It Is An Insurgency In Mexico

There has been a low level rumbling sort of debate regarding this proposition: Resolved, the violence in Mexico does constitute an insurgency.  The negative in the debate argues correctly that Mexico is not so gripped with violence that it is being pushed to the edge of failure.  The advocates of the negative also contend with some accuracy that the organized cartels are not seeking any political goal such as overthrowing the government.

In the second prong of their argument, the upholders of the negative are being disingenuous.  The cartels are seeking two goals.  One is strictly commercial, the allocation of turf.  The other is political, the carving out of zones free of governmental control in which the cartels can operate freely.

Once the second cartel goal is recognized, it follows that the gunslingers are waging a defensive insurgency.  True it is a unique form of defensive insurgency, but that is what it is nonetheless.

Historically, the vast majority of defensive insurgencies have been wars of national liberation.  The insurgents have been either a self-defined and recognizable society and polity ruled by outsiders (think--the American War of Independence) or an identifiable minority living in a defined geographic region within a larger polity (think--the North Caucasus.)  In both instances the ultimate goal of the insurgents is replacement of the status quo regime by one organic to the society supporting the insurgency.

The cartels have a far less expansive goal in Mexico.  The several groups desire to carve out what might be best conceived of as "police free zones" covering the approach routes to the border and, deeper in the interior, areas where illegal products might be manufactured, grown, or stored without anxiety.

There are no indications that any of the cartels want to take over the tedious, mundane quotidian functions of government at any level.  They are perfectly willing to let those who do those jobs now keep on doing them.

Even policing is OK provided the cartels, their members, and activities are exempt.  Everything reduces to the need to conduct business without any hassles from government, press, civic society, or the church.  If and when that occurs, the insurgency will come to an end.

While the smuggling of illegal drugs may have been behind the commencement of the violence, the insurgency now exists independent of drugs per se.  President Calderon may have declared a war on drugs three years ago, but the nature of the stakes has changed greatly as the blood has flowed in ever more impressive quantities.

Even if by some miracle every American who currently uses products transported or grown in Mexico were to wake up with the thought, "Today I join the Nancy Reagan Just Say No club," and followed through, the insurgency south of the border would not collapse.  The same would apply if the morality driven majority of the American polity awoke with an attack of sanity deciding that the game of prohibition was not worth the manifold costs.

The cartels long ago expanded their scope of operations.  Not unlike American organized criminals of an earlier period, the cartel leaders have come to understand that their capabilities were cross elastic.  As a result kidnappings for ransom, hijackings, human trafficking, extortion, loan sharking, and other illegal activities have become major profit centers.

The cartels have also expanded geographically extending their networks and franchises into the US.  There are no major and few medium sized cities here which lack their local affiliate with one or more cartels.  This outreach program not only has made for more profits back home but an expansion of influence, political and otherwise, into domestic communities of Mexican descent.

With the vast expansion of capabilities and consequent cash, the cartels have too much at stake to do other than continue and escalate the insurgency.  To a significant extent the outcome of the insurgency is existential for the cartels.

The outcome of the insurgency is not existential for the Mexican central government nor the elites which support it.  The government and elite can come to an understanding with the cartels, a tacit agreement to live and let live.  Winding down the military operations would be welcomed by the many ordinary people caught in the crossfire.  It would be welcomed by the business community as the ongoing war may have not crippled investment yet, but it bodes well to do so in the not so distant future.

Ending the war, reaching an understanding, deciding to live and let live does not require the government to declare defeat.  It does not even demand an immediate pulling back of the troops and new federal agents to their barracks and offices.  All that need happen is a slow ramping down of "offensive" operations, a bit less zeal in collecting or acting upon information received, a tardy response to cartel actions.  Should the cartels respond by tamping down their violence (roadblocks, shootouts, and similar high profile activities) the tit-for-tat detente will continue.

Money will change hands.  Heads will be averted.  Brave statements will be issued.  Promises to foreign governments will be made.  But, in the real world, affairs will slip to the status quo ante.  Life will go on.

President Calderon has two years left in office.  The next election will be a referendum on his war of drugs.  To continue that war or end it will be the centerpiece of the campaign whether openly or not.  The "war on drugs" is not popular now.  It will be less so two years hence.  It is unlikely to the extreme that any amount of Merinda Initiative money will alter this fact or serve to make the counterinsurgent efforts more effective.

Improvements in intelligence sharing and more US training for Mexican forces will have some slight benefits, but not sufficient to be game changing.  In this context it must be recalled that even the most mediagenic events such as discovering a tunnel equipped with light rail running under the border, or the seizing of thirty plus tons of pot are not indications of the game tilting in favor of the law and order side.  As has been the case ever since Dick Nixon started our "war on drugs," such spectacles are mere blips on the long term trajectory.

