Meeting on integration of U.S., Mexico, Canada brings together top officials
Pastor Dale Morgan
*
Meeting on integration of U.S., Mexico, Canada brings together top
officials*
Posted: September 20, 2006
WASHINGTON – Raising more suspicions about plans for the future
integration of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, a high-level, top-secret
meeting of the North American Forum took place this month in Banff –
with topics ranging from "A Vision for North America," "Opportunities
for Security Cooperation" and "Demographic and Social Dimensions of
North American Integration."
While the conference took place a week ago, only now are documents about
participants and agenda items leaking out.
Despite "confirmed" participants including Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Central
Intelligence Agency Director R. James Woolsey, former Immigration and
Naturalization Services Director Doris Meissner, North American Union
guru Robert Pastor, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former
Energy Secretary and Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and top
officials of both Mexico and Canada, there has been no press coverage of
the event. The only media member scheduled to appear at the event,
according to documents published was the Wall Street Journal's Mary
Anastasia O'Grady.
The event was organized by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and
the Canada West Foundation, an Alberta think-tank that promotes closer
economic integration with the United States.
The Canadian event is just the latest of a series of meetings, policy
papers and directives that have citizens, officials and members of the
media wondering whether these efforts represent some sort of coordinated
effort to implement a "merger" some have characterized as "NAFTA on
steroids."
Nevertheless, opposition is mounting. And it's not just coming from the
tinfoil hat brigade.
Perhaps the most blistering criticism came earlier this summer from Lou
Dobbs of CNN – a frequent critic of President Bush's immigration policies.
"A regional prosperity and security program?" he asked rhetorically in a
recent cablecast. "This is absolute ignorance. And the fact that we are
– we reported this, we should point out, when it was signed. But, as we
watch this thing progress, these working groups are continuing. They're
intensifying. What in the world are these people thinking about? You
know, I was asked the other day about whether or not I really thought
the American people had the stomach to stand up and stop this nonsense,
this direction from a group of elites, an absolute contravention of our
law, of our Constitution, every national value. And I hope, I pray that
I'm right when I said yes. But this is – I mean, this is beyond belief."
What has Dobbs and a few other vocal critics bugged began in earnest
March 31, 2005, when the elected leaders of the U.S., Mexico and Canada
agreed to advance the agenda of the Security, Peace and Prosperity
Partnership of North America.
No one seems quite certain what that agenda is because of the vagueness
of the official declarations. But among the things the leaders of the
three countries agreed to work toward were borders that would allow for
easier and faster moving of goods and people between the countries.
Coming as the announcement did in the midst of a raging national debate
in the U.S. over borders seen as far to open already, more than a few
jaws dropped.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. and the chairman of the House Immigration
Reform Caucus as well as author of the new book, "In Mortal Danger," may
be the only elected official to challenge openly the plans for the new
superstate.
Tancredo is demanding the Bush administration fully disclose the
activities of the government office implementing the trilateral
agreement that has no authorization from Congress.
Tancredo wants to know the membership of the Security and Prosperity
Partnership groups along with their various trilateral memoranda of
understanding and other agreements reached with counterparts in Mexico
and Canada.
Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the Minutemen, welcomed Tancredo's efforts.
"It's time for the Bush administration to come clean," Gilchrist said.
"If President Bush's agenda is to establish a new North American union
government to supersede the sovereignty of the United States, then the
president has an obligation to tell this to the American people
directly. The American public has a right to know."
Geri Word, who heads the SPP office, said the work had not been
disclosed because, "We did not want to get the contact people of the
working groups distracted by calls from the public."
There are no specific congressional legislation authorizing the SPP
working groups nor any congressional committees taking charge of oversight.
Many SPP working groups appear to be working toward achieving specific
objectives as defined by a May 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task
force report, which presented a blueprint for expanding the SPP
agreement into a North American union that would merge the U.S., Canada
and Mexico into a new governmental form.
Phyllis Schlafly, the woman best known for nearly single-handedly
leading the opposition that killed the Equal Rights Amendment, sees a
sinister and sweeping agenda behind the Security and Prosperity
Partnership of North America.
"Is the real push behind guest-worker proposals the Bush goal to expand
NAFTA into the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,
which he signed at Waco, Texas, last year and reaffirmed at Cancun,
Mexico, this year?" she asks. "Bush is a globalist at heart and wants to
carry out his father's oft-repeated ambition of a 'new world order.'"
She accuses the president and others behind the effort of wanting to
obliterate U.S. borders in an effort to increase the Mexican population
transfer and lower wages for the benefit of U.S. corporate interests.
"Bush meant what he said, at Waco, Texas, in March 2005, when he
announced his plan to convert the United States into a 'Security and
Prosperity Partnership of North America' by erasing our borders with
Canada and Mexico," she said. "Bush's guest-worker proposal would turn
the United States into a boardinghouse for the world's poor, enable
employers to import an unlimited number of 'willing workers' at foreign
wage levels, and wipe out what's left of the U.S. middle class. Bush
lives in a house well protected by a fence and security guards and he
associates with rich people who live in gated communities. Yet, for five
years, he has refused to protect the property and children of ordinary
Arizona citizens from trespassers and criminals."
That's unusually harsh criticism of a Republican president from one of
Ronald Reagan's most loyal supporters.
At least one of the nation's daily newspapers has officially weighed in
opposition to the mysterious plans for closer cooperation in security,
commerce and immigration between the three North American nations.
