DRUG-funded violence is creating a level of civic fear in Mexico not known since the Toltec days and Montezuma. Like it or not, helping Mexicans restore civil order within their society is now our battle also.
Today’s terror in Mexico is tomorrow’s terror on US soil; indeed, the violence has already started crossing into the US side of the border. To protect ourselves, we must help our beleaguered neighbors decisively and effectively put an end to the rippling massacres.
Mexico’s courageous President Felipe Calderon is still standing tall in the face of terrible odds – having lost many lieutenants and confronting what some describe as an army of drug-funded killers.
Since Calderon’s decision in early 2006 to put an end to drug-trafficker dominance of Mexico’s provinces on the US border and penetration of much of their federal government, nearly 10,000 people have been killed – mostly drug-runners, awash in internecine violence, and law enforcers.
Nearly 6,000 died last year, roughly twice the number in 2007. Another 1,000 have been killed already this year.
Innocents are now being swept into the vortex through vendetta killings of friends and family members and drive-by shootings – as well as by kidnappings of foreigners. Respect for human life is disintegrating.
Drug money has already corrupted much of Mexican officialdom, including law enforcement. Calderon is valiantly trying to reverse that trend – and it’s in our interest to help him. Violence isn’t all that will cross the border – corruption will spread, too. In 2007, the Department of Homeland Security opened 79 investigations into border corruption in four US states along the Mexican border, more than twice the number four years earlier.
Yet the Obama administration has been minimizing discussions with Congress on needed aid to Mexico. Why fiddle while the border burns?
Perhaps this is related to an apparent shift in US anti-drug policy. The Obama team is attacking the Drug Enforcement Agency efforts to enforce federal law in California against “medicinal-marijuana” sellers and, to the dismay of parent and anti-drug groups nationwide, quietly took down anti-marijuana and anti-THC information long posted on the White House Office of National Drug Control Web site.
But whatever the reasons, glossing over Mexico’s crisis is a tremendous mistake.
Just as President John Kennedy declared “Ich bin ein Berliner,” drawing a line in the sand to help desperate Germans in 1961, today we’re all Mexicans. The US government must recognize the plight of innocent Mexicans making a valiant stand against lawlessness and see in their current fatigue our own future, if we don’t act.
For two years, an effort to get $1.5 billion to Mexico for a one-two punch combining their resources and ours ping-ponged back and forth between the Bush White House and the Democratic Congress. (And there were added delays within both branches of government.) The ping-pong game must end, and the new administration and Congress must look this national-security issue squarely in the eye.
Indeed, Mexico’s needs – and the threat to our own nation – have only grown as Washington played ping-pong.
Our leaders need to be looking at following up that $1.5 billion with vastly more aid – and soon. How about investing in $10 billion for law and order in Mexico – a third of what we just gave AIG in the last dark-of-the-night bailout? This battle is not on the other side of the globe; it’s here, next door.
Today, 82 percent of all legitimate exports from Mexico end up in US households. Nearly 50 percent of all Mexican imports come from US workers and the US economy. Mexico is our No. 3 source of oil, for more than 514 million barrels a year.
Yes, Mexican drugs come north. US arms and suitcases of drug money go south. The border could be better protected on both sides. But let us get down to brass tacks, if not brass knuckles.
If the United States doesn’t focus more attention to Latin America, starting now with Mexico; if we don’t get serious about our border, about aggressively assisting Mexico in putting down drug-driven disorder – we’ll find that the next mop-up operation will be in a US city or town.
Let’s not wait for that day. Misery may love company, but good company helps put out the misery of neighbors. This is where public and private diplomacy, national security, law enforcement and common sense converge. Courage should be rewarded, peace preserved through strength. Let’s call it change we can believe in.
Robert B. Charles is a former assistant secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and author of “Narcotics and Terrorism.”