Saturday, September 4, 2010

US Foreign Policy Goes Schizophrenic Again

The long running US declared "War On Drugs" has been marked by flat out schizophrenia more than a few times. Without exception the schized out stance has been caused by the almost inevitably contradictory demands of halting the transportation of illegal drugs by armed organizations whose arsenals of weapons are equaled by satchels of bribe-ready cash on the one hand and the considerations of human rights on the other.

This time around the attack of schizophrenic policy is directed at Mexico. For the first time the State Department has exercised its authority under the legislation establishing the Merida Initiative to withhold fifteen percent of the scheduled tranche if Mexico does not meet certain required milestones in human rights protection. State announced it is cutting 26 megabucks from the allocated 175 million USD.

The "punishment" was invoked in the hope of halting the escalating number of human rights violations allegedly committed by the Mexican Army in its anti-drug operations. Additionally, the Obama administration is seeking to compel the Mexican government to try soldiers in civilian courts for any and all purported human rights abuses.

The army has been accused of an ever growing number of human rights offenses. The number of complaints lodged against military personnel has grown ninefold from 2006 (206) to 2010 (1833) with serious crimes (murder, torture, rape, and kidnapping) increasing from zero to thirty in the same time period. The serious offenses have been confirmed by the Mexican government's own Human Rights Commission, which is a generally reliable source.

Considering the nature of the conflict, the level of violence, the irrelevance of most Mexican army training to the demands of counter-drug operations, the capacity and political will of the drug cartel members, the level of human rights abuses is not overly high. As the recent shootouts between Mexican troops and cartel trigger-pullers demonstrate, the level of combat is not dissimilar with that experienced by US personnel in Afghanistan.

The conflict between cartels and government has resulted in sufficient dead bodies to be considered a very real war. It is a war which the Mexican Army did not want to fight. And, more importantly, is not yet ready to fight in a way which would both guarantee an absence of human rights abuses and the suppression of the cartels.

There is nothing in Mexican Army doctrine, training, or historical experience which would have allowed it to step into the unaccustomed role of operating in support of the civil power. When President Calderon took the step of declaring open war on the cartels, he must (or at least, should) have known the army was not competent to the task--particularly if the job was to be done without the slightest risk of any civilian having any right infringed upon in any way.

The realities surrounding the judicial and law enforcement systems in Mexico four years ago did not leave Sr Calderon much choice. Frankly, he had only two alternatives at that time or more recently. The first was arranging an armistice with the cartels allowing them to move their product through Mexico without hindrance by the government (beyond the customary bribes to local authorities.) The second was the course chosen, the assertion of government supremacy over the cartels.

The pervasive corruption which had been such an open secret for so many years that the outstretched hand of the cop was a staple of humor was exploited to the fullest by the cartels. The result was simply that no Mexican police force at any level of government was not totally compromised by one cartel or another. Anti-drug operations were known by the target(s) in, shall we say, a timely manner.

The Army was not so heavily penetrated, at least not immediately, so its operations had a level of security and surprise which brought early and impressive success. Below the surface of media reports, however, the army went further than conducting search and destroy or search and clear operations. In many areas, particularly near the US border, the army executed what locals politely called "cleansing" actions.

In short, the Mexican army did what so many other LatAm armed forces had done in earlier years--"disappeared" people associated with the cartels. These distasteful actions did have the beneficial effect of severely perturbing some--but not all--of the several cartels. By the time the central government forced an end to the "cleansing" operations, in large measure due to legitimate fear of US disapproval, the net effect had been the weakening but not destruction of the cartels.

As a result the cartels abandoned the market distribution agreement and launched their increasingly bloody fight for turf and profit. Another consequence was the development of a new level of armed competence on the part of the cartels. The Zetas, who later hived off to form a new, independent cartel, started as an enforcement and defense force.

Many Zetas were former Mexican Army personnel including former members of the country's Special Forces. This assured not only greater paramilitary capacity but a higher level of violence. The Zetas had both the skills and resolve necessary to conduct operations not only in Mexico but in the US as well.

