Could it be that the escalating violence in Mexico is a sign of ‘success’ for that nation’s ongoing war on drugs? According to this incredulous editorial from Mexico’s La Jornada, the fact that U.S. officials have been making such a claim is yet more evidence that the U.S. is calling the shots in that war, and to admit how badly things are going would be to show the failure of its own policies.
The La Jornada editorial says in part:
During her participation at the International Conference for the Control Of Drugs in Cancun [Apr. 5-7], DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart said that ‘although it may seem otherwise, the level of violence in Mexico is a sign of success’ for national authorities in their fight against the drug cartels, who she likened to, ‘caged animals’ that ‘are lashing out against one another.’
The suggestion that the unbridled violence in Mexico is a sign of “success” is belied by statistics on the number of murders – more than 30,000 recorded in the past four years; by irrefutable proof of increased firepower [on the part of the cartels]; the degree of organization and territorial control by criminal groups; the fact that growing segments of the population are living in terror because of armed confrontations, atrocities and abuses casually committed by all sorts of criminal organizations; and human rights violations perpetrated by police and military personnel charged with “restoring the rule of law.”
Beyond this, what was said by this official [DEA Administrator Leonhart] seems rather like the latest attempt by U.S. authorities to evade their own responsibilities for combating narco-trafficking – a phenomena which, for those of us in the states and cities of this country, has become the norm. Furthermore, such comments serve to transfer the job associated with the battle south of the Rio Bravo, along with the exasperating violence, deterioration of public safety and failed rule of law that comes along with it, and in this way, to deepen U.S. encroachment on Mexican territory.
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