Mexicorn
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Obamas other war
Doug I dont understand why you keep deleting these news posts please explain...
The convenient and long-standing tradition south of the border is for Mexico to blame its problems on the U.S. It can often be justified when the
matter is the drug-trafficking violence now terrorizing much of Mexico, which is powered in large part by the insatiable gringo demand for drugs, the
relentless flow of high-powered weapons from the U.S. and the just-as-chronic laundering of drug cash north of the border. As Washington
hyperventilates over the threat of Mexico's narco-carnage spilling into the U.S., it can't ignore America's role in its neighbor's trafficking
tragedy.
At the same time, Mexican officialdom has always used American myopia as an excuse to blow off its own epic failings. The most glaring, of course, is
Mexico's police corruption and lack of rule of law, which has given the drug cartels free rein and too often turned Mexican law enforcement into
narco-collaborators. Perhaps the only way to shame Mexican politicians into owning up to that national sin — and finally doing something about it — is
for the U.S. to confront its own shortcomings. (See pictures of Mexico's narco-carnage.)
Washington will have at least started that process when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Mexico today for a two-day visit. In response to
growing fears both in Washington and along the border that Mexican drug violence is spilling over to U.S. soil — Attorney General Eric Holder recently
called the cartels a "national security threat" — the Obama Administration on Tuesday unveiled a border-security plan that will put more than 500
federal agents in border states. More significantly, the plan calls for stronger measures to reduce U.S. narco-demand, cut off weapons-smuggling into
Mexico and lasso more of the billions of dollars heading to the drug cartels. "This is a supply issue and it's a demand issue," said Janet Napolitano,
Homeland Security Secretary and former Arizona governor. Clinton's seemingly surprised Mexican counterpart, Foreign Relations Secretary Patricia
Espinosa, conceded the plan was "consistent with our bilateral relation in fighting organized crime." (Vote on Clinton in the TIME 100 poll.)
That should grease the skids for President Obama's visit to Mexico on April 16, after which he will attend the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.
Only time will tell if the U.S. gesture can prod Mexico to take its police-reform obligations more seriously. (See pictures of crime-fighting in
Mexico City.)
But along the border at least, the plan is being largely applauded by law-enforcement officials who feel their region was neglected during both the
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies. "This was a long time coming," says Richard Wiles, the Democratic sheriff of El Paso County, Texas,
which sits across the Rio Grande from Juárez, Mexico — a city that has seen almost 2,000 drug-related murders since the start of 2008, with many of
the victims being police officers, not to mention the epidemic of kidnappings and extortion. (Nationwide, Mexico had almost 7,000 narco-killings
during that time.) Says Wiles: "It's a shame that it took so many killings in our sister city to give these issues the national attention they're
getting now."
Border sheriffs like Wiles (who says it's no coincidence the plan was crafted in part by Napolitano, a former border governor) are particularly
gratified to see Washington sending 100 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents to help intercept the deluge of assault
rifles, automatic pistols and grenades moving south. Until now, the El Paso sector had only seven ATF agents. The Obama plan will also place more
federal antidrug and immigration and customs agents along the 2,000-mile-long frontier. Those cops, moreover, will be equipped with new X-ray
technologies to detect contraband cash as well as guns.
The plan's goal is to dampen U.S. demand for illicit drugs by beefing up programs like drug courts that waive sentences in exchange for mandatory
rehab. In addition, it doubles the number of joint local, state and federal border-enforcement security teams and ratchets up intelligence resources
to track Mexico's increasingly chaotic mix of drug organizations, at least three of which are fighting for control of Juárez. "Adding resources to
fight the weapons flow, the bulk currency shipments, and strengthen intelligence are all welcome moves," says John Bailey, an expert on Mexican
drug-trafficking at Georgetown University. "The question is whether the Americans are now putting some kind of long-term policy in place," which was
often missing from previous Administrations.
