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More U.S. Aid Won't End Mexico's Drug War
Even former Mexican President Vicente Fox has said that "prohibition isn't working" and that "violence against violence doesn't work."
With all the astoundingly grisly incidents involving Mexico's armed forces these days, one thing is clear: the drug war is failing. The Mexican military shouldn't get another penny of U.S. military aid. However, the White House's new budget proposal calls for pumping another $282 million into Mexico's drug war next year.
Known as the "Mérida Initiative," this boondoggle supposedly combats illegal drug trafficking, coordinates law enforcement efforts, and fights organized crime in Mexico and Central America. According to a Congressional Research Service report, the U.S. Congress allotted $1.3 billion for Mexico from 2008 to 2010. President Barack Obama requested another $310 million for 2011. (Congress still hasn't agreed on what to budget for this or other line items, which is why a federal government shutdown now looms.)
On the surface, it looks like the U.S. government wants to cut the Mérida Initiative's funding, but that's not exactly the case. One reason behind the apparent budget cuts is that Mexico has already invested in expensive military and police equipment such as helicopters and surveillance aircraft. With that spending out of the way, Mexico's military will continue receiving significant subsidies from the United States.
How is the money being spent? Let's begin by taking a look at the plan's track record over the last four years. According to an official Mexican government database, nearly 35,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since late 2006. Drug cartels are stronger, arms trafficking has boomed, and the very security forces the United States is funding and training have been accused of shocking human rights violations.
The Obama administration should acknowledge that the Mérida Initiative is a failed strategy and scrap it altogether.
It's a reckless strategy that has only intensified Mexico's massive bloodshed. However, this failure can't be official. A 2010 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) explains that the Mérida Initiative never even contained benchmarks for evaluating the program.
As a Colombian, I've seen first-hand the consequences of the war on drugs. Since 2000, Washington has provided over $6 billion to the Colombian government to advance the drug war. I've seen how militarization became a part of everyday life in my country. It deteriorated living standards, increased violence, forced displacement, and diverted budgetary priorities from the basic needs of the population to weapons and espionage.
The result is widespread violations of civil and human rights. Nearly 5 million Colombians have been displaced by violence, crop fumigation, and drug eradication programs, and big businesses have absorbed more than 5 million hectares of land that belonged to campesinos, or small farmers.
On the bright side, Obama's 2012 Foreign Operations aid request would provide Colombia with more economic and social assistance ($201.7 million) than military and police assistance ($196 million).
That's a sign of the times. More and more public figures agree that the Drug War is a failure. During a meeting in Geneva last month, the Global Commission on Drug Policies stated that "criminalization of consumption did not reduce drug traffic." Even former Mexican President Vicente Fox has said that "prohibition isn't working" and that "violence against violence doesn't work."
Why, after years of spending billions of dollars in Colombia and Mexico to fund a strategy that has failed to stem the flow of drugs and dampen the associated violence, do policymakers keep writing blank checks for it?
Military aid won't end drug violence. While there's no easy fix to Mexico's violence, the U.S. government should ensure that our taxpayer dollars aren't used to violate human rights. Instead, the United States should attack the root causes of drug trafficking: high demand for drugs in the U.S., increased rates of poverty and unemployment, and the lack of opportunities for Latin American farmers and youth.
It's time that both the Obama administration and Congress re-orient the drug war. The peaceful future that Mexican people seek can't be found in the barrel of a gun, but in well-funded Mexican schools and well-stocked U.S. rehabilitation clinics.
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33 Comments so far
Show AllThe war on drugs is one of the military industrial complex's many profit centers and they don't give up any of their profit centers without a fight.
Absolutely, they cannot afford to win the war on drugs, there are a few countries that have not been militarized yet.
The purpose of the drug wars are about graft and corruption. The American arms merchants supply all opposing factions with weapons, the drug traffickers, the governments all of them. Drugs are a huge business now.The banksters make $billions laundering the drug money. Their are two many vested interests the DEA, CIA, FBI, DHS, politicians, police, judges which profit from the drug wars, it's the government that doesn't want it to end. The war on drugs was all about curtailing Constitutional rights.
