The violence is fueled by America's insane war on drugs. But the politicians sing the same old song of militarizing the border. If the US and Mexico wants a peaceful border, they should end the war on drugs.

Remember "Operation Intercept"? A Nixon order that only succeeded in driving the price of pot to the sky thus creating an entire industry on both sides of the border between the US and Mexico. Now here we are forty years later in this giant mess. My fellow Americans, the drug problem is not in Mexico, The drug problem is here in the US.

Problem
Reaction
Solution

Want to turn the US into a militarized fascist police state...? Problem is, the people won't buy it unless they feel threatened...
Create a " problem" by criminalizing drugs, knowing full well the predictable outcome...
Fuel the "reaction" by owning the crime syndicate that manufactures and distributes the goods to the cartels who fight for distribution rights, owning the weapons manufacturers that flood the cities with cheap guns, and own the private prisons to incarcerate the "users" for a victimless crime, own the congress through campaign contributions to pass draconian laws of search and seizure, use of force, and longterm sentences, and create gov't agencies like the DEA to eliminate competition and protect the drug routes, and hire military contractors to do your dirty work for you, like Dyncorp spraying roundup on the competition's coca feilds...
The citizens will demand a "solution" by demanding congress in passing laws to restrict gun ownership, militarization of police, and the policization of our military, and a "freedom wall" along the borders...

I tend to disagree with the author - this can't be made into an American problem unless we're willing to talk about serious border enforcement. whether that means militarization, I don't know.

I do agree with her on enforcement, in fact most gun owners have no problem with regulating gun shows and shops - we all have to abide by federal law and get a NICS check and fill out the requisite forms. I've never been to one gun show where they didn't make me undergo a NICS screening.

If a dealer or private party is working around the system - arrest and convict them, gun owners have no problem with this. But if the prevailing wisdom is 'well, nobody NEEDS a gun like this or that' then sorry, cousin, you're barking up the wrong tree and whatever intention you have in helping Mexico, will be in vain.

A lot of the gun violence I've read about is with colt m-4 machine guns and some semi auto 'assault rifles' - if the semis are getting through, I wonder how? The machine guns, grenades and RPGs however....I have yet to see a dealer offer those and when they do, its to class 3 licensed citizens - not easy to get and very easy to track.

What does that add up to? come on, I'll give you a second.....

ready? The Mexican Army is selling small arms and ordnance to the cartels. the mexican government is IN BED with the cartels to protect and distribute its number one export!!!!

We should not be forced to give up our rights because a continuously FAILED and CORRUPT country is having trouble containing one of its revenue streams.

And yes, if we legalized marijuana - at least some of the killing would stop.

Perhaps that is the ONLY place the troops belong and not on foreign soil. Whether it be drug dealers, banditos, or soldiers endangering citizens, the military should be used only for defense and deterrence. That of course means we could get by a much smaller military, but that is another matter.

Nice article. She hits the nail on the head: Whether it's drugs or terrorism we address the symptoms and not the cause. But really that's right in keeping with America's instant gratification culture.

(: Granted the militarization of the border will do little to stem the violence or to decrease drug smuggling, but look at the bright side, folks. If we put in two or three brigades of soldiers on the border, that's two or three brigades that won't be dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. Maybe we can bring all our soldiers over and put them on the border and it would at least solve the Mideast crisis. If there are too many to fit on the Mexican border, militarize the Canadian border, too. :)

US drug abuse is fueled mostly by the consumption culture that is promoted by US elites in pursuit of endless economic growth and empire.

Thanks Bill Clinton. You really messed things up on the Border. Hillary parading around in her garish all orange dress last week in Mexico was enough to make one want to vomit. It was Clinton's policies of militarizing the Border that has led to where we are now and Hillary and Obama together will only make things much worse.

Excellent article, statement. I fully agree.

As for not militarizing or reversing the militarisation process, given it's already begun, "well" underway, I doubt that this goal will be quickly achievable; because not only the U.S.-Mexico border is being militarised. The whole of North American is being militarised. www.globalresearch.ca has enough articles about this, including some recent, 2009, articles. The USA started becoming ever more militarised early last fall with military army units being brought back from Iraq to army-police the USA, cities, streets, neighbourhoods. The USA and Canada have been working together for over a year now on militarisation of "fortress North America" or "fortress America", whichever of the two ways it's referred by.

