A Matter Of Perspective

Afghanistan is reputed to be a dangerous place to live.  There is no doubt but it is.  Last year, according to a Congressional Research Service report, 2,421 civilians were killed, the majority by Taliban and other anti-government elements.

It was, however, far more dangerous to be a non-combatant living in the city of Cuidad Juarez.  In another, recent report by the CRS which drew on the work of a dedicated and talented research librarian at New Mexico State University (known in these parts as Moo-U), Molly Molloy, shows that 3,111 died in the war between cartels and government.  (Ms Molloy's number and that determined by the Geek are within five bodies of each other.)

Given the population difference between the country of Afghanistan and the city of Juarez, it is almost thirty times more deadly to reside in the latter than the former.  The CIA sets the population of Afghanistan at a bit over twenty-nine million while the most recent Mexican census gives a figure of 1.3 million residents for Juarez.  It deserves mention that the population of Juarez and the valley communities extending to the southeast have shrunk, some considerably, in the time since the census was compiled.

The numbers point at a grim reality: The so-called "drug war" in northern Mexico is far more deadly for those caught in the crossfire than is the combination of insurgency and brigandage underway in Afghanistan.  This is in spite of the undeniable fact that Taliban field commanders have taken to attacking soft, civilian targets regardless of the ROEs established by their seniors across the border in the FATA.

The pressure applied to Taliban and the others over the past several months has resulted in a de facto shift in operational level doctrine and tactics.  The goal of the peddlers of violent political Islam are no longer willing to take on the ISAF directly and have become increasingly loath to confront even the Afghan National Forces in the field.  The default is to seek to terrorize the civilian population by an escalating series of suicide bombings and an increased use of IEDs particularly of the roadside bomb variety.

The ever changing Taliban field commanders--ever changing due to the massive success of the decapitation program inaugurated by General Stanley McChrystal--is comprised of ever younger, ever more True Belief ridden men of limited experience.  The lack of experience coupled with the growing competence of the Afghan forces and the superb capabilities of the US, UK, Canadian, Australian troops means the bad guys have little option but to hit the soft targets and hope that fear will trump anger on the part of the uncommitted majority with the effect of undercutting any support for the Kabul regime and the foreign troops.

This means the war will become more lethal for the civilians.  Whether the payoff of this rush to bloodletting will benefit Taliban is debatable at best.  History shows little probability of Taliban's approach working to its advantage.

In Mexico there has been no shift in either operational level or tactical doctrine on the part of either the government or the cartels.  The only change year over year has been that of the cartels deploying ever more deadly weapons in an ever more indiscriminate way.  Los Zetas pointed the way years ago with the introduction of military small unit tactics and weaponry to the contest.  Subsequently, all the cartels have followed suit with the result that any and all have shown the capability to take and hold territory, blockade entire towns, and assault semi-fortified positions.

During the same span of time, the cartels have used self-consciously terroristic methods.  The beheaded corpses, the dismantled corpses, the heads rolled bowling ball style into bars, the grisly intermingling of multiple parts of multiple bodies are all intended to create terror.  So also is the program of singling out cops who refuse to submit to the sweet odor of bribery for barbaric execution.  Terror of this variety has been so successful that many of the smaller towns--and some not so small--have become de facto law free zones.

While the government of Cuidad Juarez exists and functions to a large extent, this is not the case in many of the smaller communities of the Juarez valley.  In many locations, including large swaths of Juarez itself, the cartel has become the government.  It is the thugs of the cartel who levy and collect tribute--taxes--and control the activities of businesses and politicos alike.  It is the cartel which decides how free the media might be, enforcing the strictures in the accustomed robust manner.

The same situation applies deeper in the interior of Mexico.  The government exists in name only.  Or, best case, it exists in the sense of providing law, order, personal, and communal security only sporadically as when the Mexican Marines or one of the very few army units which is both well officered and immune to corruption drops by for a few hours or days.