Recently, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review questioned the unchallenged
momentum toward merger.
"Will Americans trade their dead presidents for Ameros?" the newspaper
asked in an editorial last month.
The paper chided efforts at replacing the U.S. and Canadian dollars and
Mexican peso with "the amero" – a knockoff of the euro – along with the
building of "a looming NAFTA-like superstate." Citing the meeting
between the three national leaders at Baylor University in Waco, Texas,
in March 2005, the editorial warned: "Canadians, Mexicans and Americans
who value the sovereignty of their respective countries should be
concerned."
The Tribune Review editorial saw synergy between the plans of the
national leaders and the ambitious agenda of the Council on Foreign
Relations – seen by many as a kind of secretive, shadow government of
the elite. The CFR issued a bold report in the spring of 2005, shortly
after the joint announcements in Waco by Bush and his counterparts.
"The Council on Foreign Relations published a report in May – "Building
a North American Community" – calling for, among other things,
redefining the borders of the three nations, creating a super-regional
governance board and the North American Paramilitary Group to ensure
that Congress does not interfere with whatever the trilateral union
feels like doing," said the paper. "Must the Bush administration happily
sacrifice every shred of American sovereignty for the greater good of
the New World Order?"
In fact, the CFR report is a five-year plan for the "establishment by
2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common
"outer security perimeter."
Some see it as the blueprint for merger of the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
It calls for "a common economic space ... for all people in the region,
a space in which trade, capital and people flow freely."
The CFR's strategy calls specifically for "a more open border for the
movement of goods and people." It calls for laying "the groundwork for
the freer flow of people within North America." It calls for efforts to
"harmonize visa and asylum regulations." It calls for efforts to
"harmonize entry screening."
In "Building a North American Community," the report states that Bush,
Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin
"committed their governments" to this goal March 23, 2005, at that
meeting in Waco, Texas.
Alan Burkhart, who describes himself as a free-lance political writer,
cross-country trucker "and proud citizen of one of the reddest of the
Red States – Mississippi," is another critic seething over these plans
that seem to have a life of their own – with little or no real public
debate.
"As time passes, American corporations will find it unnecessary to move
their facilities out of the country," writes Burkhart. "Our already
stagnant wages will be just as low as those of Mexico. The cultures of
three great nations will be diluted. Our currency will be replaced with
the 'Amero.' And, we'll be one giant step closer to the U.N.'s perverse
dream of a one-world government."
The Amero is not a new concept. It was first proposed by the Fraser
Institute, a Canadian think tank, in a monograph titled "The Case for
the Amero" in 1999.
In June, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America made
one of its most visible and public moves since it was first announced
last year. In Washington, June 15, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos
Gutierrez, Mexican Economy Minister Sergio Garcia de Alba and Canadian
Minister of Industry Maxime Bernier joined North American business
leaders to launch the North American Competitiveness Council. It was a
major development that showed the March 2005 meeting was no fluke – and
that the plans announced by the three national leaders then were
continuing to take shape. The NACC was first announced by Bush, Harper
and Fox.
Made up of 10 high-level business leaders from each country, the NACC
will meet annually with senior North American government officials "to
provide recommendations and help set priorities for promoting regional
competitiveness in the global economy."
Officially, the council has the mandate to advise the governments on
improving trade in key sectors such as automobiles, transportation,
manufacturing and services. The three countries do more than $800
billion in trilateral trade.
Gutierrez said the Bush administration is determined to develop a
"border pass" on schedule despite worries about its implementation. The
new land pass is to be in effect for Canadians, Americans and Mexicans
by Jan. 1, 2008.
The U.S. executives involved in the NACC include: United Parcel Service
Inc. Chairman Michael Eskew; Frederick Smith, chairman of FedEx Corp.;
Lou Schorsh, chief executive of Mittal Steel USA; Joseph Gilmour,
president of New York Life Insurance Co.; William Clay Ford, chairman of
Ford Motor Co.; Rick Wagoner, chairman of General Motors Corp.; Raymond
Gilmartin, CEO of Merck & Co. Inc.; David O'Reilly, chief executive of
Chevron Corp.; Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of General Electric Co.; Lee
Scott, president of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.; Robert Stevens, chairman of
Lockheed Martin Corp.; Michael Haverty, chairman of Kansas City
Southern; Douglas Conant, president of Campbell's Soup Co. and James
Kilt, vice-chairman of Gillette Inc.
The concerns about the direction such powerful men could lead Americans
without their knowledge is only heightened when interlocking networks
are discovered. For instance, one of the components envisioned for this
future "North American Union" is a superhighway running from Mexico,
through the U.S. and into Canada. It is being promoted by the North
American SuperCorridor Coalition, or NASCO, a non-profit group
"dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and
secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International
Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the
trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America."
The president of NASCO is George Blackwood, who earlier launched the
North American International Trade Corridor Partnership. In fact, NAITCP
later morphed into NASCO. A NAIPC summit meeting in 2004, attended by
senior Mexican government officials, heard from Robert Pastor, an
American University professor who wrote "Toward a North American
Community," a book promoting the development of a North American union
as a regional government and the adoption of the amero as a common
monetary currency to replace the dollar and the peso.
Pastor also was vice chairman of the May 2005 Council on Foreign
Relations task force entitled "Building a North American Community" that
presents itself as a blueprint for using bureaucratic action within the
executive branches of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada to transform the
current trilateral Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America
into a North American union regional government. He was also prominent
on the guest list in Banff.