Narco State in the Making?
As if you don't have enough to worry about, here is something that has been on my mind the last few days.
Here are a few excerpts from a list of articles published in the L.A. Times recently:
"Gunmen kill 4, wound top security official in Michoacan"- April 25
"8 killed in ambush in Ciudad Juarez...A 17-year-old passerby and at least seven officers are slain as two police cars are attacked."- April 24
"Drug war ensnares Morelos state...Violence has increased recently in Morelos due to a battle for control of a drug cartel. Nearly 50 people have been killed in the state this year."- April 21
"Mexico death toll in drug war higher than previously reported...More than 22,000 have died since President Felipe Calderon launched his crackdown on drug trafficking gangs"- April 14
"Mexico drug gangs turn weapons on army...In northern states this week, gunmen fought troops and sought to confine some to their bases by cutting off access and blocking roads. The aggression shows they are not afraid to challenge the army."- April 20
"Mexico military faces political risks over drug war...As the death toll keeps climbing in Calderon’s crackdown on the drug trade, there is a growing feeling that the army has been less than effective as a police force."- March 23
Believe me, there's plenty more. Well, here's what worries me: This doesn't seem like a battle with drug dealers like we have had in this country with the Crips and Bloods. Drug dealers are interested in profits, and use violence to maintain their control on their market. But there is another mixture of drugs and guns that we have seen in the last couple of years, in Columbia, say, or Somalia or perhaps more pertinently in Afghanistan: violent organizations in which the guns are not in the service of the drugs, but the drugs are in the service of the guns: groups who have transformed themselves so that their real goal is power and control, and the drug profits are just a means to finance that end.
Decades of right wing governments in Mexico and support of those governments by supine American leaders on both sides of the political aisle may well have produced a truly frightening prospect: a failed narco-state controlled largely by violent warlords, right on our border. A state in which any kind of illegal, hateful, violent group can grow virtually unmolested, a thirty second swim from the United States. A state that can and will become a haven to Islamic extremists, neo-Nazis, and any other group that is willing to play this game- the one we are seeing in Afghanistan and Somalia today. What will we do then? I wish I had a clue.
Here are a few excerpts from a list of articles published in the L.A. Times recently:
"Gunmen kill 4, wound top security official in Michoacan"- April 25
"8 killed in ambush in Ciudad Juarez...A 17-year-old passerby and at least seven officers are slain as two police cars are attacked."- April 24
"Drug war ensnares Morelos state...Violence has increased recently in Morelos due to a battle for control of a drug cartel. Nearly 50 people have been killed in the state this year."- April 21
"Mexico death toll in drug war higher than previously reported...More than 22,000 have died since President Felipe Calderon launched his crackdown on drug trafficking gangs"- April 14
"Mexico drug gangs turn weapons on army...In northern states this week, gunmen fought troops and sought to confine some to their bases by cutting off access and blocking roads. The aggression shows they are not afraid to challenge the army."- April 20
"Mexico military faces political risks over drug war...As the death toll keeps climbing in Calderon’s crackdown on the drug trade, there is a growing feeling that the army has been less than effective as a police force."- March 23
Believe me, there's plenty more. Well, here's what worries me: This doesn't seem like a battle with drug dealers like we have had in this country with the Crips and Bloods. Drug dealers are interested in profits, and use violence to maintain their control on their market. But there is another mixture of drugs and guns that we have seen in the last couple of years, in Columbia, say, or Somalia or perhaps more pertinently in Afghanistan: violent organizations in which the guns are not in the service of the drugs, but the drugs are in the service of the guns: groups who have transformed themselves so that their real goal is power and control, and the drug profits are just a means to finance that end.
Decades of right wing governments in Mexico and support of those governments by supine American leaders on both sides of the political aisle may well have produced a truly frightening prospect: a failed narco-state controlled largely by violent warlords, right on our border. A state in which any kind of illegal, hateful, violent group can grow virtually unmolested, a thirty second swim from the United States. A state that can and will become a haven to Islamic extremists, neo-Nazis, and any other group that is willing to play this game- the one we are seeing in Afghanistan and Somalia today. What will we do then? I wish I had a clue.
Comments
No, this is not like the Blips and the Cruds. It's more analogous to the war with organized crime during Prohibition, when they were able to accumulate money and power in the same way, because legal suppliers were shut out of the alcohol market.
If Prohibition had never been repealed, it's conceivable that the Mafia might have grown so rich and powerful that it could have posed the same kind of challenge to lawful government in this country that the drug-fueled gangs do in Mexico and Columbia today.
Mexico and Columbia cannot deal with this problem on their own. The policies in the US which guarantee a constant flow of money to the criminal gangs need to be changed.
And if anyone thinks that the drug laws are actually effective at limiting access to drugs, I've been told (by someone who's been there) that illegal drugs can be obtained inside prisons in this country.
No whole country, even a police state, can be as tightly controlled as a prison, yet even prisons can't keep drugs out.
Decriminalize and regulate. That will cut off the flow of money and let the Mexicans take their country back.
Of course, every word you say is true, and I agree, although I am not sure that I really want to see free,open use of Heroin.
What concerns me is that we and the Mexicans have conspired to let this situation deteriorate so far that it isn't primarily about drugs any more, but has now become about political control of the country- that drug profits have become so enormous that they can now finance not just thugs but armies, as in Afghanistan.
At least during prohibition Capone et. al. never threatened to actually take control of Illinois. I am not sure you can say the same of what is going on in Mexico today.