Another US state secret: Machismo is contagious

Another U.S. state secret: Machismo is contagious
By Diana Washington Valdez/El Paso Times Border Cafe
Machismo is contagious.
 At least that’s the message that a U.S. diplomat communicated in a U.S. cable.
 The subject of the Sept. 15, 1975 cable is titled “Alleged DEA and Mexican Complicity in Narcotics Traffic,” a serious enough topic, and was transmitted from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City to the State Department.
It starts off by saying “I appreciate your informing me of this disturbing report. We, of course, have no way to evaluate (the) reliability of the informant, or the possibility that (Mario) Moya Palencia may make the information public.
“At first, blusyhit (sic) would appear counter-productive to his presidential aspirations for him to implicate Mexican officials and possibly embarrass Attorney General (Pedro) Ojeda Paullada, who up to now is on Moya’s team and whose wagon is strongly hitched to Moya’s star.”
The apparent inspiration for this cable is Moya’s threats to expose drug corruption involving DEA and Mexican officials. He was a candidate for president in 1976, but his party’s candidacy went to Jose Lopez Portillo.
“Upon further consideration, however, I can think of two possible reasons for Moya releasing this information. (A) If he wants to draw attention away form the even more embarrassing potential scandal concerning GOM (government of Mexico) officials involved in the recent 100 kilograms of cocaine case, or (B) if he has some reason to believe the U.S. side would release the information on the alleged DEA and Mexican complicity, and wants to carry out a preemptive strike.”
But the real point of the diplomatic communique appears to be something else. The document, previously classified secret, is now declassified and is among the documents that WikiLeaks recently divulged.
“I also wish to call your attention to the snowballing effect of machismo,” the cable states.
President Alfonso Lopez Michelsen of Colombia (as reported Sept. 14 by UPI) denounced the United States for allegedly converting his country into a springboard for narcotics and said the traffic is in the hands of U.S. mafiosi, according to the cable.
“He called on U.S. authorities to control the operations of U.S. organized crime in his country, rather than to expect Colombia to stop them by acting against Colombian citizens,” the cable states.
Now, the cable moves on to the real meat.
“As a manifestation of this same syndrome, on Sept. 15 UPI reported a Los Angeles press conference given by Mexican Attorney General Ojeda Paullada, in which he allegedly said that political pressures by certain U.S. legislators to obtain the freedom of U.S. nationals convicted of narcotics trafficking in Mexico would be unavailing [futile]. These cases can only be resolved by Mexican judges and by Mexican law, the AG stated.”
Toward the end of the cable, the author states, “I raise these two instances to demonstrate the well-known fact that Latin Americans, when politically pressed, are very capable of lashing out with such macho statements and will not hesitate to embarrass the USG (U.S. government) in so doing. Furthermore, machismo is contagious.”
It must so given such contemporary examples as North Korea’s Kim Jong, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, whom others have described as an “alpha male,” which is a euphemism for muy macho.
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