Mexico, Dope and Us

Ninety years ago Mexico was in the final phase of a decade of multi-party internal war. As the wars wound down into a fair semblance of peace, the final bloody year saw approximately 5,000 people die, including a small number of Americans.

As 2008 enters its final days, Mexico is concluding a year in which over 5,300 have died in the fighting between government and drug cartels as well as the inter-cartel violence. It is the worst year for Mexico since the end of the wars of succession.

Now, as ninety years ago, the damage to the Mexican commonweal extends far beyond the deaths, far beyond the wounds, even far beyond the fear of death. Now, perhaps even more than in the wake of the round of revolutions, counter-revolutions, and banditry in the guise of revolution, Mexico faces problems not of its own making as well as those most definitely hecho in Mexico.

Faith in the government was non-existent in 1918. It is almost non-existence today. The ability of the government to keep the peace is in doubt. The capacity of the government to assure both economic and political justice is also a debatable proposition. Indeed, as revelations of drug cartel penetration of judicial, police, army, and central governmental offices generally follow with machine gun rapidity, more and more Mexicans doubt the very integrity of the government.

The rampant corruption which is being exposed day after day in the Mexican press is a legacy of the decade of internal bloodshed with which the Twentieth Century opened. So also is the comparative inefficiency of the federal government. Even the violence of the "drug war" is derived from the killing fields of the Wars of Succession.

Not quite a century ago, residents of El Paso had ringside seats for the fighting across the muddy ditch called the Rio Grande. Bullets and the occasional artillery shell went over the heads of the American observers. (And, periodically were stopped by an unlucky American body.)

In the US Senate one of New Mexico's senators, Albert Fall, kept up an incessant rhetorical fusillade demanding that our government take action to halt the violence, protect American lives, and bring Mexicans the peace they deserved. I

In the White House President Wilson did take action, direct action, robust action. The US launched two invasions of Mexico. One was intended to, in Wilson's words, "teach the Mexicans to elect good men." The other had the aim of bringing a terrorist who had launched an attack on American soil to justice;

Both failed. Arguably, both were counterproductive.

No one would counsel invasion today. Still, the US cannot sit by and watch Mexico slide any closer to collapse. Indeed, the US must recognise that it is in part, even a large part, responsible for what is occurring in Mexico.

The American recession has caused a large down tick in money remitted by illegal workers. This money has been a major cushion for the deeply flawed Mexican economy. (Another legacy of the Wars of Succession and the dictatorial aftermath embodied in the Institutional Revolutionary Party.) The return of illegal workers from the US is placing ever increasing demands upon the Mexican government and economy--demands which if not effectively met will enhance the tumult in the country.

Then there is the matter of drugs. The drugs coming out of Mexico, the drugs which fuel so much of the killing and corruption, are not destined for Canada, they are not on their way to Europe. No. The drugs are headed for the Estados Unidos.

The American market for coke, smack, and pot is the largest, richest in the world. Just as we are the most desired market for other commodities and goods, we are the drug destination of choice, the land of golden opportunity.

Unless and until the US can stop the demand for illegal drugs, there is no reason that Mexico will become less violent, less corrupt. Unless and until the US can stop its demand for illegal drugs, there is no reason to believe that Mexico can focus sufficient attention on such urgent problems as infrastructure improvement, educational improvement, industrialisation, and demographic stresses.

There is only one way in which the US can end the demand for illegal drugs, end the immense profits which drive the corruption and violence, halt the slide to collapse. The time has come for a change.

We have to get a grip on a fact of life that many find unpleasant. Doing the same old same old of more cops, more prisons is a continued march on the treadmill of failure. Searching for psychological, sociological, economic causes and cures may make some do-gooders, agenda writers and academics happy (and employed,) but it won't solve the problem.

There is only one avenue which will help both Mexico and us. Make the drugs legal. Take away the risks and profits of an illegal trade. That is the only answer.

That is the change we must make--like it or not. It is the change reality demands.

Mexico--Life Is Bad And Getting Worse

The war zone starts not quite a hundred miles south of the canyon where the Geek lives. Just the other side of the Great Fence, the killing and dying goes on with a vengeance. So also does the kidnapping and dying.

"See Mexico--and die." That might be the new national motto of our neighbor to the south.

Grim but accurate. This year Mexico rivals Afghanistan and perhaps surpasses Iraq as a killing zone. Without even the assistance of American helicopter gunships or fast movers, the Mexican internal war(s) has pushed the country into the Big League of body counts. True, Mexico City does not yet come close to Caracas for the number of homicides recorded in a capital city, but, given time even that may happen.