To repeat one element of my philosophical POV - - two things happened in the transition from H. sapiens status to Human Being status.
MOST behavior began to be distributed across two and only two aims: 1) immortality, like the gods of which we self-conscious but still-condemned animals conceive, 2) chemical escape from =reality= by release of endorphins through various activities, or ingestion of plants with properties of endorphins.
The actual WAR UPON PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS is a WAR UPON OUR OWN DNA. So is any =war= upon prostitution. Good luck.
Trylon
You're right on the mark Trylon. For as long as humans have been walking the face of this planet they have had a desire to alter their conscious realm. Some turned to "gods" while others turned to chemical substances.
Now those who turned to gods wish to make the rest of us believe in their fabricated deities while outlawing our alternative.
Prohibition proved over three quarters of a century ago that criminalizing substances and legislating what the gawd believers define as morality doesn't work, but rather creates an environment for organized crime to take over the market of a desired product.
Just put the shoe on the other foot. What would happen in a parallell universe where religion were prohibited an substances were forced on all. Wouldn't the reaction be the same?
This is how the STATE operates. Why would anyone imagine this would be any better than say the war in Iraq or Afganistan?
Having lived in the Florida Keys when the "Zero Tolerance" policy became the law of the land, I noticed a few ominous trends in their nascent stages.
First, this idea of guilty before proven innocent took hold. Many people had property confiscated under this dubious drug war. It also began the slow erosion of liberties that we now realize has taken US citizens down a very slippery slope. Many of our presumed liberties--like the right to privacy, are essentially gone.
Second, the "drug war" creates a highly armed society. Since everyone in uniform must theoretically answer to those in higher positions, the makings for an authoritarian state are put in place. How hard is it to turn all this law enforcement on citizens if "authorities" determine that citizens are getting too uppity in fighting for--or demanding--their own rights (and past guaranteed privileges).
Third: The drug war, besides establishing a faux cause to build prisons (and therefore establish an entire labyrinth of justice system employees along with their prison guard extensions) also creates a vast network of felons. This is useful if portions of the population are to be denied the vote.
Fourth: In the Deep South, the prison-industrial complex has largely come to simulate slavery. Why? Because it farms out utterly cheap labor for pennies on the dollar... in effect, the plantation system has been modernized!
Five: As the fine film, "Cabaret" reflected, citizens are gradually made to get used to uniformed soldiers in their midst. With police, sheriff departments, DEA, FDA, FBI, CIA, marine patrol, highway patrol, Homeland Security, and actual military personnel... a huge portion of our citizenry is armed and answerable to the military-industrial state.
Amerika has been making a transition to military empire for at least 3 decades. It's a sinister, slow process being plotted on a geo-political chessboard. Some moves are so subtle, that the vast majority is unable to connect the dots.
Other nations are following some of these disastrous trends thanks to the BS "war on terrorism."
Liberty always follows when the authoritarian controllers tighten the yoke too firmly... there IS a breaking point. We're seeing the beginning ruptures now.
I imagine this post will be well read by the end of the day. A lot of truth in the comments so far. The drug war is a cash cow for many.
Legalization of pot alone would make a dent so big that there would be a power shift. How can they chance that? 14 states with MM...first step. Then the truth about how pot is so not an addictive, psycho whacko, drug. This old gran's got me card. But I will still fight the fight to end the drug war.
STONE: I think legalizing pot could even balance a few states' budgets! LOL.
Pot, in my view, IS the ultimate peace plant. Half the reason for rendering it the great taboo is that its influence would thwart the campaigns of violence sponsored by the MIC/Mars Rules State. Can't have a population that sees the folly of fighting, if war is "your" chief product.
Shut up. You make too much sense.
Legalize the consumption, possession and sale of the now illegal drugs, then responsibly regulate it.
Drug control is really an attempt at stupidity control. But, in the south we say: "you can't cure stupid."
Yes, the writer of the article misses that point entirely.