It's apparently related to the overall objective of "full spectrum dominance", from what I think to perceive of all of this militarisation that's truly unwarranted or unjustifiable.

But there's more and this is with respect to the drug war itself. There's more; it's been going on for as long as the drug war has existed. It is not a war against trafficking of illicit or illegalised drugs; it is a drug-trafficking protection racket. Do a Web search using Google, say, for articles at globalresearch.ca on "protection racket" and this should provide links to one or more articles. There is one, maybe two, such articles since start of 2009 and these are definitely worth reading, carefully.

Bill Conroy and possibly others writing for www.narconews.com have plenty to tell readers about the so-called drug war and in plenty of respects. Bill Conroy has one important article in which he includes a reference to statements from Michael Levine, or I think the first name is Michael; maybe Michel, but pretty sure it's Michael, a former DEA agent or covert agent. But while that article provides a link to a very interesting (to say the least) video with plenty of input from Levine during this video, which is about a CIA or former, but recently former CIA plane that crashed in Yucatan, Mexico, with around 4 tonnes of cocaine onboard, well, the article is important for the rest of what it says and NN is an evidently very good resource on the real drug war.

Maybe I'm mistaken about NN, but based on what I've read there before the website strikes me as a very good resource, and I know that the drug war is another [phony] war, which means that I have all the more reason to respect NN.

Like everywhere else in the world, the "elites", imperialists, corporatists, oligarchs, ... do [not] care about innocent and defenceless people being victims of for-profit schemes or even schemes from which these mindless "rulers" don't profit. They [are] psychopaths! Why should they [care] about other people?! Again, they are [psychopaths]!

www.hare.org provides some interesting information or analysis on "white collar" psychopaths. I just came across that website this week for my very first time and have only read some of the homepage's content, but what I have read so far tells me that Dr Hare does seem to know what he's talking about.

A few or more years ago, but since 2000, a good number of psychologists and psychiatrists stated like in a sort of chorus form or manner that many corporate "leaders" or "chiefs" are psychopaths or else sociopaths; maybe both. Well, it's possible to be sociopath without being psychopath, for it's possible to be anti-social without being violent about this. But it's not possible to be psychopath without also being sociopath and we have many psychopaths running corporations, as well as others being shareholders. No, they're not the kind of psychopaths that carry out the killings themselves, they don't get the blood physically on their own hands, but they are the drivers of [much] death, extreme crime against humanity, environmental destruction, etcetera; the whole "works".

They do [not] care. They are sociopaths; only, they are psychopathic sociopaths, that is, violent. Violence does not exist in only physical terms; it also exists in mere verbal terms. Verbal abuse can be very violent, particularly depending on the sensitivity or vulnerability of the persons who are aggressed with verbal abuse of violent nature. That persons are resistant to this and can tell the abusers to "F*CK OFF", or go "jump off a cliff" does not diminish the verbal abusiveness, but certainly and clearly does modify the impact on the targeted persons. verbally abuse me and be ready for repercussions. Apply the same verable abuse to someone else and it could potentially, in the worst case scenario, cause the person to want to commit suicide. That'll be their reaction, a very unfortunate one, but mine will be rock hard and potentially serious blow-back. The verbal abuse is the same in both cases though.

Iow, verbal violence does not necessarily seem to be violent. I think the factor of impact, how a person who is target of the abuse, reacts of crumbles makes the difference; between verbal abuse seeming violent, or not. And when resistant and providing blow-back, then this is the person who can unfortunately get faulted while the real abuser or aggressor gets off the hook as if innocent.

We live in a very ... screwed up world!

The so-called drug war is BS! The CIA has long been involved in international drug-trafficking and they don't care about marijuana. It's a nuisance; too much bulk for the profit that's gainable. Powder pays a lot more. Heroin and cocaine are much more lucrative on a profit-volume basis, and then they cut the cocaine with other stuff to increase the actual profits from the cocaine that's trafficked.

Mexican nationals caught driving weed across the border get a day a pound. Which is outrageous. Why should these guys rot in cages? Decriminalize weed & growing it. Not much blow is humped across. Most violence is people seeking entry to the US 'illegaly,' they come with their meager savings, and in the night coyotes prey on them. We should serve coffee and sandwiches to the immigrants, beat the coyotes that prey on these sweet souls half to death, and have a party. What the HECK is the problem?

