News Analysis - Mexico's drug war must be run from Los Pinos, not from Washington
Mérida, Yucatán --
The Mexican government pays as much or more attention to events on Capitol Hill as do most Americans - especially when those events would directly impact the affairs of this country. So when a Republican panel of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee today approved a bill which would define Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations, as well as mandate a U.S "evaluation" of Mexico's internal institutions and capacity to confront organized crime within its own borders, president Felipe Calderon's administration was ready with firm disapproval. HR 3401 likely will go nowhere in the long run, but it's bound to create some hard feelings between the United States and Mexico in the short.
Los Pinos, Mexico's White House, was plainly annoyed by the characterization of the $1.6 billion Mérida Initiative as a failure, an analysis offered by the Republican draftsmen of the Enhanced Border Security Act, HR 3401. But worse still is the bill's announced purpose of launching counterinsurgency efforts against Mexican drug cartels, to be organized and spearheaded by agencies and departments of the United States government. No longer would the U.S. just be helping Mexico to fight its own war against narcotics trafficking; under the new plan it would be taking over that war. It conjures up memories of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's recent "boots on the ground" speech, where he implied that the U.S. might need to send soldiers into Mexico.
This evening Patricia Espinosa, Mexico's Foreign Minister, dismissed the idea of any link between the drug cartels and terrorist groups. She said that Mexico has seen no evidence of a connection between its domestic criminals and international organizations, and cited, as the best evidence, the fact that terrorists have never entered U.S. territory from Mexico (unless, of course, you care to count the drug traffickers who cross the border every day). While deftly declaring that her country "respects all viewpoints and opinions of members of the U.S. Congress," she emphasized that Mexico "is never going to authorize any type of cooperation between the two nations which overrides internationally recognized standards of national sovereignty." Translation: butt out, Congress.
Despite Espinosa's comments, the Mexican government must understand that there is indeed a very international component to narcotics trafficking. The U.S. government estimates that about $39 billion in Latin American drug profits are laundered through the American banking system every year. Two weeks ago we learned that U.S. Drug Enforcement agents wash hundreds of millions of dollars of dirty drug profits annually for the cartels, even loading the cash on government airplanes and flying it back to the States where it's deposited in banks. Espinosa emphasized this evening that her government knew nothing of the DEA operation, and never authorized it. Perhaps that's true, but surely no one in the Calderón administration could have been too surprised by the news, including the boss himself. I suspect that the real sensitivity here, and understandably so, is today's congressional suggestion that Mexico's drug war, which has thus far cost over 40,000 lives, should be managed from Washington rather than from the Federal District.
HR 3401, which probably won't be very popular on either side of the border, is likely to end up in the shredder. The vast majority of bills introduced in the House and the Senate, fortunately, never make it into law. The Mérida Initiative was approved by Congress at the behest of president George W. Bush in 2008, and it's already been more than half funded ($900 million of the promised $1.6 billion). We shouldn't switch strategies now. Mexico needs to fight its own drug war, as long and as hard as that road may be, even though the United States bears heavy responsibility for the conflict due to its uncontrolled drug addiction and its eager willingness to sell (or give) firearms to almost anybody who asks. Last but not least, very few in the U.S. will have an appetite for another Afghanistan or Iraq just south of El Paso. All are reasons enough to stay the course with the Mérida Initiative.
U.S. drug commando teams are all over Central America
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