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.

Now, Hezbollah Joins The Narcos--Why Not?

Sue Myrick (R. NC-9) is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It may be recalled that she garnered more than a little notoriety when she wrote the forward for the book Muslim Mafia last year. This book accused the Council On American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of being a subversive entity. (It is interesting in this regard that CAIR during ensuing litigation did not charge the book's authors or publisher with libel or defamation but rather with having acquired certain documents by illegal methods.)

Alarmed by the book's allegations that CAIR had planted espionage agents within committees charged with national security duties, Ms Myrick, joined by other Republican Members of Congress, demanded the Sergeant At Arms investigate to determine whether or not interns appointed with CAIR backing had served in this sinister role. Later she, again with other Republicans, requested the Internal Revenue Service investigate as to whether CAIR had violated its tax-exempt status by lobbying efforts.

It is without surprise that CAIR and other pro-Islam groups including the Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim American Society as well as Democratic Party heavyweights, most notably, John Conyers and Mike Honda, pushed back--hard. Weakening the push back efforts was the undeniable linkage of CAIR with officially identified Muslim terrorist groups as an unindicted co-conspirator in the controversial Holy Land Foundation trial.

Ms Myrick has written another letter recently. This time the recipient was Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano. The subject: Investigate the possible linkage of Hezbollah and Mexican narcotrafficking cartels.

The letter is a fine example of unspecified "former intelligence officers," and "well trained officials," and "some authorities." Ms Myrick's missive rests additionally on some well known and unpleasant realities deep south of the border such as the cooperation between Iranian capo Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan supremo Chavez, the long established presence of Hezbollah operatives in the drug smuggling region of the Tri-border between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, the skill shown by Hezbollah in digging tunnels, and, as a bit of a stretch, the similarity of terrain between that of the southwest US-Mexican border and the border between Israel and Lebanon.

In Ms Myrick's estimate, the probable current or near-term partnership between Hezbollah and the assorted smuggling cartels operating on the US-Mexico border constitutes a definite national security threat. As such, the matter deserves, at the least, the establishment of a task force which "could explore all these issues."

It is the wishy-washy nature of the Myrick request which undermines her argument that the US may soon be experiencing "Israel like car bombings of Mexican/USA border personnel or National Guard units in the border regions." Get a grip, Congresswoman Myrick!

Either the US does face a growing threat from a partnership between Hezbollah (or Hamas or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) and the cartels or it does not. If the potential for such exists to the degree you appear to believe, then action beyond the formation of a "taskforce (which) could explore all these issues," is necessary.

The use of the resources, personnel, and knowledge of the smuggling cartels would be of great utility to an entity such as Hezbollah or an adverse state like Iran. However, the potential utility of such an alliance would be eroded significantly if employed for petty efforts such as "Israel-like car bombings." The killing or wounding of a few Border Patrol agents or National Guardsmen would be a frittering away of a capacity with much greater potential.

The current dynamics of global politics makes the use of the smuggling cartels an attractive option. Of course, this option would not be either cheap or risk free, so it seems reasonable that any partnership would have as its goal operations far more damaging to the US than the sound of VBIEDs in the desert air.

Ms Myrick would be well advised to reform her letter, its arguments, and the sketchy evidence supporting her contentions to an appropriate level. Not to be unduly alarmist, but taking into account the strong probability that Iran will have the capacity to take two Hiroshima sized bombs off the shelf within eighteen to twenty-four months, a legitimate level of threat is that of a WMD attack using either nuclear or biological munitions.

The capabilities of the smuggling cartels, their human resources, their collective knowledge are up to the task of introducing agents and equipment into the US. This capability should be understood not as simply dumping the martyrdom seekers and munitions across the Great Fence of the Southwest but delivering them well into the interior of the US.

The complex, well-organized, and highly redundant delivery system developed and constantly improved upon by the cartels provides a ready capacity for delivering a devastating attack on the US at any time. All that is necessary is the formation of a partnership between one or more cartels and either Iran or one of its proxies.

This takes time. The cartels are run by men who are even tougher of mind than the mullahs and their stooges. It will take more than a slight amount of effort to persuade the cartel chiefs that what is in the deal more than offsets the risks of American response. It will take careful playing off of one cartel with the others as well as meticulous manipulation of relevant and receptive Mexican police, military, and government officials.

None of this is made easier by the arrogant xenophobia which has been well noted by those foreigners--even other Muslims--who have had dealings with Iran or Iranian proxies. Nor does the assistance of Hugo Chavez ease the path to partnership.

Chavez enjoys no particularly high standing in the estimate of the cartels. He has even lower standing with members of the Mexican elite both in and out of government. Any Chavez involvement will be obvious since that is the only way Hugo, The Mouth Of The South, knows how to operate. The evident participation of Hugo will make any deal with Mexican officials all the more difficult given the nationalism which is always present in their makeup along with greed.

The culture gap between Islamist jihadi and Latin American narcotrafficker is wide and deep. It will not be bridged quickly and easily--if at all. This ground truth is far more relevant in considering the potential of an emerging threat on the border than is the presence of a few jail tattoos in Farsi.

