I don't usually get stumped by these things. But, why is Mexico fumbling this thing so badly? They now have a 20 year old as chief of police of CJ. A birthday party with a bunch of kids was gunned down. Why not declare martial law for a time period and call in the army? Why not ask for help from the Mounties, DEA, FBI and other nation's police forces? Here's the deal, Mexico isn't a resourceless nation. It has a population of over a 100 million, they have more money than what most people know, a GDP $1.5 trillion, and two SUPER rich neighbors who have deep pockets. What political issues are there that is preventing Mexico from stopping the violence on the borders? ~String
Massive systemic corruption, entrenched as normal course of doing business, from the lowest public officials to the highest office of government.
And don't forget drugs. The corruption is essentially funded by America's desire to get high. Most Mexicans are less drug prone. I suggested, half in jest, a few years ago that we should annex the country. In reality, that would probably help it...
Probably Mexicans are less hard drug users but not necessarily true for other parts of South Americ\Central America etc. Not to mention Canada, Europe and everywhere else the drugs go to. Also the drugs usually dont start in Mexico, necessarily. Except for weed and Meth labs which of course are produced elsewhere as well.
The corruption was entrenched long before there was a drug problem in the United States or Mexico. La Mordita, was a way of life in Mexican government long before there was a U.S. or a drug problem in the U.S.
NAFTA, among others. The corruption in Mexico flows from not only drugs, but also oil and banking and agribusiness. Mexico is right next to Texas, also Guatemala and Honduras and El Salvador. The political implications are obvious. But the central problem might be holdover Spanish land distribution. The de facto land redistribution that the frontier provided the US never happened in Mexico - their revolution was within a country politically demarcated and divvied up. Imagine if the whole of the US had been carved up into Virginia plantations, or otherwise according to the land grants of the French and Spanish and English royalty, and then "democracy" built on that foundation - as an internal peasants' revolt.
Now for starters I have no love for NAFTA or GAT, so now expound on how said treaty is preventing Mexico from stopping the violence on the border, and across Mexico? I will tell you one thing that would help the violence.....The U.S. Goverment stop sending weapons to Mexico that end up in the hands of the Cartels because of the corruption in the Mexican Government, Federal Police, and Mexican Army. Corruption has been systemic in the Mexican Government since Mexico was founded. La Mordita has been a way of life in government since the time of the Spanish Don's, the only difference is the level of violence that accompanies this corruption today. La Mordita is the way of Politics, Business, and Life in Mexico, pay it, or take it ,the alternative is that if you don't some one just might Kill you for standing on principles, and the next man in line will get the message.
There is an idea America should pull out of the Mid East, Europe and Asia and poke their nose in their own back garden in Mexico, where it belongs.
No, he doesn't. Mexico isn't geo-strategically important. At least not yet (George Friedmand thinks it will be in 75 years or so). And leaving the ME doesn't mean our problems go away, or that the terrorists suddenly go away or the oil and the chaos there are suddenly unimportant.
That's more-or-less what they did in the TJ area (and some others) like a year ago. Disarmed all of the local police, sent in big legions of Federales, sacked a bunch of corrupt law enforcement officers, etc. Doesn't seem to have worked particularly well. On the one hand, they do already get a lot of cooperation from exactly those agencies. On the other hand, there is a very, very, very strong taboo in Mexican society against the presence of any foreign troops in Mexico (and particularly, American troops), for any reason. So this sort of cooperation always has to be somewhat under-the-table. Any Mexican politician seen to acquiesce in allowing foreign military, police or intelligence personnel to operate in Mexico will see his political career go down in flames, rapidly. Even things like cross-border cooperation and intelligence sharing can be risky. More generally: Mexico has no interest in defeating the drug trafficking business. It draws billions and billions of hard currency into Mexico's economy every year. Their concerns are managing US expectations that they kill themselves fighting an unwinnable war (which the US could end tomorrow by legalizing drugs), and making sure that the cartels don't accumulate too much political power or otherwise undermine their internal legitimacy. I.e., the lable "Civil War" is misleading - the violence only occurs when there are shifts in the power distribution between the cartels, which fighting the war actually exacerbates. The same ones that prevent the US from stopping the mass production, distribution and consumption of illegal drugs in America: it is not possible to begin with. We can either legalize drugs and see an end to the violence and cartels, or we can keep prohibition and fight an endless war against better-funded, more-determined opponents. All that's left to Mexico is to cope however they can with the impact of our decisions on them.
