by rogue Pancho Villa, during the period known as the Mexican Revolution.

This attack led to the burning of this town on the Mexican border by several hundred Mexican guerrillas, and the deaths of 17 Americans.

President Woodrow Wilson sent in General John J. Pershing to hunt down Pancho Villa and the guerrillas, but this “Punitive Expedition”, lasting from March 14, 1916 to February 7, 1917 failed to accomplish its mission, and the American troops were withdrawn, after months of protests from the Mexican government about the invasion into their sovereign territory.

This was one of the many undeclared wars in American history, and was unable to fulfill its objective, the capture or killing of Villa, who was later killed by one of his followers in 1923.

So yesterday was the centennial anniversary of this tragic event!

The Centennial Of Woodrow Wilson’s Presidency: A Time For Debate Over His Legacy

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A century ago day, Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as the 28th President of the United States,and helped to transform the Presidency in massive ways, some good and some bad.

Wilson has been under attack in the present climate of conservative attacks on reform oriented Presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Barack Obama.

The facts are that Wilson, FDR, and LBJ were the three most accomplished Presidents in domestic affairs, but with plenty of criticism about their handling of wars and the domestic relationship to those wars.

Wilson accomplished the most domestic reform of any President before him, taking on parts of Theodore Roosevelt’s New Nationalism agenda on the Progressive Party line in 1912, adding it to his own New Freedom legislative ideas.

So Wilson’s time saw the following:

Underwood Simmons Tariff

Federal Reserve Act

Clayton Anti Trust Act

Federal Trade Commission

Keating-Owen Child Labor Act

La Follette Seamen’s Act

Adamson Act (eight hour work day in interstate transportation)

Federal Farm Loan Act

Some of this did not work out well long term, and additionally, Wilson had major negative policies dealing with:

Woman Suffrage—opposing an amendment (although it came about despite him in 1920, via the 19th Amendment).

Race Relations—clearly racist policy of imposing Jim Crow segregation in Washington, DC; unfair treatment and recognition of African American sacrifices in the World War I effort; and endorsement of an openly racist film, D W Griffith’s BIRTH OF A NATION, which portrayed the Southern view of Reconstruction, a myth of long standing, which finally was proved inaccurate in the past half century of historical research and writing.

Civil Liberties Violations— including arrest and imprisonment of Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs for opposition to the draft and American involvement in World War I; the Espionage and Sedition Acts; and the Palmer Raids after the war.

In foreign policy, Wilson engaged in “Missionary Diplomacy” including interventions in Haiti, and more significantly in Mexico, attempting to pursue Pancho Villa for a raid across the border into Columbus, New Mexico, the worst incursion in American territory since the War of 1812. And of course, the controversy over Wilson and our entrance into World War I continues even today, and the whole debate and divisiveness over the Versailles Treaty and League of Nations in 1919-1920.

Additionally, being incapacitated by a stroke, but being unwilling to hand over temporary power to Vice President Thomas Marshall, and allowing his wife to run cabinet meetings, is another major issue in assessing Wilson’s Presidency.

So Wilson is a “very mixed bag” as a President, but usually is ranked in the bottom of the top ten of our Presidents, specifically because of his long range influence on America, rare among Presidents, for good or for bad, and there is clearly plenty of both!