Invaded Again?

 The New York Times just reported—mere minutes ago—that the Trump administration has ordered the U.S. military in secret to conduct lethal operations against drug cartels in Latin America (of course, without Congressional approval—but what else is new, when it comes to U.S. military interventions?)

Almost immediately, the Mexican government issued a public statement saying that they had not approved any such operations in their own territory. They are not working with U.S. forces and have not signed on to any lethal U.S. activities within their borders. 

What does it mean? Will the Trump administration attack other countries but not Mexico? 

Or will they proceed to invade Mexican territory without that country's consent (in order to target people who—the Times reminds us—are not soldiers but civilian criminal suspects, raising the question of whether this would be murder as well as an unlawful incursion)? 

It wouldn't be the first time. And this is precisely what worries Mexican officials: "This has always been Mexico’s deepest fear"—one former official told the Times—"this constant sense that we could be invaded by the U.S. again." 

It's one of our original sins as a nation—the brutal war we fought against our southern neighbor, which wrested so much territory from them wrongfully (in a naked attempt—widely condemned at the time—at expanding the institution of slavery). 

Emerson and others rightly condemned this crude aggression when it occurred. His words on the Mexican-American War are still relevant for us today, as the U.S. seems to be edging another step closer to an invasion of our sister republic to the south:

Go, blindworm, go,

Behold the famous States

Harrying Mexico

With rifle and with knife!