Although the cartel violence has largely left U.S. border towns like El Paso untouched — mainly, say analysts, because the Mexican narcos don't want
to provoke Washington into even more severe crackdowns on their lucrative trafficking corridors there — local police say it has begun to leapfrog the
border into Sunbelt cities like Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona and even Atlanta. That has set off political alarm bells in Washington, where earlier
this year the Pentagon issued a hyperbolic report that called Mexico a "failed state" along with the likes of Pakistan. Nevertheless, says Bailey,
"the general feeling is that the Vandals are at the gate, and we've got to repress them. It's reached a level of moral panic, and it's an issue where
the Republicans feel they can hold the Democrats' feet to the fire."
Indeed, many Republicans, like Texas Governor Rick Perry, think the Obama plan should go further. Perry wants to add 1,000 National Guard soldiers to
patrol his state's border, and he said on Tuesday that even more border-patrol agents should be sent as well. The White House, however, seems cool to
the idea of militarizing the border, especially since potential gringo military intervention is one of the key concerns Mexicans have about the Merida
Initiative, a bilateral antidrug plan that began last year and is supposed to funnel almost $1.5 billion in U.S. aid to Mexico over three years.
The Merida project was designed to support Mexican President Felipe Calderón's two-year-old offensive against the cartels, which has had to rely on
the Mexican military, given the corruption and incompetence of most Mexican police forces. Seven thousand troops now patrol Juárez. The Merida
Initiative does steer resources to Mexico's fledgling police- and judicial-reform efforts, including sorely needed police retraining, but critics say
it should do more in that area, since professionalized cops are the long-term solution to the crisis. Then again, that responsibility is Mexico
City's, not Washington's. Clinton and Obama can now go south of the border and say the gringos have at least begun to do their part.
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JESSE
Ultra Nomad
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Mexicorn
Obama can now go south of the border and say the gringos have at least begun to do their part. |
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toneart
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Mexicorn
Doug I dont understand why you keep deleting these news posts please explain...
The convenient and long-standing tradition south of the border is for Mexico to blame its problems on the U.S. It can often be justified when the
matter is the drug-trafficking violence now terrorizing much of Mexico, which is powered in large part by the insatiable gringo demand for drugs, the
relentless flow of high-powered weapons from the U.S. and the just-as-chronic laundering of drug cash north of the border. As Washington
hyperventilates over the threat of Mexico's narco-carnage spilling into the U.S., it can't ignore America's role in its neighbor's trafficking
tragedy.
At the same time, Mexican officialdom has always used American myopia as an excuse to blow off its own epic failings. The most glaring, of course, is
Mexico's police corruption and lack of rule of law, which has given the drug cartels free rein and too often turned Mexican law enforcement into
narco-collaborators. Perhaps the only way to shame Mexican politicians into owning up to that national sin — and finally doing something about it — is
for the U.S. to confront its own shortcomings. (See pictures of Mexico's narco-carnage.)
Washington will have at least started that process when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Mexico today for a two-day visit. In response to
growing fears both in Washington and along the border that Mexican drug violence is spilling over to U.S. soil — Attorney General Eric Holder recently
called the cartels a "national security threat" — the Obama Administration on Tuesday unveiled a border-security plan that will put more than 500
federal agents in border states. More significantly, the plan calls for stronger measures to reduce U.S. narco-demand, cut off weapons-smuggling into
Mexico and lasso more of the billions of dollars heading to the drug cartels. "This is a supply issue and it's a demand issue," said Janet Napolitano,
Homeland Security Secretary and former Arizona governor. Clinton's seemingly surprised Mexican counterpart, Foreign Relations Secretary Patricia
Espinosa, conceded the plan was "consistent with our bilateral relation in fighting organized crime." (Vote on Clinton in the TIME 100 poll.)
That should grease the skids for President Obama's visit to Mexico on April 16, after which he will attend the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.
Only time will tell if the U.S. gesture can prod Mexico to take its police-reform obligations more seriously. (See pictures of crime-fighting in
Mexico City.)
