Posted on 11/11/2009 3:01:18 PM PST by Arec Barrwin
The Atlantic Foreign Affairs December 2009
In the almost three years since President Felipe Calderón launched a war on drug cartels, border towns in Mexico have turned into halls of mirrors where no one knows who is on which side or what chance remark could get you murdered. Some 14,000 people have been killed in that time, the worst carnage since the Mexican Revolution, and part of the country is effectively under martial law. Is this evidence of a creeping coup by the military? A war between drug cartels? Between the president and his opposition? Or just collateral damage from the (U.S.-supported) war on drugs? Nobody knows: Mexico is where facts, like people, simply disappear. The stakes for the U.S. are high, especially as the prospect of a failed state on our southern border begins to seem all too real.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Mexico needs another revolution. Just like we do.
YEP the wonderful WOD
Has anyone asked how a country, whose race and culture blends technologically advanced native American and European races and cultures, and which has abundant natural resources and an admired work ethic, turn into such a cesspool?
I wish Mexico would collapse, the fragments would catch fire and burn to ash, and the ashes scattered to the wind, and the wind deposit the ashes over the deepest part of the ocean, and the ocean swallow the dust.
In my opinion, Mexico was cursed with the Spanish system of government and its attendant morality. Countries founded by England have fared much better.
PRI will wi the next electiom and the old system and quiet will return!
I tend to agree with you.
You are 100% correct.
Yet while San Diego is rightly called “America's finest city”, Tijuana is a cesspool beyond description.
The difference is culture. We have a capitalist economy, and they have an exploitation economy. We have a vibrant middle class, they have the worlds wealthiest individual and a bunch of ‘el Indio’peasants. We have property rights and the rule of law, they have a kleptocracy where nothing is yours if someone better connected than you wants it.
Someone also explained it to me thusly. In America everyone involved/interested gets a piece of the pie AFTER the pie is baked; thus everyone has an interest in making sure things get done and the next pie is planned. In Mexico (and elsewhere) everyone wants their cut off the top, off the books; and once they get their cut they have little or no interest in making sure what you paid them to get done actually gets done.
Bttt - I’ve been a fan of the author’s since “A Rumor of War.”
You are exactly right. We can rant all we like about the corruptness of Mexico, Afghanistan, Columbia, etc, but these countries and others are merely supplying demand. If we (U.S.) should take a zero tolerance policy against drugs and put some tough sentencing laws into effect the drug supply would dry up pronto as there would be no buyers. But, that ain't gonna happen...
Why is that exactly?
Recreational drugs and all surrounding it risks turning us also into a Mexico.
Spanish, Austrian, French,, Europe had profound effects on Mexico. Thats why they make some first class beers, and have the worst governnment. Like all former Euro colonies,, they were ruined.
And England was no picnic either. A very nasty little nation to it’s colonies, and while not an enemy of the USA, certainly never above doing *anything imaginable* to us if it helps them.
As recently as WWI it was assumed by the US Navy that fighting against England was always a rational possibility. This special friendship thing is a recent phenomenon.
And not to mention almost every war we face today is the remnant of British colonialism. Pakistan vs India,, Iraq was created out of thin air by England, same for the Saudis, Israel, Palestine (whatever it is), Syria, etc,,,
It’s the supreme irony that as the only power without colonies, we have spent 60 years cleaning up Europes messed up colonies. Vietnam, Haiti, Somalia, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan,,,etc,, Fairly amazing.
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