It may not even take that much time since there is an excellent chance that the overall quantity of social unrest will be increasing rapidly. Not because the Mexicans have any inherent love of facing death straight in the face. Not because the Mexican population is naturally more violent than that of any other country.

Not even because the gangs who batten rich, fat and powerful from the transport of drugs to the US have a decreasing market over which they must fight. Nor because these self-same drug runners are running more and more scared from the crackdown ordered by the Mexican president.

No. Social unrest and its almost inevitable violent expression will come because the employment safety valve known as the United States is not wide open as it was a year ago. Or even six months ago.

The Heimatsicherheitsamt--as the Geek unaffectionately calls that bureaucratic monstrosity created in a fit of panic by the current administration and a spineless Congress--has crowed with its customary willingness to take credit when no credit is due, noting that the tide of illegal immigration has slowed and even reversed. The reason for this, of course, is the tanking of the American economy.

This tanking of America caught not just the neocon ninnies of the current US administration with undue surprise, it did the same to the Government of Mexico (GOM.) The folks in charge in Mexico City and the capitals of the various Mexican states never thought there would be both a decrease in remittances from illegals in the Land of the Big PX and a reverse flow of newly impoverished former "undocumented workers."

The Mexican National Institute of Migration (the Geek loves this term for an outfit that studies illegal immigration from Mexico to the US) estimates that no fewer than 600,000 Mexicans will be crossing the border from the north to the south. The National Institute further estimates that no fewer than 1.5 million Mexicans have repatriated from the US in the twenty months ending in August of this year.

Here is the where the vibram hits the sand. No government anywhere in Mexico including GOM has made any financial provision for the relief or employment of this tide of men without jobs. GOM, or at least some in it, are pushing the panic button with the demand that a 1.8 billion peso emergency "rescue fund" be established in the 2009 budget.

Without such an emergency measure (and perhaps much more) the decrease in remittances from illegals working in the US coupled with the needs of the returning unemployed "could convulse half the country," according to one Representative. In an interesting wrinkle, it has been proposed that illegals remaining in the US would be eligible for assistance from this "rescue fund."

That would be a first. Pay those of your citizens who are illegally resident in another country to stay there.

(Hmm, the Geek ruminates, perhaps he should seek Mexican citizenship so that GOM can pay him to stay where he is. Yeah, the Geek concludes, he could live with that as a concept.)

From the Mexican perspective having illegals stay in the US even if GOM has to pay them is a far less-worse alternative than having jobless (and perhaps hopeless) men come on home. Jobless and hopeless men are desperate men. And, as is well shown throughout history, desperate men do desperate deeds.

The last thing Mexico needs right now is an increase in the available pool of pistoleros and mules employed by the trafficking gangs. The next to the last thing the Mexicans need is more individuals given to the latest money making fad in the country--kidnapping for ransom.

Traditionally kidnappers have snatched the progeny of people with lots of money. But not any more. At least not in Mexico. The lean and hungry have lowered their sights a bit. A very large bit.

In one recent kidnapping which took place in a suburb of Mexico City, actually a place that is rather much of a slum, the child-victim had parents who were fruit sellers in the street market. Selling fruit may be an honest occupation but it is not one noted for making its practitioners rival Donald Trump or Warren Buffett. The kid was killed by an injection of acid even before the snatchers made their ransom demand. A tip from a taxi driver led to the arrest of the teenage perps and their adult companions.

It was just one more sordid event. One more kidnapping in the estimated five hundred that occur every month throughout the country.

Desperate men do desperate deeds.

The influx of returning out-of-work illegals will provide more desperation at a time when most Mexicans are losing faith in the capacity of their government to provide that most basic of governmental services--personal, physical safety. Unlike too many Norteamericanos, Mexicans do not expect perfect safety. They do expect that the police will at least make a show of deterring criminals and arresting those whom they do not deter.

GOM is in a heap of hurt. The crackdown on the narcotraffickers is bogging down in blood and fear. Kidnappings threaten every family, even those whose economic viability is marginal. The senior levels of the police and Federal prosecutor's office have been shown to be penetrated through and through by paid agents of the drug gangs.

GOM could not even take advantage of the oil price boom because their fields are running dry. The petroleum infrastructure is ragged and near collapse. The new, large potential off-shore fields cannot be developed because there isn't enough money for the national oil company to do it. And, the foreign investment which would bring the new potential online cannot be sought due to the touchy understanding of national sovereignty which is a legacy of the long, long internal wars of the early 20th Century.