But along the border at least, the plan is being largely applauded by law-enforcement officials who feel their region was neglected during both the
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies. "This was a long time coming," says Richard Wiles, the Democratic sheriff of El Paso County, Texas,
which sits across the Rio Grande from Juárez, Mexico — a city that has seen almost 2,000 drug-related murders since the start of 2008, with many of
the victims being police officers, not to mention the epidemic of kidnappings and extortion. (Nationwide, Mexico had almost 7,000 narco-killings
during that time.) Says Wiles: "It's a shame that it took so many killings in our sister city to give these issues the national attention they're
getting now."
Border sheriffs like Wiles (who says it's no coincidence the plan was crafted in part by Napolitano, a former border governor) are particularly
gratified to see Washington sending 100 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents to help intercept the deluge of assault
rifles, automatic pistols and grenades moving south. Until now, the El Paso sector had only seven ATF agents. The Obama plan will also place more
federal antidrug and immigration and customs agents along the 2,000-mile-long frontier. Those cops, moreover, will be equipped with new X-ray
technologies to detect contraband cash as well as guns.
The plan's goal is to dampen U.S. demand for illicit drugs by beefing up programs like drug courts that waive sentences in exchange for mandatory
rehab. In addition, it doubles the number of joint local, state and federal border-enforcement security teams and ratchets up intelligence resources
to track Mexico's increasingly chaotic mix of drug organizations, at least three of which are fighting for control of Juárez. "Adding resources to
fight the weapons flow, the bulk currency shipments, and strengthen intelligence are all welcome moves," says John Bailey, an expert on Mexican
drug-trafficking at Georgetown University. "The question is whether the Americans are now putting some kind of long-term policy in place," which was
often missing from previous Administrations.
Although the cartel violence has largely left U.S. border towns like El Paso untouched — mainly, say analysts, because the Mexican narcos don't want
to provoke Washington into even more severe crackdowns on their lucrative trafficking corridors there — local police say it has begun to leapfrog the
border into Sunbelt cities like Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona and even Atlanta. That has set off political alarm bells in Washington, where earlier
this year the Pentagon issued a hyperbolic report that called Mexico a "failed state" along with the likes of Pakistan. Nevertheless, says Bailey,
"the general feeling is that the Vandals are at the gate, and we've got to repress them. It's reached a level of moral panic, and it's an issue where
the Republicans feel they can hold the Democrats' feet to the fire."
Indeed, many Republicans, like Texas Governor Rick Perry, think the Obama plan should go further. Perry wants to add 1,000 National Guard soldiers to
patrol his state's border, and he said on Tuesday that even more border-patrol agents should be sent as well. The White House, however, seems cool to
the idea of militarizing the border, especially since potential gringo military intervention is one of the key concerns Mexicans have about the Merida
Initiative, a bilateral antidrug plan that began last year and is supposed to funnel almost $1.5 billion in U.S. aid to Mexico over three years.
The Merida project was designed to support Mexican President Felipe Calderón's two-year-old offensive against the cartels, which has had to rely on
the Mexican military, given the corruption and incompetence of most Mexican police forces. Seven thousand troops now patrol Juárez. The Merida
Initiative does steer resources to Mexico's fledgling police- and judicial-reform efforts, including sorely needed police retraining, but critics say
it should do more in that area, since professionalized cops are the long-term solution to the crisis. Then again, that responsibility is Mexico
City's, not Washington's. Clinton and Obama can now go south of the border and say the gringos have at least begun to do their part.
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Mexicorn- You need to identify your source--Time Magazine. Otherwise your are plagiarizing.
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Donjulio
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Posts: 376
Registered: 5-19-2009
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More crap from the US Gov.
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Iflyfish
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3747
Registered: 10-17-2006
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The solution for the US is to legalize pot, which it produces in abundance.
No need to import what is the largest cash crop in the Western USofA. This move alone would greatly limit the power of the Cartels and provide needed
tax revenues in the USofA. Of interesting historical note is that one of the first acts of office for Franklin Roosevelt, in his attempts to end The
Great Depression, was to end the Prohibition on Alcohol.
