I found the comments by Robert Pastor in the Dec. 1 guest commentary, “Making a competitive continent,” to be most interesting.

He sells his ideas with positive-sounding phrases like “opportunity to reinvigorate a deteriorating relationship” and “markets for U.S. goods.”

Dr. Pastor hints at some of his ideas for achieving these and other goals, but apparently he thinks we’re not ready to hear about his ultimate goal, a North American Union. As in … no more independent United States of America. I think a little background on Mr. Pastor is in order.

One of the principal authors of the Security and Prosperity Partnership merger of the NAFTA governments (Mexico, Canada and the United States) is Dr. Robert Pastor, a vice chairman of the Council on Foreign Relation’s Task Force on the Future of North America and author of “Toward a North American Community.” Pastor’s writings and speeches provided the blueprint for the Bush-Fox-Martin Security and Prosperity Partnership merger plan. He firmly grasps the concept that a slow gradual surrender of sovereignty can succeed where a frontal assault will fail.

In Nov. 2002, Professor Pastor addressed a meeting of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission in Toronto, Canada. Among the many things Pastor proposed was “establishing a single ‘North American Customs and Immigration Service’” composed of “officials from the three governments, trained together.” He also called on the NAFTA governments to create a North American Commission of “distinguished individuals” (such as Robert Pastor), whose job would be to teach our leaders to think “continentally.” One of the new commission’s duties would be to “develop an integrated continental plan for transportation and infrastructure.” This should include, he said, “new highway corridors on the Pacific Coast and into Mexico,” as well as “a plan that would permit mergers of the railroads and development of high-speed rail corridors.”

Pastor advocates the creation of a North American Investment Fund, whose priority would be to connect the U.S.-Mexico border region to central and southern Mexico. He cited a World Bank study that had concluded that “Mexico needs $20 billion a year for 10 years, just for infrastructure.” That’s $200 billion just for starters. In 2004, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a leading proponent of open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens, introduced S. 2941, the North American Investment Fund Act. The legislation’s official title says it is “a bill to authorize the president to negotiate the creation of a North American Investment Fund to promote economic and infrastructure integration among Canada, Mexico and the United States.” Section four states, “The fund shall make grants for projects … to construct roads in Mexico to facilitate trade between Mexico and Canada, and Mexico and the United States.” Thus, U.S. taxpayers would get to pay for reduced transportation costs for foreign producers. I’m not making this up. Cornyn’s bill was introduced on June 29 of this year as S. 2622.

Pastor and other NAFTA/SPP proponents have repeatedly cited the European Union as the model for us to follow. The EU countries have given up control over their borders for a common perimeter and we are expected to copy their example. “Are North Americans prepared to give up their sovereignty?” Pastor asked rhetorically in his Trilateral speech. “The term ‘sovereignty’ is one of the most widely used, abused and least understood in the diplomatic lexicon ... Sovereignty, in brief, is not the issue.” National leaders must discard “aging conceptions of sovereignty,” he declares, in favor of continental “integration” and “convergence.”

Of course, even a North American Union is just another intermediate step. The goal of this mindset is world government — “a New World Order,” as President George H. W. Bush boldly stated. I’ve submitted this letter in the hopes that the readers of this newspaper will understand the ultimate purpose of essays such as the one by Robert Pastor.

(Rodgers lives in Napa.)