High Country News has an interesting article on how Mexico is becoming a failed state. All because of the Drug War.
The man talking on the screen was recruited by the drug industry in Ciudad Juarez, sent to the state police academy, where he got around $150 a month as a student and around $1,000 a month from the drug industry as their sponsored law enforcement person. He was also trained by the FBI in Tucson, Ariz., (he told me the training was very good) and headed an anti-kidnapping squad in Juarez. And he also kidnapped people, almost all of whom died once their families were drained of money.
I helped make the film the man is watching, and he knows this. He is mesmerized by the man talking. And he is angry at me, because I know such a man, someone like the killers who took his son and sold him back for some money. Fortunately.
If the press reports this sort of thing, it is framed as part of a War on Drugs that must be won. These stories are fables at best. There is no serious War on Drugs. Rather, there is violence, nourished by the money to be made from drugs. And there are U.S. industries whose primary lifeblood comes from fighting a war on drugs. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, has 225,000 employees and a budget of $42 billion, part of which is aimed at making America safe from Mexico and Mexicans. Narcotics officers in the U.S. cost at least $40 billion a year. The world's largest prison industry would collapse without the intake of drug convicts, and, in recent years, of illegal Mexican migrants. And around the republic there are big new federal courthouses rising that would be cobwebbed without the steady flow from drug busts and the Mexican poor coming north.
It is just a matter of time until this sort of thing crosses the border and becomes an American problem. Of course considering the cost it already is an American problem. And we are financing this with our War On Some Drugs. Some day we will surrender the fight. And then we will have the aftermath where the drug gangs turn to other "opportunities" for profit. The aftermath of the War On Alcohol lasted some 20 or 30 years. The sooner we can get over the war on drugs the sooner we will get over the aftermath.
I would say that story illustrates the result of what's really causing the failure of Mexico, its gov't.
Mexico has oil, great coasts, very cool ruins and hard-working people, but since the gov't is a thugocratic kleptocracy that exercises no control over its constituent parts, it's a third-world craphole.
It hasn't fundamentally changed in forever, drugs just mean a lot of money so the problem's worse, not different.
That said, the HCN guy really needs to remember that DHS includes the Coast Guard, FEMA, the Secret Service, TSA, and Citizenship and Immigration services, in addition to the more relevant ICE and CBP departments.
225,000 employees and $42 billion, yes, but it's not exactly all about border guards.
Their budget (pdf) suggests that ICE and CBP are only 30% of the budget.
(Some of the Coast Guard spending is on interdiction, too, but that's more boats of coke from Colombia...)
And of course, they have plain ol' non-drug-war border stations and inspections to deal with, and there'd be huge political pressure to keep illegal workers out even if there was no drug war.
So, I don't accept the tactic he uses of pretending that the entire DHS budget is somehow "drug war spending" and thus it must be counted as pressure against reform.
The drug war is mostly stupid and counterproductive, and Mexico's problems are exacerbated (not created) by it... but that specific part of the argument is shoddy.
Sigivald · March 12, 2010 6:33 PM
This blog is so unreal.
They're getting ready to burn The Reichstag and you're discussing drugs?
I don't know, maybe that's appropriate.
Frank · March 13, 2010 12:02 AM
I have tried, but simply cannot work up a good head of steam against illegal immigration. Every time I try, it seems that I end up thinking the immigration laws are the problem rather than the illegals.
To me, the drug war is a separate question. Drug traffickers are criminals regardless their north/south orientation to the border. That said... were there no War On Drugs, their power would be greatly diminished.
As for illegal immigration, I think I may be one of the few people who "should" have a legitimate gripe against it. My daughter was in need of an emergency C Section in a small border town hospital. It was at the point where I knew I stood to lose both my daughter and granddaughter... and it took an extra 30 minutes to prepare a surgical suite for her because the one that "should" have been available was occupied by an illegal.
However... the truth of the matter was that because the illegal had no say in the matter, she was assigned the most incompetent OB/GYN in the area. He could accept her as a patient because he had few others. It's possible she really needed a C-Section and that it really was an emergency.
I'll never know for sure about that particular case. I do know the doctor she was assigned was considered incompetent and that his caseload had an unusually high number of C-Sections.
What I can't do is blame the woman who had hiked up and halfway down an 8000 ft. mountain to deliver her baby in the U.S. Had I been in her situation, I'm pretty sure I would have tried to do the same.
During the three years my daughter lived so close to the border, I spent about six months at her house. One form of entertainment there was watching the border patrol in action. And inaction...
It didn't take me long to figure out that the border patrol operated on a 9-5 schedule. The drugs and the dangerous people came over the mountain at night. If I could see the lights and hear the engines, I'm pretty sure the border patrol could also.
Most of the inspection stations that I've seen are 50+ miles inside the U.S. border. We're going to catch what there? I've driven through them many times and they've always just waved me through. Sure, I could only hide one or two illegals in my car... but I have no reason to think they would ever check because I'm an old white lady.
To tell ya the truth, I'm a bit worried because I'll be helping my daughter move to the DFW area in a few months. I'm wondering if the border patrol will let me through when my old Caddy is near dragging the ground loaded with stuff the military can't/won't move for them.
I've already decided that my daughter and son-in-law will be behind me when we go through the inspection station. I'll want help re-loading the car... if they don't arrest me for bootlegging. (Booze is one of the things that moving companies won't carry.)
Unfortunately, without his military ID and uniform, my son-in-law could be (and has been) mistaken for either an illegal immigrant or ME terrorist.
What I'm thinking is that all this crap has got to stop. Our laws are not currently effective. And they unduly cause fear in the most law-abiding citizens.
And there is a truth expressed by those who say that illegals do jobs that U.S. citizens won't. One of the things my daughter found out was that once she moved away from the border, she could find people willing to mow her lawn while her husband was deployed. No reasonable amount of money could hire someone to do that near the border.
Our laws and our methods of enforcement are counter-productive in so many ways.
I thought it was about spending our children into slavery. There is a lot of money in the drug war that could be used to reverse or slow the direction of the money flows.
And then there are our liberties.
And when they come for you what if their reason is " I suspected he had drugs" ? Or "we found traces of cocaine on your money" (about 90% of all cash in circulation has traces of cocaine on it). Or "my specially trained drug dog (who alerts on signal) indicated you are a drug kingpin" ?
And Frank, what about the drug war excuse for keeping a vast array of police and prisons in existence - far in excess of what would be required for normal policing?
Simon:
You are absolutely correct. I don't dispute anything you have posted about the drug war and the loss of freedom. My only point was that right now there is something just as bad on the verge of becoming law: the health care bill. It will criminalize anyone who does not buy health insurance and fails to pay a fine.
In a way, this is worse than criminalizing drug use because it fores people to participate in their own enslavement.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
I would say that story illustrates the result of what's really causing the failure of Mexico, its gov't.
Mexico has oil, great coasts, very cool ruins and hard-working people, but since the gov't is a thugocratic kleptocracy that exercises no control over its constituent parts, it's a third-world craphole.
It hasn't fundamentally changed in forever, drugs just mean a lot of money so the problem's worse, not different.