Not only is a "war on drugs" unwinnable — it is unnecessary.
Legalize and regulate drugs, like alcohol and tobacco. When was the last time liquor and cigarette companies had a shooting war with each other?
HOLDING MEXICOS HAND IN THE DRUG WAR IS NAIVE...MONEY GIVEN THEM IS A GIFT THAT IS RETURNED WITH CONTEMPT..being macho they would respect us more if we kicked their lying asses...mexico has encouraged the drug trade to america and then the naive gringo government gives cash to them to fight the drug war...they laugh at america the stupido....
Please don't confuse Mexico with its government. I live here, and I've never known a kinder people.
Many, if not most, Mexicans are angry at their government for even beginning the war on the cartels, seeing it as a political decision for a fight that is not winnable.The tens of thousands of deaths since Calderon began this initiative are seen as being on his head.
Mexicans would rather live and let live, since with few exceptions the cartels only kill each other, than provoke an open war between the cartels and the government, in which innocent citizens are caught in the crossfire.
Calderon wasnt imposed by the gringos he either won or stole the election with help from his cabal.
I think your point of view drug wise is way simplistic, come on man blaming drugs for the inability of gringos to start the revolution? if anything the gringos need more drugs to wake up from their mind numbing television addiction and consumist frenzy.
Calderon unleashed the army to gain support after an election he barely won (or stole depending on your point of view) as the "evil" drugs are the easiest target to unify parents to "protect the children". He needed an enemy and he chose drug trafficking, after all who can support the "scourge from hell"?
And if he has an higher salary than obomber is irrelevant considering that is peanuts when compared to all the money him and his people are stealing, diverting or "earning" from their privileged posts in the government.
You consider Calderon the worst from various governments? are you also taking into account those from the usa? even if you mean only those from Mexico that is way farfetched... the previous ruling party (PRI) institutionalized corruption and was much worse (wich is not saying much really) from any point of view (minus the "drug war") that the actual one (PAN).
The drug war is a "war" against drug users not against any minority, I mean this when considered as a global effort as its quite clear that in the usa minorities are targeted more often.
ALL drugs should be legalized.
You dont know me and still you believe you might know more about Mexico than I do? dude your conceitedness is laughable. I was born in Mexico and dont really care about your supposed specialization when your arguments portray ignorance and a tendency to downplay those of others who disagree or show another side of the picture.
1- Calderon was declared the winner by IFE (the institute that organizes the elections), this was impugned by his main opponent and then the TPEJF (court that settles electoral disputes or crimes) RATIFIED his victory, theres a difference surely you understand.
I read the Jornada translation and summary of the cable of the cable and it doesnt say that what you take as a given happened, it mentions they might do it but theres no way to know if it did happen and in any case the cables are dated (only one date is mentioned) september the first of 2006, the IFE determined the candidate with the most votes was Calderon (hence the winner) the 7th of july... SO you see theres no PROOF at all that the gringos ran his "dirty campaign" as the cables are dated almost two months after the campaign was over and also dont mention that what they purported to do actually happened (just a plan). I think after 20 years your spanish should be good enough to understand most of what you read unless you twist it to fit your agenda as you evidently tried to do here.
2- My view point on drugs is not biased as yours is but educated and informed, you take a ridiculous stance based on sheer ignorance and blame drugs for gringos not being able to start the revolution, and then cite some purported doctors who "reassuringly" (to you) say that one thing is the consequence of the other, maybe you can provide some links to this doctors or the undisputed scientific study that proves their claims are right?. And then you dare to imply that my "own drug use is an issue here?", my use or non use of drugs is none of your business but it seems as if you are used to discriminate those who do use drugs wich I find despicable but hey discrimination is the mark of the coward and ignorant so I forgive you for that feeble attempt to dismiss my argument.
3- Calderon "unleashed" the army (against the cartels) to gain support of the majority of the populace whom of course is biased against drugs (like you are) from decades of propaganda against them, drugs are the favorite enemy of authoritarians and having a war on a concept (its users really) is a good way to gain approval after such a close election. If he had wanted to suppress any popular uprising there would have been civil war.
