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On August 20-21, President Bush, Canadian Prime
Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon were meeting in Montebello, Quebec, to hold
a “North American Leaders’ Summit”, something that is apparently necessitated by the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” (SPP).
In the past few years, much has been written about the SPP. It was set up at a 2005 Crawford, Texas meeting between President Bush
and then-President Fox of Mexico and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada. (It was at a press
conference held during this meeting that Bush publicly bashed the Minutemen as "vigilantes".)
Contributor
Allan
Wall
Allan Wall recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. He currently resides in Mexico, where he has lived since 1991. He can be reached via e-mail at allan39@prodigy.net.mx [go to Wall index] |
Is the SPP just a framework for good neighborly
relations—or is it, as its critics assert, the framework
for a continental merger between our three nation-states?
In order to refute such charges the U.S. government has set
up a page called "SPP Myths and Facts" on its SPP website.
Of course, the very fact this page was set up at all is an
indication of real, no-mythical unrest among the U.S.
population as to what our elite movers and shakers are up to.
Ironically, reading between the lines of the SPP website is
not reassuring at all.
The "Myths
and Facts" page describes the Security and
Prosperity Partnership thusly:
"The SPP is a White House-led initiative among the
United States and the two nations it borders—Canada and Mexico—to increase security and to enhance prosperity among the three nations through
greater cooperation. …The SPP outlines a comprehensive
agenda for cooperation among our three countries while
respecting the sovereignty and unique cultural heritage
of each nation."
The website then lists various kinds of cooperation under
the rubric of the SPP: coordination of security efforts,
fighting infectious diseases, working together on disasters, fighting counterfeiting and piracy, reducing trade costs and facilitating
commerce.
This all sounds great—who could be against it? I favor any
kind of mutually beneficial contacts with our neighbors.
And yet all these things were already going on before the
SPP, which dates only from 2005. Why set up a fancy new
international framework with all the high-flown
rhetoric?
After the SPP’s introduction, the "myths" and "facts" begin. Each "myth" is followed by a "fact" to set the reader
straight
The first "myth":
"The SPP was an agreement signed by Presidents Bush
and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts in Waco, TX,
on March 23, 2005."
In fact, says the website:
"The SPP is a dialogue….The SPP is not an agreement
nor is it a treaty. In fact, no agreement was ever
signed."
Frankly, I find this distinctly disturbing. At least if the
SPP were a public agreement or treaty, we could examine
the contents. They could be debated publicly. A treaty would even have to be approved by the U.S. Senate.
But if no actual agreement was signed, then the substantive
content of the SPP must depend upon the whims and
obsessions of our president and his Canadian and Mexican
counterparts.
And we’ve had quite enough of George W. Bush’s obsessions.
The second "myth":
"The SPP is a movement to merge the United States,
Mexico, and Canada into a North American Union and
establish a common currency."
To which the "fact" section replies that
"The cooperative efforts under the SPP, which can be
found in detail at www.spp.gov, seek to make the United States, Canada
and Mexico open to legitimate trade and closed to terrorism and crime. It does not change our courts or legislative
processes and respects the sovereignty of the United
States, Mexico, and Canada. The SPP in no way, shape or
form considers the creation of a European Union-like
structure or a common currency. The SPP does not attempt to modify
our sovereignty or currency or change the American
system of government designed by our Founding Fathers."
This sounds great too. But the real question is: where is
this all leading? The European Union began as a trade
pact, and look what it’s developed into. The historic nation-states of Europe
are now losing their sovereignty to the bureaucrats of Brussels.
The third “myth”:
"The SPP is being undertaken without the knowledge of
the U.S. Congress."
The "fact" replies that "U.S. agencies involved with SPP regularly update and
consult with members of Congress on our plans and
efforts."
They do? That’s nice.
The fourth “myth”:
“The SPP infringes on the sovereignty of the United States.”
No, no, no! says the “facts” section. Instead—
"The SPP respects and leaves the unique cultural and
legal framework of each of the three countries intact.
Nothing in the SPP undermines the U.S. Constitution. In no way does the SPP infringe
upon the sovereignty of the United States."