I am told and read that the pot grown in the USofA is of much higher quality than that which is imported from Mexico. The market place itself could
well take care of the issues of importing the Mexican product.
The consumption of pot in the USofA will not just go away. Prohibition has failed miserably and costs us Billions of Dollars a year to fight this "War
on Drugs". The approach of the USofA is wrong headed and self defeating.
Legalization of pot could produce Billions of dollars in tax revenues at a time when the USofA government is operating in a deficit.
The article discusses diversion in courts for treatment. The USofA could well afford to fund these sorts of resources for its people that are or
become addicted to drugs AND legalize pot. Addiction is not a legal problem, it is a Medical problem and needs to be treated as such.
Social sanction and Education have way more power to impact addiction than incarceration. Look at the success of the anti-smoking programs in the
USofA. Tobacco use has Decreased in the USofA due to Social Sanctions and Education. Social pressure is a powerful tool and education on the dark side
of drug use i.e. tobacco can be very useful in curbing consumption. There will always be addicts. Human beings are addictive organisms. Our current
approach to this problem is simply wrong headed and very costly.
I have posted extensively on this topic in the past so will not respond to the inevitable discussion that will ensue from this post.
Iflyfish
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Mexicorn
Senior Nomad
Posts: 772
Registered: 9-15-2009
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I agree legalize it. I personally dont smoke the stuff since I turned 19 and grew up. Now I'm all grown up and drink beer Oso etc etc etc...
Legalize it and tax the ship out of it!
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capt. mike
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8085
Registered: 11-26-2002
Location: Bat Cave
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old tired argument between 2 waring factions that's never going anywhere or will be resolved to anyon'e satisfaction.
formerly Ordained in Rev. Ewing\'s Church by Mail - busted on tax fraud.......
Now joined L. Ron Hoover\'s church of Appliantology
\"Remember there is a big difference between kneeling down and bending over....\"
www.facebook.com/michael.l.goering |
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Bob H
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| Quote: | Originally posted by capt. mike
old tired argument between 2 waring factions that's never going anywhere or will be resolved to anyon'e satisfaction. |
Mike, you are almost always right on! Wow
Bob H
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Bajahowodd
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From today's LA Times. The book- El Narco: La Guerra Fallida
Co-author Casteneda had an opinion piece posted on Nomad recently.
By Ken Ellingwood
January 1, 2010
Reporting from Mexico City - Almost everything to do with the Mexican government's war against drugs is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The threat from narco-trafficking is overblown. Fighting cartels won't stop the flow of illegal drugs or erase Mexican corruption. The real battle
over drugs lies on the U.S. side of the border.
That's the gist of a provocative new book that challenges virtually every premise on which Mexican President Felipe Calderon has based his 3-year-old
offensive against drug cartels.
"El Narco: La Guerra Fallida" ("Narco: The Failed War"), by two top officials under Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, is one of the first
book-length looks at the crackdown launched by Calderon when he took office in December 2006.
The Spanish-language book, which has sold well here, is controversial and stubbornly contrarian, to the point of suggesting that Mexico might be
better off coming to terms with the drug capos and focusing on smaller-bore crimes that plague Mexicans.
"Calderon could have easily launched a major crusade against insecurity, violence and unorganized crime, on the type of minor misdemeanors that gave
birth to Rudy Giuliani's zero tolerance stance in New York," the authors assert. "But that crusade would never have unleashed the passions, support or
sense of danger that a full-fledged war on drugs actually did."
In "El Narco," former Fox spokesman Ruben Aguilar and former Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda attempt an end run past the usual debate over whether
the Calderon anti-crime strategy is working. Instead, they maintain that the offensive was unnecessary, and they seek to poke holes in many of the
reasons Calderon has offered for launching a campaign that has claimed more than 15,000 lives.
The president's assertion that Mexico faced a crisis of deepening drug consumption at home? They present figures showing that though domestic use has
risen, it is minuscule compared with countries such as the United States.