It is fully expectable that the Mexican insurgency will come to an end shortly before or after the next presidential elections.  It will come to an end because the Mexican government and elite recognize that Mexico is not Columbia.  They will understand (if they do not already) that the outcome of the cartel insurgency is not existential for the government and elite unlike the previous case in Columbia.

Provided a Mexican equivalent of the Columbian FARC does not emerge from the scrub and sierras and the cartels remain limited in their ultimate goals, there is no threat to the traditional Mexican approach to social organization and politics.  It was the existence of FARC and other expansive goal offensive insurgent groups in tandem with the Columbian cartels which made the situation in Columbia existential for the government.

In short, the Mexican government at all levels can afford a "victory" by the cartels.  What the government at all levels cannot afford is a continuation of the social and political disruption caused by the insurgency.  The violence saps the soul of the nation, rips the Mexican social compact, undercuts the ability of the individual to have any faith in the future, to envision a tomorrow which is not worse than today.  Not even a culture as resilient or as inured to death as the Mexican can survive the current and projected onslaught of blood and disruption with equanimity.

Mexico can survive the coming to pass of the cartels' limited goals.  It can survive the inter-cartel battle for turf.  The question is what the limited "victory" of the cartels means to the US.

The establishment of "police free zones" in which the cartels can carry on their operations without any governmental hindrance will constitute a national security threat for the US.  The capacities of the cartels, their networks, their experience would facilitate the clandestine introduction of hostile personnel and equipment into the US.  And, given the established presence of agents from Hezbollah, Hamas, and other groups advocating and practicing violent political Islam in Mexico in areas dominated by one or more cartels, the highest probability is the cartels will provide essential services to these groups and their state sponsors.

It is this probability far more than any fear of a further flooding of drugs or illegal aliens into the US which assures the US has a dog in the fight.  Unfortunately it is dog which cannot be named.  The Obama administration has great difficulty admitting, let alone defining, the pressing but not yet readily apparent threats from abroad confronting us.  So, rather than focusing on the most essential component of the Mexican question, it tiptoes around mouthing platitudes regarding drugs.  The anti-administration groups are no better preferring to view with alarm the matter of illegal immigrants.

While emotionally appealing both drugs and wetbacks do not have the inherent political power to force the government of the United States to take more robust action to assist the Mexicans in controlling the insurgency--or securing the border with greater effect.  Admittedly, there is little that can be done directly to counter the cartels and their insurgency given the very prickly hyper-nationalism of the Mexican public, particularly the political and chattering classes, but more can be done to stiffen the willingness of the government and elite to continue their efforts.

Some of what can be done is not politically popular given the anti-immigrant sentiments so widely spread in our society.  However, one of the most effective ways in which the US can buck up Mexican political will is a reform of immigration laws and procedures which favors the Mexican demands.  By enhancing our role as a critical safety valve for economically excess Mexicans we would put a whopping big obligation on the Mexican government as well as providing ourselves with a lever on their actions regarding the cartels.

The irony in all of this is while the insurgency is in Mexico, it is the US with the most at stake in its outcome.  This means we have no realistic choice other than defining just what is at stake and, given the long term magnitude of that stake, what we must do to help ensure the proper outcome.

Even if the insurgency is not existential for the Mexican government, in the long run it may well be for ours.

Mexicans Out Whine Muslims

For years the Mexican political and media establishments have caviled mightily over the immigration policies of the US. There has not been a single "migrant" (to use the preferred and totally inaccurate Mexican formulation) law which has met the approval of the easily bruised hyper-nationalistic egos of the politicians and pundits of Mexico.

Since Arizona passed its now infamous law which did little more than make an already extant federal crime--being present in the US absent legal authorization--a state offense as well, Mexicans of all ranks have closed ranks in a wall of wailing and whining which surpasses even the waves of tears shed by Muslims over what they perceive as insults to their religion (including quotes from the Koran and other sacred writings.) To read the Mexican press, to listen to the words of Mexican politicians one would be forgiven the impression that the Fascist Racists of Arizona with the approval of many, many equally bigoted and dark-hearted Americans generally had launched a campaign of extermination against any and all people of swarthy complexion, accented English, or a last name other than Smith or Jones.

The vitriol poured in metric ton quantities by the President of Mexico during his state visit to the US, which included the signal honor of addressing a joint session of Congress, would have done the thundering denunciations of Hitler by Winston Churchill proud--if only they had been true and accurate. With the American president standing by complete with approving smile, Sr Calderon accused the citizens of Arizona (and by implication all other Americans who approved the new law) of being racist, xenophobic, and generally blotches on the face of humanity.