Oh, so that’s OK, then!
It all makes the SPP sound rather harmless. After all, who
could object to neighborly relations with our
neighbors?
Nevertheless, there is ample reason to believe that the SPP
is indeed a vehicle that would lead to greater
continental integration—and could actually lead to a
continental merger.
That’s because it’s not just the SPP. It’s the SPP in
combination with mass immigration, multiculturalism, and cheap labor profiteering. And it’s managed by an
American elite (of both parties) that has shown it’s out
of touch with America’s identity as a historical nation (look at the Bush-Kennedy
Amnesty/Immigration Surge bill) and with her constitutional moorings.
Certainly, there are secret documents that we aren’t privy
to (which some activists are striving to obtain using
the Freedom of Information Act). But we don’t really
need documents, we have the official SPP website. Look
at the various SPP goals that website enumerates—for
example these:
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Lower costs for North American businesses,
producers, and consumers and maximize trade in goods
and services across our borders by striving to
ensure compatibility of regulations and standards
and eliminating redundant testing and certification
requirements.
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Strengthen regulatory cooperation, including at the
onset of the regulatory process, to minimize
barriers. [Prosperity
Agenda, Published by the White House Office of
the Press Secretary, March 23, 2005].
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Obviously, lower costs are great for consumers everywhere.
But what is being proposed here would of necessity
involve the harmonization of law and regulation in the three countries. (So much for
respecting their unique legal frameworks.)
Do we really want that? We have enough problems keeping
the government from excessive meddling in our own
economy!
There’s also a plan in the SPP's "Prosperity Agenda" for transportation:
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Improve the safety and efficiency of North America's
transportation system by expanding market access, facilitating multimodal corridors, reducing congestion, and alleviating bottlenecks at the
border that inhibit growth and threaten our quality
of life…."
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Did you notice that part about "alleviating bottlenecks
at the border”? Actually, "bottlenecks" at
the border can be positively desirable if they bring us
the security of controlling who enters—and who doesn’t.
Besides, all those proposals about "multimodal
corridors" and "reducing congestion" would be
better dealt with on either a national, state, provincial or municipal level.
We can see a pattern here, can we not? Rather than having
these legitimate concerns dealt with at a national,
state or local level, the SPP proposes getting the
national governments of all three countries involved.
The possibilities for meddling transnational bureaucrats
are enormous.
I think it’s already hard to keep our government accountable in our own country. How will
adding two other countries make things better?
And then there’s the "Efficient Movement of People",
a favorite globalist goal. Naturally, the SPP has a
proposal for that too:
"Identify measures to facilitate further the movement
of business persons within North America and discuss
ways to reduce taxes and other charges residents face
when returning from other North American countries.”
Excuse me, but isn’t there already a mechanism to deal with
this—something called “U.S. immigration law”? (Or Mexican immigration law for Mexico and Canadian immigration law for Canada.)
No wonder Bush bashed the Minutemen as "vigilantes" at the 2005
meeting. The old-fashioned idea of guarding our border
with Mexico simply does not fit in with the zeitgeist of
the SPP.
Of course, the SPP did not pop into existence out of a
vacuum. It fits in with the proposals of various
influential insiders, such as Dr. Robert Pastor and others. It also fits right in
with the core principles of the Bush administration, which from the outset was
pushing hemispheric free trade and open borders. And it
unmistakably fits in with the mindset that created the European Union.
Simply defeating the SPP is not sufficient. These kinds of
globalist big government ventures flow from the
worldview of our academic/business/political elite. They
will keep popping up again and again under various
names, as long as that worldview remains ascendant.
The bottom line: American patriots have to be vigilant.
Getting these issues out into the open is a part of the
solution.
But it’s not only American patriots. There are Canadians and Mexicans who also oppose SPP and continental integration, and are
speaking out against it. Americans don’t want to be a
part of a continental merger, but neither do our
neighbors (except for the elitists of all three countries who are driving it).
In a future column, I plan to report what anti-SPP Mexicans
have to say about the matter. CRO
copyright
2007 Allan Wall
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