A dirty job so let “them” do it

I’d assume Iranian PressTV has an anti-U.S.”spin”, but pretty much the same story was printed by Associated Press this afternoon. The Iranian version is pithier.

Mexican security forces have faced fierce gun battles gunfire from increasingly well-armed traffickers and officials say the vast majority of the weapons are smuggled from the United States.

“The firepower we are seeing here has to do with a lack of control on that side of the border,” Assistant Secretary of Public Safety Patricio Patino said in an interview with the Associated Press, the agency reported.

President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 24,000 soldiers and federal police to drug-stricken and violence-ravaged areas, and criminals have apparently responded by attacking army troops. Five soldiers have died in attacks this month.

Soldiers have not been the only ones caught in the drug battles. About 1,000 drug-related killings, many of them carried out by drug gangs against their rivals, have been recorded this year, a rate that would soar past last year’s death toll of 2,000.

The army’s role in the anti-drug war has led to other problems, however. On Tuesday, the director of the National Human Rights Commission said soldiers assigned to fight drug cartels have been accused of drugging, beating and raping four teenage girls over several days.

I don’t think it can be stressed too often that soldiers are NOT the people to be doing police work.

The U.S. press has been making some mention of support for using military actions in the Federal District and State of Mexico (whose PRI governor’s kids were allegedly fired upon last week… though there are still questions about what really happened). What they’re not noticing — or not explaining — is that the supporters are from the President’s party or their very minor Green Party allies… who are a minority in the the Federal District Assembly, the State of Mexico Legislature AND the Chamber of Deputies. Both the PRI and PRD are starting to question the military solution to what is basically a police matter.

The only thing that makes this semi-military is the firepower some of the gangsters are using — and unless WE expect Mexico to start searching every border crosser and slow down border trade even more, it’s going to continue to be a problem until we do something about the arms traffic from the U.S.

There’s talk of more U.S. “financial assistance” for Mexican anti-drug efforts, but it’s focused on keeping the violence in Mexico. What it comes down to is OUR domestic politics. Our politicians expect us border residents to accept militaristic controls (we’re poor and Democrats, anyway), and are willing to export that solution, but are unwilling to say put the National Guard in the suburbs of Phoenix or Dallas, or send the FBI in to search gun sale records.

Since the source is on this side, I can’t say I blame the Mexican leadership for wanting to go back to less confrontational approaches to the supply (or actually, just the transport problem), and let us fight the demand problem here.

In neither the supply nor demand problem though, is there any reason for military control. It’s an excuse.

No excuses from me… with over 5000+ hits a week (and more every week)… there is a demand. Supplying the Mex Files is more than a full-time job and short of being a commercial site with a lot less information available, I don’t see how I can continue without funding. The $35 a year is based on what I’d need to charge for a 250 to 300 subscriber newsletter (and still stay very far below the poverty line without paying any writers).