Ms Myrick is correct in being concerned. The growth of an alliance between Iran or its proxies and the elaborate smuggling networks of LatAm is a real threat in the longer term. But, the right way to go about countering this potential is not in the writing of politically expedient letters.

The right way is that of careful monitoring of developments and their disruption whenever possible. And the options for disruption are manifold given the nature of the relationship between Islamists and traffickers. Not to simplify the matter, time is on the side of the US in this area of threat assessment and abatement.

In short, Ms Myrick should put her word processor on stand-by. Unless the intelligence community has become significantly more incompetent in recent months (not impossible but highly unlikely), the Iranian-smuggling connection is already on the radar screens. As a rule of thumb, if we hear nothing about it, the matter is being handled properly and effectively.

It's A Shooting War On This Side Of The Border

The Geek did not ever meet Rob Krentz. But, he knows other men like the murdered Arizona rancher. Mr Kentz and his dog met death at the hands of a Mexican, an illegal entrant to the US, probably a member of one of the drug smuggling syndicates so active in this part of our country.

By all reports the murdered fifth generation rancher was like most of the breed found here in the vast, sparsely populated area of harsh hills and white hot deserts--self-reliant, independent, ready to help those in need (including illegal aliens), wresting a living from a territory which is unforgiving and unkind in the extreme to those who are weak of will, mind, or body. Scoffed at as shambling last remnants of an obsolescent way of living by the sophisticated denizens of urban America, a relic of our past environmental "insensitivity," ranchers such as Mr Krentz have had nearly daily acquaintanceship with two high profile areas of modern life known only in the abstract by the majority of our fellow citizens.

The Great Emptiness extending to a depth of a hundred or so kilometers along the US-Mexico border interrupted only every now and then by towns is the line of contact along which the Americans fight out their "battles" against the flow of imported, illegal drugs, and the danger zone through which hundreds of thousands of economic opportunists, political fugitives, must pass. Like Mr Krentz and all the ranchers like him in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, the Geek has encountered exhausted, hungry, border-crossers in need of aid. Likewise, the Geek has observed the mule trains and low flying aircraft bringing their very profitable cargoes to the bottomless maw of American appetites.

It is for all these reasons of commonality that the Geek feels a particular sympathy for Mr Krantz, or, more accurately, his family and friends. Mr Krantz was collateral damage in the long failed American "War on Drugs." His death was incidental, perhaps even unintended. It was coolly impersonal as if he were simply a person unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Be that as it may, Mr Krentz died as a direct consequence of an American policy which has existed for well over a decade as a monument to the power of misplaced belief. The "Drug War" has been a conspicuous failure for its entire forty year existence by any and all rational measurements. A cost-benefit analysis would--and does--show that the costs, economic, social, political, and personal have far outweighed any benefit.

In recent years the costs--particularly those measured in lives lost--have escalated significantly. No where has this been more evident than along the Mexican border. The violence associated with "market share enhancement" has turned the city of Ciudad Juarez into a place so soaked in blood as to make Kabul safe in comparison. (OK, Caracas still is far ahead of Juarez in the Murder Derby.)

In the past twenty-seven months, over five thousand have been KIA in El Paso's sister city. Neither the body count nor the use of thousands of troops have lowered the violence. Quite the contrary. Unlike the killing of Krentz, the destruction of Juarez has been a deliberate act of policy executed by the rival syndicates but (inadvertently)aided and abetted by the Mexican government. For years the government and elites of Mexico have welcomed the drug trade as a necessary underpinning for the wheezing Mexican economy.

Now that the drug monster has grown to proportions that threaten the country's continuation as a viable polity, the government is trying too little and far too late to regain control of its own territory. Only during the past two or so years has the Mexican government finally taken real as opposed to rhetorical action in the US declared "War on Drugs." However, the Mexican authorities are unconcerned about the "Drug War" per se, only about their retention of power.

While it is irritating to listen to Mexican officials and journalists blame the totality of the current mess on the US, there is a very large germ of truth behind their portmanteau charge of American culpability. The proposition that the drug "war" would end if Americans curtailed their seemingly insatiable desire for an altered state of consciousness is accurate.

There is only one viable means to remove the problem of illegal drugs. That method is to remove the word "illegal" from the phrase. While education (whatever that might mean or imply) and treatment (whatever that might mean or imply) may serve to lower the desire for mind altering substances over time, the only practical way to abate the drug problem is to legalize the drugs.

To be sure battalions of moralists and brigades of those with a vested interest in the status quo will howl that legalization will be the end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it. So what? By what rational process using what data sets can it be shown that the consequences of legalization will be worse than a continuation of the status quo?

Leaving aside the domestic results of continuing the same old, same old, the foreign policy concerns and national interests of the US require we start the long, tortured process of political debate with a view to ending the "War on Drugs." This does not imply that we must at some future date declare "unconditional surrender" to our desire for an altered state of consciousness; rather it implies that we must sign a rational truce with the consequences of our harboring this desire deep in our brains.

Like it or not, the only way we will see the shooting stop on our side of the border as well as the Mexican, is to heed the counsel of experience gained by the blood of so many including Rob Krentz.