It is passingly strange that the Mexicans who are so free with their exaggerated or totally fabricated charges about the American hatred of Mexicans and other Latinos do so without once mentioning the portions of the Mexican Constitution which deal with "migrant" issues. A brief glance at these articles shows an attitude far more contemptuous of "migrants" than any contained in any American law, state or federal. Articles 11, 27, 32, and 33 limit the rights of "migrants" to a degree unthinkable anywhere in the US, including Arizona. And, mark this well, these are not mere laws but part and parcel of the Mexican Constitution.

Nor are other countries filled with critics of the Arizona law immune. Guatemala has constitutional restrictions which surpass any legal disabilities placed on legal "migrants" in the US. So does Costa Rica, generally considered a liberal beacon in Central America. Even El Salvador, in which place American treasure was expended in wholesale lots during its long counterinsurgency, does not take as kindly to "migrants" as does the US.

It is a hallmark of the basic human propensity for hypocrisy that politicians and pundits can heap abuse on the democratic process and its result in Arizona while being remarkably indifferent to what is going on in their own countries. Even this pinnacle is surpassed by the insufferably arrogant demands by Calderon and other Latino statesmen that the US effectively give up all semblance of control over its own borders and admit all comers while insisting on their own sovereign right to deny admittance to those coming from abroad.

Worse than any and all these self-serving words and efforts by Mexican elites and their ilk elsewhere south of the Rio Grande are the totally ridiculous postures adopted by American "progressives" including the President and Attorney General of the US. Several features are quite evident in the repeated diatribes by politicians and journalists of the American "progressive" shade.

Many have not even read the Arizona enactment as was finally admitted under questioning by, among others, Eric Holder. Then there are those who may have read the law but willfully sought to misinterpret it. Finally there are the legions who deplore the reality that the US is a federal republic with intentionally divided sovereignty so that states have a duty to act when threatened, if the federal government is unable or, more likely, unwilling to act.

The Arizonans saw a threat in their midst. They saw a lack of effective federal action. So they acted, quickly and directly. Far from being a group of Fascist vigilantes, the people and legislature of Arizona have acted in prudent self-interest.

We should be willing to see and admit this fundamental truth. Even a small handful of Mexican commentators have done so.

Unfortunately, as Muslims have shown, it is far easier and more emotionally satisfying to whine, moan, bitch, and carp. And, playing the victim game also absolves one from having to be truthful, honest, or courageous.

Viva! El Presidente Calderon! But Not Some Others

President Felipe Calderon in addressing Congress once again demonstrated an unfortunate propensity for blaming the US for Mexican problems. Facing a deteriorating security situation back home with politicians increasingly occupying center stage in the cross hairs of rifle sights, the Mexican leader took his time in the congressional spotlight to urge or, perhaps more properly, demand that the legislative worthies reimpose limits on American rights of gun ownership.

Even though there is an absence of compelling let alone convincing evidence that many of the weapons captured from criminal gunslingers originated in the US, Sr Calderon averred that the US is as responsible for the guns in Mexican shootouts as it is for the drug demand which prompts them. There is no doubt about the latter. There is much doubt about the former.

Even if every firearm more modern than a Brown Bess were to be confiscated in the US, the Mexican pistoleros would be inconvenienced in no meaningful way. Given the number of captured weapons which originated in the Mideast, Northwest Asia, South America, and Asia, there seems to be no more difficulty obtaining heavy firepower in Mexico than in, say, Somalia or Yemen.

Presumably Sr Calderon was playing for the folks back in Buncomb County when he made his demand. If not, it shows that he is as badly served by his internal security chiefs as he was by his translator at yesterday's welcoming ceremony.

Sr Calderon may also be playing to the home folks with his whining reprise of we-gotta-get-migration-reform-now. The same may be true concerning his never ending invocations of Arizona as the fountainhead of all things anti-Hispanic.

Certainly Sr Calderon is aware that his country has laws defining citizenship, legal alien status, and the crime of being illegally present upon Mexican soil. He must know that Mexican police at all levels of jurisdiction regularly arrest and deport illegal aliens with the exception of those individuals who "regularize" their presence in Mexico by the payment of a "fee" to the arresting officer and/or his superiors. Sr Calderon may even be aware of the number of illegal aliens in Mexico who are robbed, beaten, raped, or killed by Mexicans. Even Mexican media report these incidents, if bloody enough.