Now, to help stave off more symptoms of apparent collapse, Mexico must spend a lot of that which they do not have much of--money. Money spent on "rescue" isn't there for constructive purposes such as bringing new oil fields into production.

Money spent on keeping illegals safely in the US isn't available for something real, productive and future oriented such as laying the basis for long-term private sector employment. But, considering the current situation and making even a very conservative assessment concerning the probable social destabilization of Mexicans flooding home, what real choice does GOM have?

As the Mexicans have muttered for years, "Poor Mexico. So far from God. So close to the United States."

Shootin' 'Em Up South of the Border

The Geek lives (in)conveniently close to the Mexican border. In the old days the Geek liked to go south, down to Palomas and Juarez.

(That is he liked to before the Heimatsicherheitsamt acting in accord with a typical piece of Congressional fear driven legislation built the Great American Security Fence backed by the arrogant paranoids of the border crossings made the experience unpalatable in the extreme.)

Now, even if the badge and gun toters of DHS were to morph into gladhanding members of the Welcome Squad, the Geek would hesitate before seeking either bargains or cross-cultural enjoyment in Mexico.

Not since the glory days of Pancho Villa and the possibility of a grandstand seat in El Paso for the Revolution across the Big River has life in the borderland become such a risky business.

Of the roughly 3500 people killed to date in the virtual war between drug gangs and between the Mexican security forces and the druggies, approximately 1,000 of the corpses have been hecho en Juarez. Not long ago the police chief of Palomas nipped across the border to Columbus (that's Columbus, New Mexico in case you were thinking of the one in Ohio) seeking sanctuary from the narco-shooters.

Los Zetas, the highly trained, very well equipped para-military force has undertaken very successful and quite lethal operations deep in the border states of Arizona and Texas. A hit list containing targets in the Land of Enchantment (as New Mexico quaintly but not inaccurately calls itself) has been found in the pocket of a Zeta-ista.

(The Geek's name was not among the chosen probably because he never called anyone when the dope smuggling aircraft disturbed his sleep by flying too low over the wrong canyon.)

There is nothing humorous in the current bloodshed in Mexico. Since Mexican president Caldereon declared war on the narco-traffickers, the violence has increased geometrically. Fifty died in one week in Tijuana. The Zetas heaved hand grenades at an independence day ceremony. The noise level of the drug wars both between gangs and between government and criminals in no way obscured the growing levels of "normal" crime such as kidnappings for ransom and standard issue murders.

While the Mexican population initially supported the Caldereon crackdown overwhelmingly, recent polls show that only forty percent now do and an alarmingly low figure of twenty-five percent feel themselves to be safer now than when the anti-drug gang campaign started. More than a few Mexicans in the middle and upper classes feel that the wheels are coming off.

(An interesting sign of the times is the hottest new fashion boutique in Mexico City features bullet resistant clothing with prices running to $7,500.)

On this side of the Great Fence some are beginning to fear full-fledged civil war breaking out with an attendant flood of refugees and overflow of violence. The Geek is not among this alarmist group.

The Mexicans have shown a great capacity to persevere during times of extreme instability and violence. Their society survived the decades of internal war which ensued upon the ending of the Diaz dictatorship a century back. While the wars didn't come to a final end until the early Twenties, they did end. Since then the country and its people have outlasted regional separatist movements, most recently in Chiapas a little more than ten years ago.

Mexico has survived the collapse of the peso. It survived the mass shootings of dissident students (perhaps as many as 300) at the universities in Mexico City forty years ago this month. It has survived earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes. It even survived the graft, corruption, inefficiency, and arrogance of the Permanent Revolutionary Party during that crew's long, long decades in power.

And, lest we Norteamericanos forget, Mexico even survived losing a war with us, losing a great swath of territory and the profound feelings of humiliation which accompanied that defeat over a century and a half ago.

The heavy weight of history indicates that Mexico will both survive the current exsanguination and prevail over the drug thugs. It will be a long, hard fight and will require both understanding and assistance from the United States.

There is little doubt that both the violence and the friction between the US and Mexico will worsen as the effects of the current global credit collapse make themselves felt in the land to our south. The issue of illegal immigration (from our perspective) or "migration" from the Mexican point of view will once again charge forward in the American consciousness. The role of Americans as the largest consumers of the drugs produced or moved through Mexico will become a larger and more contentious issue between the two countries. Beyond that the question of de-nationalising the off shore oil resources of Mexico so as to allow necessary foreign investment will provide another point of diplomatic and political disagreement between Washington and Mexico City.

Get a grip on the bottom line reality: Mexico is a critical country in our national interest on multiple levels. We ignore it at peril. In a real sense we need them more than they need us.