As in Afghanistan, the most fatal of conditions has become endemic in Mexico.  That condition is not so much fear as it is corruption.  Corruption has been legendary in Mexico for generations.  Even considering that fact of life, the lure of easy money has grown logarithmically since President Calderon declared open war with the cartels.  It has been established that the army has become almost as corruption riddled as the police.  The several internal security services which have frontline responsibilities for handling the cartels have taken the same course as have key components of the justice ministry.

None of this allows an optimistic view of Mexico over the next twelve months.  The highest probability is the body count will continue to grow.  The highest probability is the government presence will become more and more symbolic, more and more hollow, particularly in the northern states.  The highest probability is that Los Zetas and its emulators will spread their odious presence into Central American countries, an evil oil spot spreading ever to the south.

The states of the region are less able to counter the spread of the cartels than was Mexico when Calderon declared war.  This implies that the hollowing effect will be seen in Mexico's neighbors.  The signs of this dynamic are becoming unmistakable in Honduras, Guatemala, and, most recently, Belize.  Indications of the same occurring have been noted further south, even in Nicaragua.  (Perhaps Danny Ortega should spend more attention at home rather than joining with Chavez in supporting Gaddafi.)

Mexico is not a failed state.  Nor is it a failing state.  It is, however, in grave danger of becoming a hollow state, that is a state in which the remit of the government is limited severely by insurgent or quasi-insurgent movements.  It does not matter that the cartels are criminal enterprises.  All that matters is that the cartels have become sufficiently efficient purveyors of violence and terror to become the defacto government in portions of Mexico.  The "business plan" of the cartels is successful enough to be viable in the smaller, less wealthy states to its south.

Columbia came back from the brink of having been hollowed out completely by the combination of FARC and the cocaine cartels.  But the process took a decade and more as well as a level of US financial and other support far surpassing that which has been provided to Mexico.  Also, in the case of Columbia, the domestic elite finally grew aware of the peril confronting it and mustered its resources to support the government rather than simply getting on the next plane out of Dodge.  The Mexican elite has not yet shown an equal awareness let alone an equivalent commitment to the common weal.

This leads ineluctably to the conclusion that even with the uptick in attacks on soft targets in Afghanistan it will remain far more dangerous to live and work in Juarez.  It can be expected that more and more businesses and individuals will join the migration from Juarez to El Paso, from Juarez valley towns to their twins on the north side of the Rio Grande.  If the violence increases significantly, there is a very strong likelihood that the US-Mexico border will come to resemble that between Libya and Egypt today--a flood of desperate people seeking sanctuary from death and the fear of death.

Whether either the Mexican elite or We the People like the idea or not, the US does have a dog, a very big dog, in the fight.  Choice time is upon both parties to acknowledge this and deal with the result creatively or continue in a state of denial resembling that of the noted Colonel ("I am history!  I am the revolution) Gaddafi regarding the situation in Mexico.

For the Mexicans the problem is one of recognizing that factors other than the demand for illegal drugs in the US are primarily responsible for the degenerating conditions in Mexico--and then doing something about it.  For the Americans the problem is that of deciding if the prohibition of drugs is worth the costs.

Both Americans and Mexicans have little choice other than a rational consideration of what is at work in Mexico.  Insofar as the dynamic which is hollowing out Mexico is the consequence of the American fear and loathing of mind altering drugs there is an ethical imperative to examine closely the reasons for that fear and loathing and decide what is in our overall best interests: stomp down harder or admit the effort has not paid off such that benefits received are greater than the costs imposed.

Not that there is any hope of either Mexicans or Americans engaging in rational introspection, rational decision making, and rational action.  The subjects--nationalism and mood altering drugs--are simply too productive of overly strong emotion for that to happen.

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.

Insurgency Or Not, Mexico Sure Is Bloody

President Obama and his Secretary of State are on opposite sides of a proposition: Resolved, Mexico today is Columbia of twenty years ago. Ms Clinton took the affirmative yesterday. Today, Mr Obama argued the negative for the benefit of a Mexican outlet.