Sr Calderon would be the first to defend Mexico's rights to define legal alien status, to control entry by foreigners into Mexico, and to secure Mexico's borders. It is unlikely in the extreme that Sr Calderon shares President Obama's post-modernist, we-are-all-passengers-on-spaceship-Earth mentality as represented by the American president's observation that "we are not defined by borders."

Sr Calderon is a firmly committed Mexican nationalist. This is precisely what he--or any other president--ought to be. He is in favor of "migratory reform" because it is in Mexico's national interest to use the US as a safety valve for its mobs of unemployed as well as a source of hard currency via remittances. He is in favor of restricting Americans access to certain categories of firearms because this is in his party's political interest even if flatly irrelevant to the stability of the country.

Indeed, his resolute offloading of ultimate responsibility for as many of Mexico's internal social, political, and economic problems onto the broad shoulders of Uncle Sam shows his wide, deep commitment to Mexican national interest--both real and mythic. To accept that responsibility for most of the many inequalities, injustices, which blemish Mexico would be to violate the strong central tenets of Mexico's defining mythology which holds that proximity to the US is at the root of all domestic evils.

Overall, one must congratulate Sr Calderon for acting as a good nationalist. Give him the credit he deserves for pursuing Mexican national interest as such is defined by the Mexican politically articulate elite. That is his job and he is doing it well.

Then there are some of Sr Calderon's fellow travelers. Particularly those who are card carrying members of the Open American Borders party.

The Open American Borders party is eclectic in its membership. In it are to be found assorted "migratory rights" folks and the non-governmental organizations which serve to amplify their voices, various and sundry "progressives," and last, but far from least important, numerous political and media personalities in Latin America.

A recurrent, unifying theme ties the diverse elements of the Open American Borders party. The theme has a major and a dependent component.

The major component is migratory freedom is a well-established human right enshrined in international conventions. The contingent component is that of equating the free movement of capital with a presumed freedom of worker movement.

The major premise is a carefully crafted misstatement. The several treaties and international agreements hazily mentioned all refer to prohibitions on a state's prevention of exit. These agreements are directed against Berlin Walls and similar efforts intended to hold a population captive. None are directed against a sovereign right to determine eligibility for admission or citizenship. In short, it is an international no-no to limit a person's right to leave but it is not a similar no-no to refuse a person admittance.

The minor premise is also a perversion of reality. States can and do limit the free movement of capital. Routinely states have limited how much cash a person can take out of a country, or bring into it. Laws which impinge on the movement of funds between countries dot the legal landscape. Indeed, such laws are at the heart of effective operations against transnational terrorism. They are part and parcel of the host of trading-with-the-enemy laws which have existed during every modern armed conflict as well as many of the unarmed sort.

Countries either inhibit or promote international capital flow on the basis of perceived national interest. If it is in a country's national interest to do so, capital flow will be encouraged by all available means. If the self-defined national interest requires inhibiting the movement of money, such will be the case.

Even the most capitalistic of countries, even the most vocal exponents of open, free trade will and have when national interest requires operate to restrict, even end the ability of money to cross the border. This sweeping statement applies to the US as much as to any other free trade oriented economy.

National interest should be the sole basis for a country's policies on immigration. If the self-defined national interest is best served by enhancing the in-migration of foreign workers of a given or even all categories of worker, then the borders should be opened accordingly. If the converse applies, the borders should--must--be closed.

National interest may include the admission of aliens for humanitarian reasons. Or because a person or group faces persecution at home. These non-economic considerations are a legitimate component of national interest as they reflect the values and ethical imperatives of the nation.

Importantly, there is no human right to enter any given country. The US is under no ethical or legal imperative to open its borders for any reason other than as a consequence of national interest. For this reason (as well as many others) no country has the right to demand that we admit their citizens. Likewise they have no standing to criticize efforts by the US or any of its several states to arrest and deport foreigners present without legal status.

The concept of criminal trespass exists not only as regards privately owned property but for nation-states as well. In a federal system of joint exercise of sovereignty the several states have as much right and duty as the central government to prevent or punish those who are criminal trespassers. This is what Arizona has done, effectively to place into a state context the already existing federal law.

Mexico and the several Mexican states already do the same. Sr Calderon knows this even if the majority of the Open American Borders party do not. It may be possible to forgive the Open American Borders party members for their ignorance and its consequences. It is not possible to do the same for Sr Calderon.

Sr Calderon needs to get a grip on the realities of life. He needs to go home and concentrate on forcing the Mexican elite to live up to their collective responsibility to act in a way calculated to so improve the lives of Mexicans generally that the need to enter the US without the benefit of law as well as the drive to join the criminals in their war for money are, if not obviated, at least lessened.