4- The salaries would be no problem if they were bringingin results and not just taking all they can get before their time ruling is over.
5- Fox was born in Mexico so hes not a gringo. And if calderon is responsible for those deaths so is obrador who in the mind of calderon forced him to chose waging a war against drug cartels to get more support from the population and manage to stay in power and move over a bad loser. A extremely bad mass-murder ignorant choice but never underestimate the addiction of power.
6- Im glad you enjoyed my last post I had a good laugh at your expense because you sir are a joke.
Nope, I was born, raised and living in beautiful Mexico, it must be easier for you to navigate trough life assuming things you dont know right? just like twisting whats written to suit your delusions... like me believing in the eastern bunny and IFE... LOL. Yes very nice you are such a good scholar! a fine user of reason and logic if there ever was one!.
So there was a conspiracy between PRI, PAN and IFE to pretend the ruling days of PRI were over right? the possibility of calderon having won the elections is non existant uh? yeah its all so clear now! im not reading the ramblings of yet another paranoid obrador lover! thanks for enlightening me!.
That you feel the need to tell me your credentials (real or imaginary) reveals me that under all your arrogance there may be a vein of low self esteem... as it has been said: "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" from what you have written here so far it doesnt look like you are able to express your thoughts clearly and that may be because they are not clear at all, by the way most of the people whom I know use the word "pocho" derogatorily you should know this already don´t you?.
I dont read la Jornada all the time, that article seems like yet another study tailor made to delay the legalization of drugs, after 40 years being pro legalization im sure you agree that a lot of propaganda has flooded the global population since the inception of the war on some drugs, yet you chose to believe this probably very flawed study (if you could point me to it I would be grateful as I´d like to dissect it) and then blame them on the lack of revolution in the usa but if this were true the government would be most interested in massively and freely distributing them.
If my "convoluted analyssis makes no sense at all" it migh be because I didnt make myself clear or maybe because you dont want to open your mind to new ideas, I´ll give it another shot: calderon started the war on the cartels because he needed to gain more popular approval after such a close election, it seemed like a sure bet because after so many years of propaganda in such a conservative society "drugs" are the perceived universal enemy and he needed the confront an enemy to create the illusion of unity behind him in order to be able to stay in power, he needed the upper hand and this was a sure way to get it thats why I say he unleashed the army agaisnt the cartels and not against the followers of obrador to clear Reforma (one of the main streets in the capital of Mexico taken over by a sore loser -I point this so those who dont know and might read this understand what I mean-) if he had done this or used force against his opponents there might have been civil war, I think you know we were quite close to it. Or tell me how many members of the PRD were killed or dissapeared during these times?. We are lucky obrador controlled himself and didnt go for it.
I agree with your point in salaries.
Show me the proof that fox was born in the usa, you cant? wonder why, you often use hearsay as part of your arguments?. And nope im not blaming obrador (try reading what I post several times maybe my english isnt so clear I apologize) even though he indirectly was the cause of the current war on drugs here. Just pointing out where, why and how this crisis might have originated, only calderon knows it for sure and just like ANY politician he cannot be believed. This all in response to your "but to create a reign of terror against normal folks to insulate his spurious regime" asumption, I dont think he had any idea about what he was getting into, no strategy or anything similar... it all blew up on his face. Blame me all you want but at least come up with creative drivel for me to keep laughing... lady.
I would rather not be called any slang words if you dont mind, but of course if behaving like a child makes you feel better you can call me whatever you want, being over 55 you ought to try being more mature.
Yeah it was pacted, of course and all for some "juicy contracts" wich expresidents get anyway... and the proof? dont have it? wonder why.
