QUE PASO DURANTE LA GUERRA ? MEXICO/ ESTADOS UNIDOS

Museo Salltiloo, Mexico

LA ANGOSTURA, Mexico — On the grassy, windswept hill where soldiers from north and south fought one of the most important battles of the Mexican-American War, the crunch and grind of a sand and gravel mine deafens any attempt at contemplation.
Some wars get no respect. And this one, which Ulysses S. Grant called the most “wicked war” ever waged, has never been held in particularly high esteem. How many Arizonans condemning illegal border crossers want to recall that their homes sit on former Mexican territory? How many Mexicans want to remember the lost battle here, which they should have won?
And yet, there are lessons here in these hills — for Mexico and the United States — that two Mexican history buffs are determined to teach. They have spent years collecting artifacts and are now pushing to preserve the site as historic, though not many seem to care. Their three-room museum in nearby Saltillo, opened in 2006, is usually as lonely as a funeral home between wakes, a tangible reminder of the complicated past many Americans and Mexicans have overlooked.
“People don’t know what happened here,” said Reinaldo Rodríguez, 68, a retired government planner as tall and thin as a torch, pointing to a diorama of the battle in the museum, which sits behind the Saltillo cathedral. “People don’t know that this was the place where the Irish died alongside the Mexicans.”
The San Patricios, or St. Patrick’s Brigade, they called themselves. They were all recent immigrants to the United States who had joined the American Army, then defected to fight with Mexico. Most were in fact Irish. Some came from Germany or England, and historians say they fled in disgust, fed up with one of the United States’ ugliest flaws: prejudice.
“One reason why so many people deserted was that they were Catholic and they felt like they were being mistreated by their Protestant officers,” said Amy S. Greenberg, a historian at Pennsylvania State University.
The Mexican-American War also had much  to do with principle — historians on both sides of the border describe it as little more than a land grab — and desertion was a problem even before the conflict started. As troops massed on the American side of the Rio Grande in 1845, scores of soldiers, including many immigrants, disappeared across the border.

cortesia nyt.com

QUE ESTA PASANDO EN MEXICO ? MEXICO

 A drug kingpin convicted of masterminding the murder of an American drug agent in 1985 — a killing that helped accelerate the modern drug war and that remains an emotional touchstone for law enforcement agents — was unexpectedly released from prison on Friday after his conviction was overturned.
Mr. Caro Quintero, a pioneer in mass producing and distributing marijuana and transporting South American cocaine, had 12 years left on his 40-year sentence. He was notified of his release at 2 a.m. Friday and promptly disappeared sometime after.
It was among the head-scratching developments in a case that could inject new tension between American and Mexican authorities, who are still working out how to cooperate under a new Mexican president wary of deep American involvement in Mexican drug cases.
The Drug Enforcement Administration “is deeply troubled” and “will vigorously continue its efforts to ensure Caro-Quintero faces charges in the United States for the crimes he committed,” the agency said in a statement, though it was unclear if an extradition request was pending.
The Justice Department filed conspiracy and racketeering charges against Mr. Caro Quintero in May 1987 related to the killing, and “in the years since, the Department of Justice has continued to make clear to Mexican authorities the continued interest of the United States in securing Caro Quintero’s extradition so that he might face justice in the United States,” it said in a statement.

CONCLUSION CLIC AQUI

cortesia nyt

JOSEPH GOEBBELS SEGUNDA GUERRA MUNDIAL

Las cartas de amor, papeles escolares y obras dramáticas de Joseph Goebbels en su etapa universitaria revelan un hombre romántico que comienza a mostrar señas de antisemitismo y conducta egoísta y autoritaria, según una casa de subastas de Connecticut que venderá los escritos de quien fuera el director de propaganda de Adolfo Hitler. La casa Alexander Historical Auctions planea vender la colección este jueves en Stamford y dice que los documentos podrían brindar un entendimiento histórico y psicológico invaluable. "Recapitula los años formativos del número dos del Tercer Reich, quien era responsable de motivar a las masas alemanas para respaldar a Hitler", dijo el presidente de la compañía. "Muestra cómo este simple estudiante universitario, tímido y enamorado, se radicalizó". Las miles de páginas incluyen una ponencia universitaria de Goebbels, reportes, poemas, ensayos escolares y cartas de familiares, amigos y novias. "En verdad da una idea de lo que pasaba por su cabeza". "Hay mucha información si alguien quiere escudriñar en la mente de un hombre que se convirtió en lunático".En un indicio temprano de su ego, Goebbels firmó algunos de sus materiales con varias rúbricas. Hacia los años finales de la colección, Goebbels mostraba tendencias antisemitas.

La casa subastadora sólo ha traducido un 10% de los documentos y tuvo dificultades para descifrar la escritura de Goebbels. La venta generó la inquietud del líder de un grupo de sobrevivientes del Holocausto, que criticaron la casa de subastas por vender el año pasado bitácoras escritas por el médico de los campamentos de concentración nazis Josef Mengele.  "Alexander Auction House está lucrando con la venta de artefactos y memorabilia nazi", dijo el vicepresidente de la American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants , aunque reconoció que tienen el derecho legal de hacerlo. Tambien dijo que tales materiales pertenecen a un archivo para que los estudien historiadores y que le preocupaba que los documentos puedan usarse como "relicarios del líder nazi".  Los museos dependen con frecuencia de donaciones de personas que compran objetos en subastas y que los neonazis no coleccionan el material.  Se prevé que la colección, que abarca el periodo previo a que Goebbels se uniera al partido Nacional Socialista en 1924, se venda en más de 200.000 dólares.

cortesia elobservador