Because the Mexican Army could not land a fatal blow in the early days of the war, the situation rapidly came to resemble that in Afghanistan after the initial American "incomplete success." The cartels regrouped, retrained, re-equipped and came back bigger and badder than before.

As the months rolled by and the bodies piled higher, the character of the violence shifted in a subtle but significant way. While much of the lethal violence was cartel on cartel and accompanied by iconic displays of ruthlessness, and another significant percentage was the result of government, primarily military, action, an increasing proportion was essentially random. In a very real sense the culture of death took on a life of its own, particularly in areas such as Cuidad Juarez, which were and had been epicenters of the drug trade.

While not yet achieving the truly Himalayan heights of lethality exemplified by Caracas, the daily body counts in Juarez show the city is less safe than Kabul or even Kandahar. Making the dynamic worse is the way in which simple murder has been transformed into a high art of terrorism. The decapitations, the dismemberments, the partial burnings, the maiming of corpses, the rolling of heads into nightclubs, the indiscriminate shootings, the ever higher chance of becoming dead simply by virtue of having been in the wrong place at the wrong time have all conspired to turn Juarez and the adjacent valley into monuments to fear, loss of confidence, failure of faith.

Faith in the government, in the military, in the rule of law, in the future, in even one's self is a rapidly eroding factor of life. Even a cursory trip (all that is possible or advisable given the realities of life and death) quickly convinces a visitor that only an ending of the violence will restore the faith in self and community without which no government can survive let alone accomplish anything.

The locals, not unlike their counterparts in Afghanistan, want an end to the fear, an end to the looming specter of violent death, an end to the display of corpses dangling from bridges, impaled on fence posts, stuffed into trash barrels, an end to the screech of assault rifles. Easy to understand one would think even for an inhabitant of Foggy Bottom for whom pervasive fear is limited to the next performance review.

The people of Cuidad Juarez lose little love for the army in their midst, but, as one put it with the bluntness of being a combat veteran, "All can be forgiven--if I'm still alive to do the forgiving." Yes, and all can be rebuilt, restored, regained if only the faith came back which will happen if and only if the violence is stopped.

Whether anyone--in Foggy Bottom or in Mexico City--likes it or not, only the Mexican Army has the slightest potential of ending the violence before the violence ends, perhaps not Mexico, but the most embattled, most blood soaked parts of the country. This means with the horrid inevitability of a boulder falling from a steep cliff that there will be more violations of human rights. Even as the Mexican Army becomes better trained, better led, better at the job of waging low-intensity internal war, the violations will continue albeit at a lower level (if all goes right.)

Whether all goes right depends in large degree on how willing and able the Mexican armed forces are to listen to American advice. How willing it is to take lessons hard learned by US personnel in the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. That willingness is in no way enhanced by actions such as the "punishing" inflicted by the worthies of the US State Department.

The decision makers at Foggy Bottom show an alarming lack of familiarity with some ground truths in Mexico. They seem, for example, unaware that the Mexican armed forces are totally unwilling to put their personnel under the purview of civilian law enforcement and judicial systems for reasons both historical and pragmatic in nature.

On a larger level it seems the people in charge (does that include you, Madam Secretary or are you too wrapped up in the search for a Mideast peace?) are oblivious to Mexican hyper-nationalism. As has been the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, the lads and lassies at State are of the apparent view that nationalism is moot, no longer operative, a reactionary hangover from the bad old days of the past.

The Mexican government and army rather resemble what General George Patton once said of armies generally (including the American,) "like a piece of cooked spaghetti, can't be pushed, only pulled." And, that means being led, not by the nose, but by patient advice and example.

The current administration and its State Department have to decide which is more important, which is more urgent a priority: Ending the violence and restoring governance in Juraez and other war zones or forcing some Mexican snuffy to stand before a civilian bar of justice. In a world where realism had a higher value than idealism, the choice would be simple.

Realism demands that the violence and its effects be ended without delay. When that has occurred it will be both possible and utterly essential that the weight be placed on the side of human rights. Until then, it must be remembered that the most basic human right of all, the right without which no others are possible, is the right to life, life without pervasive, enervating, all destroying fear.

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