Really consider yourself a specialist on the history of the mexican revolution??? damn! let me set you straight lady because you are dead wrong, Madero reached the presidency with the suppport of the people of Mexico against the hacendados wishes. Huerta was designed by Madero chief of the defense of the presidential palace against the opinion of his brother Gustavo and others, there was no pact but treason you seem to believe that Diaz pacted with Madero his demise from power and that is totally ludicrous, this is basic history and you ignore it yet claim to be a "specialist" you ought to read the history of Mexico, history that its quite clear you ignore. You are a FAKE and a LIAR.
My analysis stands by the merits of its logic and after considering several variables... its not "mainstream media" at all, how could it be? saying that 35,000 are dead for a bogus war -started for political reasons and without any strategy whatsoever- would be counterproductive for any mainstream media, they dont publish or air this because it would be dangerous. In my opinion you are just trying to ring whatever has happened to suit your deranged point of view, and nope altough im sure you got it quite cheap im not interestd in the oceanfront property.
It blew up because he didnt expect it to explode as it has, he had no idea what he was getting into and just focused on the short term gains... calderon is not a master chess player just another lowlife politician. His "war" is on the cartels and some drugs not on the mexican people as you naively believe.
My love affair with drugs? LMFAO!!! thats a good one! and my obsession with obrador? is even better! but you hoping on a plane to chat with a no good wanna be dictator to see "responsible leadership" is the icing on the cake!, your so funny but its sad that probably there arent many people who would agree with me.
Im laughing at you and your lack of serious arguments, facts or thought cohesion, resorting to name calling and vain talk or should I just call it delusional talk?.
Profit is certainly what keeps the drug wars going, but the drug laws themselves are racist pure and simple, applied unequally against minorities. Without drug laws, how would we discriminate against blacks and latinos without appearing racist? With drug laws, any dark-skinned individual can be stopped for "probable cause" and if they aren't holding, a small vial or packet is easy to plant. When minorities wake up and realize that the War on Drugs is really a war on non-whites, we might see some change.
Who wouldn't want an escape from reality? Most of us are living as wage-slaves in a police state, and those establishment types who are constantly praising the culture as "wealthy, democratic and free" are really the deluded ones.
mexicans know better.
We invaded Afghanistan to reinvigotate the heroin market. Damn Taliban! Don't they like floweres? When it comes to billions of no strings attached dollars, its's hard to beat the illegal drug trade. Just ask ollie north.
The author wrote: " The peaceful future that Mexican people seek can't be found in the barrel of a gun, but in well-funded Mexican schools and well-stocked U.S. rehabilitation clinics."
________*
I love it!
The two previous mexican presidents have said "prohibition isn't working", they wouldnt dare say it while they were in power, truly all politicians are made from the same shit.
Money obtained from the drug trade is corrupting to the max government employees and elected officials, to put what the author mentions in context a few days ago soldiers were detained with almost a ton of methampetamine transporting it in an official vehicle its quite amazing that they were detained but one has to wonder how many tons did they manage to transport before being unable to bribe other soldiers, they have comitted several human rights violations and are prone to desert duties and join forces with the cartels.
The money the usa gives to Mexico is but nothing a subsidy to the drug trade and an official bribe.
Its a shame that the author neglects to admit reality or risk going against the stream by not acknowledging that the war on drugs is a farce put into place to directly opress drug users and indirectly non users as siouxrose succintly explains (using it as a justification to instill an authoritarian state to protect the interests of the "elite") and ask for outright legalization of ALL drugs.
She asks "Why, after years of spending billions of dollars in Colombia and Mexico to fund a strategy that has failed to stem the flow of drugs and dampen the associated violence, do policymakers keep writing blank checks for it?" the answer is quite simple so I infer she asks it as a rethorical technique: because they love to use their power to gain more power as theres nothing more addicting than guess what? POWER, theres also money and im quite sure almost everyone who has to choose between lead or gold will choose gold, yes the cartels can get anyone who is an obstacle out of the way and those on the drug war know it so they chose to stay alive.
The root causes of drug trafficking IS: their illegality wich makes them so profitable. That the author pretends to ignore this is quite naive to say the least.
You raise a good point, with the billions of dollars spent on the war on drugs, they could just buy the drugs and slowly convert to something that is beneficial.