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You don't have to be a drug trafficker to object to the militarization of a social problem. Alleviate poverty, legalize drugs, promote good police work for violent crimes or grand theft, and heal society--instead of more and more killing, more and more guns, and ever-increasing drug and weapons traffic, no matter how much of a brutalizing, fascist, military boondoggle we throw at the problem.
We spend billions and billions and billions of dollars allegedly trying to break peoples' drug habits. It is insane, hypocritical and a failure. It is no more effective than Prohibition was. It needs to be ENDED.
And there is a more insidious aspect to the Bushwhack militarization of Mexico. At least half of Mexicans are leftists. The leftist candidate for president in 2005, Lopez-Obrador, came within a hairsbreadth (0.05%) of winning, and would have won had it not been for ballot box stuffing and electronic tabulator shenanigans late at night on election night. I have little doubt that the rightwing corporatist, Felipe Calderon, who 'won,' did so as the result of a deal with the Bushwhacks to privatize Mexico's oil (a constitutionally protected resource). He has had a hard time doing so, and hasn't succeeded so far. Mexicans are incensed about this, and the leftists in the legislature have forced public hearings.
Mexico is also suffering neo-liberal meltdown, with increasing vast poverty and displacement. They are likely to go leftist in the next election and then Mexico will join the huge block of leftist Latin American governments that are working for social justice and are into protecting the sovereignty of Latin American countries, specifically from bullying and interference by the U.S. (--with the U.S. "war on drugs" as one of the prime tools for doing so). This Latin American social justice/sovereignty block currently includes: Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua and Guatemala, and will soon include El Salvador (election soon; leftist way ahead; Honduras is also leaning left). The South American countries have gone ahead and formed a South American 'common market'--UNASUR, sans the U.S. In UNASUR's first important action, it united behind Evo Morales' government in Bolivia, when Morales threw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia, for funding/organizing a violent fascist coup attempt, this last September. UNASUR is working on including Central America/the Caribbean in this 'common market.' (Cuba is already a member.)
The corpo/fascists who rule over us do not want a huge 'common market' into social justice right on our doorstep. We might get ideas about social justice ourselves. We might want to throw off our corpo/fascist rulers and join that 'common market.'
So you see why the rightwing Mexican government--using their military, funded by billions from the U.S., and coordinated with the DEA, etc.--are stirring up so much shit in the border towns, including--in my opinion--pitting one drug gang against another, specifically to induce carnage, to justify a big military presence on the border--and, if the "war on drugs" in Colombia is any guide, using the opportunity to brutalize, intimidate and even kill union leaders, leftist and community organizers, human rights workers, journalists and anyone who opposes fascism and a police state. Don't get me wrong. Some drug gangs are certainly violent. I'm saying pouring fascist, militaristic tactics on everything else is deliberately designed to make things worse. Further, I have no confidence that the Mexican military or the U.S. DEA is not filthy corrupt on drug trafficking and weapons trafficking themselves. They may be favoring their own drug gangs and capturing/killing off the competition.
Politically, this new, Bushwhack-funded "war on drugs" militarism in Mexico is intended to bolster rightwing forces, to prevent the left from winning the next election, to inspire fear and terror, so that some people are fooled into preferring "strong" fascist government, to cause mayhem (a la Rumsfeld's tactics in Iraq), and to cloud our perceptions about what is really going on in Mexico (the deliberate impoverishment of millions), and create Mexico as a militarized bulwark against UNASUR and the leftist political tide that is sweeping Latin America.
Alvaro Colom, the new progressive president of Guatemala, had, as his campaign poster, when he ran for office, two open hands and a dove. His opponent, a ferocious fascist, had a poster with an angry clenched fist. The issue was the "war on drugs." Colom agrees with me that alleviating poverty is the number one priority solution to the drug trade. I don't know if he wants to legalize drugs*, but he is opposed to militarization of the problem. His rightwing opponent is like our Bushwhacks--war is the answer to everything. He wanted to instigate a police "crackdown." Colom won!
This is one of THE core issues within Latin American countries, and between Latin American countries and the U.S. The trend is going against the U.S. "war on drugs" in many countries (notably Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela), and often the issue is not only the insanity, corruption, murderousness and failure of this "war" but also the sovereignty of the country. For instance, Rafael Correa, the hugely popular new president of Ecuador, pledged to evict the U.S. "war on drugs" military base from Ecuador. He said he would permit it to stay when the U.S. permits Ecuador to have a military base in Miami. The hugely popular new president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, just threw the DEA (and the U.S. ambassador) out of Bolivia, for supporting the fascist coup attempt (which descended into rioting and mass murder).
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*(A group of former Latin American presidents just made an announcement calling for the legalization of marijuana. I can't remember the occasion. But the idea has now been publicly floated. Bolivia's new Constitution, just passed by some 60% of the voters, legalizes coca leaves as the sacred medicine herb of the indigenous. Bolivia doesn't approve of cocaine or drug gangs, but it does make this SANE distinction, honoring a thousand year old tradition of chewing coca leaves or drinking coca leaf tea for nutrition and to survive in the icy, high altitudes of the Andes mountains.)
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