Why were the 700 count gun charges dismissed against the Arizona gun dealer this month? The case seemed airtight.

Associates of the Texas Rangers killed approxiamately 5,000 hispanic USA citizens in south Texas during the early 1900's in order to obtain their property.

Red Rick, the Clinton Administration began the Border Wall and militarization of the Border in the early '90s with what was later called Operation Gatekeeper. I suggest that you google some on it (start with wikipedia first). I know how this whole militarization begun because I lived in El Paso back then.

Operation Gatekeeper was started through 'Operation Hold the Line' and Silvestre Reyes, a piggish local El Paso creature was in charge of it for Clinton.

from Wikipedia.... Founding of Controversial Border Strategy

In 1993, while serving as the Chief Patrol Agent of the El Paso Border Patrol Sector, Reyes led the Border Patrol to strategically position agents on the border to intercept illegal immigrants in a strategy later termed "Operation Hold the Line". This operation was the predecessor to a similar operation dubbed "Operation Gatekeeper" in Southern California. Such tactics were not without controversy, as placing Border Patrol Agents in high visibility positions placed them at tremendous risk from rock and firearms assaults from the Mexican side of the border. Immigrant-rights groups also protested the strategy, as it was effective in deterring illegal aliens from crossing in protected urban areas such as El Paso and San Diego, California and as such "forced" them to cross through desolate parts of the Southern United States, such as the deserts of the Imperial Valley in California and the Sonora desert in Arizona.

At the time, many in Border Patrol leadership did not believe that immigrants would risk their lives to cross through such perilous areas of the United States, yet it has been estimated that over 3,000 immigrants have perished from exposure and other related incidents while attempting to enter the United States illegally since the inception of Operations Hold the LIne and Gatekeeper

Meanwhile, the Clinton Administration was militarizing Colombia by supporting the death squads there and the so-called 'drug war', a war made to militarize all of Latin America.

And I only mentioned Hillary's dress because it was so outlandishly bright with her surrounded by Mexicon's dressed in indigenous clothing for the photo op shot. She even went to the Virgin of Guadalupe church for yet more bs support for Mexico's Prez FECAL (Felipe Calderon)

I think its time to legalize drugs! If legalization comes the violence will lessen. Either that or face increased violence and racism along our Southern Border which is and has been present for many years. We should start slowly to change our attitudes and perceptions on the drug trade. We should recognize that there will always be people who will use drugs and abuse drugs and reck havoc with their own lives and others. But the amount of benefits of either legalizing drug usage or decriminalizing drug usage might lessen the financial impact on American lives as well as lives in other countries.

By choosing a different treatment modality will benefit the government by lessing the expense of arming a region, it would drive the drug dealers out of business or at least reck havoc on their financial empires and lessen the violence to innocent bystanders. We need to increase our treatment options to those who are caught in the cycle of addiction, not by prison terms but treatment to help others recognize options in soberity and a better life. Drug usage is a crutch to escape a difficult or impossible situation in ones life, by offering choices the hope is that many might come to realize that life can be met on ones terms without running. Prison does not work to rehab peoples lives for the most part instead it reinforces hopelessness and despair. Treatment offers a more positive and life affirming glimpse of what might be.

I may be talking pie in the sky crap to some, but I believe and have seen that through intensive tough love treatment life can once again hold beauty and hope!

Americans who have never visited or lived along the U.S./Mexico Border just can't imagine how terrible it is to live along an already highly militarized zone. What this writer has explained above is absolutely true.

Mexico is suffering under Felipe Calderon's lack of leadership, much like that of George W. Bush. I certainly hope that Hillary Clinton's assessment is correct. The Texas Governor's (another who suffers from lack of good leadership and concern for the people) is not. There are very good knowledgeable people who can discuss the situation along the Texas border, and a Republican Governor, or a PAN President are not the ones to listen to.
I back our President's decision to resist the pressure to send troops to the border. God Bless him.

I cannot understand the lack of will by the United States to control their borders, particularly the Southern border.
One would think that this would be a top priority.

If a border barrier would stem the flow of drugs and illegals to a great extent, why has such a barrier not been competed?

The Alaskan highway was built in a year during W W II.