...from no less than the president of Mexico, even:
President Felipe Calderon on Monday criticized both Americans and Mexicans for their roles in the 1846-1848 war that cost Mexico half its territory during a ceremony commemorating the definitive battle of the conflict.Aggression? Calderon apparently has a different definition of aggression than the rest of us do. The Mexicans were the first ones talking smack after the Texas Revolution -- that is, the Mexicans were the ones threatening war with the United States if the latter annexed the Republic of Texas. (The Mexicans were also the ones to fire the first shots in the war.) No doubt the Mexicans of today would reply with, "But this 'Republic of Texas' was a rebel territory we were going back for!" Of course you won't hear them say a thing about the fact that Mexico itself was a rebel territory of Spain. As far as I know, modern Spaniards don't bitch and moan (like Calderon and so many of his countrymen do about Texas) hundreds of years after Mexico declared its independence from Spain.
Speaking on the 163rd anniversary of the Battle of Chapultepec, Calderon called the war an "unjust military aggression motivated by clearly imperialistic interests."
(Shorter, more pithy version of the above, from my wife a few weeks ago: "About 170 years ago there was a war. We won. That means the land is ours.")
Come to think of it, I have also never heard any prime minister of Great Britain say anything about the American Revolution being an "unjust and illegal secession of the King's colonies in the New World" or anything else even remotely along those lines. In fact, England is one of this country's staunchest allies and has been for a good long while. Why the difference? Why are so many Mexicans so bitter about Texas after almost 175 years?
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