In Mexico Every Day Is The Day Of The Dead

The Mexican internal war flows along in its self-created river of blood.  So far this year more than ten thousand have been killed in the fighting between criminal cartels as well as between the government and the gangsters.  Since the war was officially declared by President Calderon, nearly thirty thousand people were converted from living, breathing, hoping, and fearing human beings into sanitation problems.  That's right, nearly thirty thousand dead since December 2006.

It's a sucker bet that the body count will exceed 30,000 by the day the fourth anniversary comes along.  Over seven thousand a year, nearly twenty new corpses a day.  Almost one an hour, each and every hour for four years.  Compared to that, the combined American fatality toll in Afghanistan and Iraq amounts to a mere bagatelle.

For all the death and fear precious little has been accomplished.  The flow of drugs has not decreased.  Nor has the price to the end user increased.  And, the purity of the final product has not degraded.  As an effort to block the movement of illegal drugs across the Mexican-US border, the Calderon campaign has been a total failure.

At the same time the assorted cartels have expanded their operations from the smuggling of drugs to other profit nodes.  The cartels smuggle people.  They hijack cargoes of assorted merchandise and smuggle them into the American market.  As sidelines the gangs kidnap for ransom, run protection rackets, and burgle everything not nailed down.  For fun the gangsters rape, beat, and murder.  It's a good life, being a member of a gang--unless the opposition or your own bosses take you out.

During all the down and dirty criminal merriment, the gangs have brought corruption to a new level.  For years, generations, the predilection of Mexican cops for bribes has been the stuff of both popular humor and personal tragedy.  The question was not, "is this cop corrupt?" but "how much will it cost?"  The Calderon government has tried to stamp out or at least limit the corruption of local police, but faced with the "silver or lead" tradition, the efforts have failed.

When the cops either could not be bought or, once bought, did not stay bought, the gangs have had a simple solution.  Cops, local or state or federal have died in wholesale lots.  On the local level it has not been uncommon the past year for the survivors to turn in their badges with unseemly but prudent haste.

The judicial system is no less corrupt--when it isn't simply being inefficient.  The system cannot handle the relatively small number of gangsters who are arrested.  The lack of public confidence in the judiciary and police is reflected in the estimate that only a minority of serious crimes are ever reported.  Not that making a report matters.  Very, very few suspected criminals are ever arrested and even fewer come to trial.  Of that unfortunate minor fraction, even fewer are convicted, and still fewer ever see the inside of a slammer.

The motto for a Mexican gangster should be, "What? Me Worry?"  That is a realistic attitude.

The gangs have not been indifferent to the attraction of buying politicians.  While killing the politico has a long history in Mexico, the notion of purchase in wholesale quantities is of relatively recent origin.  But, if there is one thing the gangs have in inexhaustible amounts, it is money.  Flush with cash, the gangs have found buying politicians to be a good investment.  After all, the best way to stop the Calderon Campaign is through politics. Need one know more?

To be successful, it is best if corruption takes place in the shadows.  A politician or a judge or even a local cop is an ineffective agent of gang interests if it is known that he has been bought and paid for.  Thus, keeping journalists quiet has become a high priority for the gangs.  Since pistoleros don't care who they cap, the killing of journalists is as easy to accomplish as the killing of rival gang members.

As a result of the stop-the-news effort, journalists in Mexico are at a greater risk of becoming corpses than are members of the Mexican army.  One of the most, perhaps the most, dangerous places to practice the craft of journalism today is Mexico.  Not surprisingly, the papers are loath to practice investigative journalism or even make a big deal out of the daily tripping over bodies which is commonplace in places like Juarez.

The systemic deformation of the institutions of justice, politics, and the press have combined with the daily mayhem to undercut the integrity of the social and political compact which unites citizen and government.  The situation of a deteriorating social/political compact has been worsened by both the historical indifference of the Mexican elite to the lives of the hoi polloi and the numbing effects of poverty and hopelessness.

Mexico is not a failed state.  Not yet.  It may never become a genuine failed state.  The capacity of the Mexican peasant and his urban counterpart to endure the unendurable is legendary--and real.  Yet every day that the bodies fall, the corruption flows, and the misery grinds on is a day which erodes even the seemingly endless capacity of the Mexican to persevere.  Trust in the government like hope for a better tomorrow has become a gravely endangered species.

Should the Mexican hoi polloi come to the realization that more of the same is totally unacceptable, the results will be massive, shocking, and lethal in the extreme.  If Mexico fails as a state, the consequent internal war(s) will equal or surpass those of the long, long warfare of the early Twentieth Century.  As was the case a century and less ago, the violence will cross the border to the detriment of places like El Paso or Tucson, which were small, quite off the beaten path places back then but are major cities today.

This potential implies strongly that US policies regarding immigration and illegal drugs must be considered in the context of will they help or hinder the reestablishment of stability in Mexico.  As the coming of collapse cannot be predicted with precision, it would be prudent for the US decision makers and We the People to consider the package of policies directly impacting on Mexico with the greatest of expedition.  Time is not on the side of stability.

It is spectacularly unfortunate that both subjects--illegal drugs and immigration change--are almost as emotionally stimulating as, say, abortion and homosexual marriage,  Strong emotions do not make for careful calculations of how best to serve the collective national interest.  However, both national interest and the American responsibility for the current state of near failure in Mexico demand that emotions be shunted aside and a serious debate on how best to assist in rectifying the sorry state of affairs south of the border be undertaken with dispatch.

Unless the US government and We the People can get serious about solving our share of the current predominantly Mexican problem, not only will it be conceivable that all the Mexicans currently in the US illegally will be able to apply for political refugee status, but that there will be a lot more coming, waves of people fleeing the violence of collapse.

The Mexican Question is one which is truly bi-partisan.  So, get on with it you denizens inside the beltway.  It is a tough job at the least, but you were elected to take on the big ones.