The Obama view is far more popular in Mexico, particularly with Mexican president Calderon, than is the pessimistic assessment of Hilary Clinton. Equally unsurprising, Ms Clinton's flack stated the secretary had not wandered off the reservation.

Seemingly shoving Mr Obama's rather rosy assessment that Mexico is a vibrant democracy with an expanding economy, the drug thugs went on a tear in Juarez racking up a total of twenty-five corpses making it the deadliest day in that city since the Mexican drug war started. The roughly 6,400 cadavers which have littered the city across the line from El Paso would seem to argue that Ms Clinton is right. That much spilled blood despite the presence of the army, the federal police, a reconstituted local police, a passel of new government programs intended to show the government is present and able to aid in assuring security and prosperity would tend to show the place is no longer under effective government control, and that is a chief criterion for defining the presence of an insurgency in progress.

But the presence of dead bodies and the absence of effective security or basic government services do not on their own show an insurgency exists. An insurgency is an organized political expression of underlying disaffection on the part of a definable segment of the population.

That isn't the case in Mexico--yet.

Twenty years or so ago in Columbia there was an insurgency. FARC was both political in its goal and representative of disaffection. The alliances made between the insurgents of FARC and the several cocaine powered cartels were tactical in nature and did not alter the political color of the insurgent group at first or for many years to follow.

FARC and the cartels used each other with effectiveness. However the combination did stimulate the American response which ultimately saw the Colombian government defeat the cartels and toss FARC almost out of the arena. The awesome amount of American aid including highly pertinent training and critical intelligence support coupled with Colombian political will to bring about the eventual marginalization of FARC until the desperate remnants of the once dread insurgent group were reduced to playing the part of criminals and begging Hugo Chavez for assistance in order to survive. The political agenda of FARC went by the wayside as survival needs took the highest priority. Today FARC is a bunch of brigands without any political will or consequence.

In Mexico the several cartels have not yet demonstrated any notable political character beyond that of establishing safe zones in which they can conduct their activities. To that end the cartels have terrorized and corrupted local governments as well as members of the police, armed forces, and judiciary. Those officials at any level who have proven resistant to bribes or threats have, perforce, been killed--usually in a manner which terrorizes others similarly situated.

Carving out safe zones has been paralleled by inter-cartel fighting to secure turf and its necessary concomitant, a greater share of the forty billion dollar drug trade. The most critical consequence of this focus has been that the majority of the dead have been cartel members or gunslingers. The high profile killing of police, officials, bystanders, journalists, and other non-combatants capture attention and obscure the fact that most of the nearly thirty thousand dead to date have been combatants of one sort or another. This imbalance is not typical of insurgencies in progress.

This is not to say the Mexican soil may not yet sprout a full fledged insurgency, but the probability is low. Regional issues in the states where the violence has been most concentrated have not yet produced widespread disaffection. Nor is such likely to emerge in the near- or mid-term, provided the safety valve of the northern frontier remains open enough. Only if the American border security program becomes far more effective is the absence of effective, responsive governance in combination with ever present violence likely to produce any sort of pre-insurgent conditions.

Even then, a regionally based defensive insurgency would be short of life as the central government, its supporting elite, and the armed forces would have both the political will and capacity to suppress any genuine insurgency rapidly (and very bloodily.) Further militating against any insurgency developing is the deep scar left by the years of civil strife marking the first quarter of the last century.

Ms Clinton was, in short, too alarmist in her comparison. Mr Obama is closer to the truth on this one, but absent any significant improvement in the Mexican government's ability to face down the cartels and simultaneously improve the economic lot of the long suffering Mexican lower classes, the vacuum will grow as will the violence.

This means, that Mexico will continue to bleed whether or not the basis is political, whether or not there is a real insurgency underway. The necessity for both Mexico City and Washington is to stop the violence, the killing. The problem lies in the inconvenient fact that the most efficient and rapid way of doing this is unacceptable to American morality--legalize the drugs which power the cartels and make their violence both necessary and possible.

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.