Calderon's contention that drug violence had reached alarming levels when he decided to act? The authors quote studies showing that the nation's
overall homicide rate had been in decline for years. (It has gone up since.)
"Why in the world was it necessary to declare an all-out war against the cartels because of growing violence, when violence was actually diminishing?"
the authors ask.
The book argues that U.S. drug use -- the motor of the violent trafficking industry -- is largely unaffected by Mexico's enforcement actions. The
answer for Mexico, it says, lies in swinging debate north of the border in favor of drug decriminalization or legalization.
"If what is good for us is decriminalization, that is what we should fight for," write Aguilar and Castaneda, a leftist intellectual and commentator
who is the better known of the two.
The authors propose some public-safety measures, including creation of a national police force and a no-fly zone over southern Mexico. But rather than
send troops to fight drug cartels, they argue, Mexico should focus on limiting the "collateral damage" that most aggrieves Mexicans: kidnappings,
extortion, car theft and corruption.
This could mean "tacit quid pro quos" with gangs to get them to keep down criminal mayhem in Mexico's streets, the writers say, but it doesn't require
a formal handshake.
"The narcos understand," they say. "If they were imbeciles, they wouldn't be rich."
Aguilar and Castaneda contend that in launching the drug offensive, the conservative Calderon sought to win legitimacy for his presidency after a
disputed election victory in 2006. That thesis is heard often on the Mexican left.
Calderon hasn't directly referred to the authors, but he has sharply criticized those who he says would have Mexico run from the drug war or cut deals
with traffickers. He says such approaches would "erode the foundations that support our society, as a state based on law."
Calderon has frequently characterized his crime crackdown as an attempt to clean and modernize a system that had become thoroughly corrupted through
decades of official acceptance of the drug trade, or even outright collusion with it.
Last month, he urged Mexicans to "ignore those who naively want the government to just walk away from the fight, as if the problems would solve
themselves by magic."
The outspoken authors of "El Narco" are uncharacteristically spare when it comes to solving Mexico's graft problem. They agree that drug-related
corruption has long been part of the Mexican landscape, especially in small towns, but are skeptical of reports that traffickers' penetration of the
system had hit grave new depths when Calderon sent troops into the streets.
"This is Mexico, not Norway," they write. "Narcos' complicity with municipal, state and federal authorities wasn't born yesterday."
ken.ellingwood@latimes.com
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toneart
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| Quote: | Originally posted by capt. mike
old tired argument between 2 waring factions that's never going anywhere or will be resolved to anyon'e satisfaction. |
This statement would not be true if legalization would be acted on. I agree that it never will be resolved with this solution because too much
money goes into war and prisons...both big industries. Our culture has been duped into believing that this is necessary for our national security.
What a waste! What a failure! The priorities are all wrong, wrong (take a deep breath)...WRONG!
To identify our enemies is necessary. They are out there committing atrocities (Jihadists; Cartels). Military solutions are no longer viable. A whole
new paradigm is necessary in order to coexist in this troubled world. Our national intelligence agencies are a joke. Military Intelligence
is an oxymarooon!!! They don't communicate with each other and they are out there stirring up the sheisse, only to blunder and pi*s off the enemy.
That, in turn, incurs a violent push back. We need to get smart with our "intelligence".
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JESSE
Ultra Nomad
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Castañeda is an idiot, he dissapeared from radar 6 years ago, and now suddenly he is giving interviews one after another. Obviously he smells the
coming presidential elections.
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Bajahowodd
Elite Nomad
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I knew Jesse would come out of the shadows. My take on this is that Jesse is a small business owner. Casteneda is a leftist, the indication is that he
favors the common good, which may imperil small businesses. Jesse is correct in noting that there is an upcoming election. Realizing that Calderon
took office by the skin of his teeth, it would be a smart bet that the "leftist" party will do very well next time. What's going on right now is not
good for anyone. It is unlikely that the global hunger for drugs will disappear. Given that Calderon has about two years to work his magic, who wants
to bet that he will be victorious?
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