Do we need the troops?

I wasn’t going to post this until tomorrow, but George Friedman’s usual bleak analysis for Stratfor (Mexico: On the Road to a Failed State?) was sent to me a few minutes ago. Friedman, in what you expect from a report meant to sell security services in the United States, at least does see narotics exports as a problem primarily for the United States:

The amount of money accumulated in Mexico derives from smuggling operations in the United States. Drugs go one way, money another. But all the money doesn’t have to return to Mexico or to third-party countries. If Mexico fails, the leading cartels will compete in the United States, and that competition will extend to the source of the money as well. We have already seen cartel violence in the border areas of the United States, but this risk is not limited to that. The same process that we see under way in Mexico could extend to the United States; logic dictates that it would.

The current issue is control of the source of drugs and of the supply chain that delivers drugs to retail customers in the United States. The struggle for control of the source and the supply chain also will involve a struggle for control of markets. The process of intimidation of government and police officials, as well as bribing them, can take place in market towns such as Los Angeles or Chicago, as well as production centers or transshipment points.

I see no evidence that “loyalties are shifting to the cartels.” A lot of thoughtful people are worried by the administration’s response to drug trafficking, but that just means people believe the policy is a failure, not the state. Incidentally, “failed state” — though coined by that old anarchist Noam Chomsky (who says the United States is a “failed state”) — is normally used to justify intervention in the “failed” nation (Haiti, Bosnia, etc.), or to sell military equipment (Colombia) on the pretext that “we” can’t afford to let “them” fail.

Tiny, dirt-poor Guinea-Bissau, is called a “failed state” basically because it has a thriving narcotics transshipment trade… but then, that’s about all Guinea-Bissau has. Mexico has — and will continue to have — oil, gold, silver, lead, agricultural products, fisheries, manufacturing, film, etc. etc. etc. industries. Even if the narcotics trade is — as Friedman claims — responsible for 40 billion dollars a year the U.S. spends overseas, it doesn’t mean all of that money goes to Mexico… nor that the Mexican economy is solely dependent on that money (or that… given about forty years… the source of funding for other Mexican businesses will matter all that much). However, media attention (corporate media attention??? — see the end of my piece) ignores the economic reality in favor of the “failed state” alarmist reports.

My point (which needs to be clarified, and I may revise this later) is that the top-down approach — and military solution — being pursued by the Calderon administration is creating problems. Throwing more military forces at the problem, like the U.S. “surge” in Iraq, is counter-intuitive. Especially when tried and true techniques (like better police work, and rural development programs) — mixed with shutting off the weapons and money spigot from the United States — are likely to be more effective in the long run.

And, besides… everyone expected “drug violence” to include attacks on police officials over the short term. But, unfortunately, we believe what’s in our interest to believe. And, it’s in the interest of Statfor’s clients to invest in military “solutions” rather than resolve the root cause of a national problem.

With the gangsters bumping each other off all over Cuilcán (and one Sinaloa Ministeral Police — i.e., the investigative police — chief here in Mazatlán) the predictable reaction by the Calderon administration is to throw more soldiers at the problem.

Given that the soldiers and federal police are probably a greater danger to us civilians than the gangsters. The gangsters generally hit their targets, anyway. And, seeing they have had to advertise for openings, and aren’t as well armed as you think, maybe going about this the wrong way.

The big hit last week — Chapo Guzmán’s kid — was with a bazooka. You can’t tell me the gangsters have more than one of ’em. That’s basic “CSI” type work — trace back the weapon to its source, and follow it back. When Edgar Millán Gomez (who was a high-ranking police official, but not “Mexico’s Police Chief” as simplistic foreign press reports called him) was killed, it was old fashioned police work that caught the presumed killers. Mexico City doesn’t have the best cops on the planet, but the tried and true “be on the lookout for…” caught the presumed hitman. Yeah, maybe some “extraordinary rendition” was used to work out who else was involved, but in police killings, these things happen.

My point is that the fight against the drug dealers — if it’s necessary — is NOT analogous to some “Shi’ite v. Sunni” war (as a witty observer in Mazatlán noted), but just the same kind of fight Al Capone and Dutch Shultz had with Eliot Ness. In 1920s Chicago the police (then, as now, notoriously corrupt) took their casualties, and sometimes got their man. The feds — despite Eliot Ness’ later tall tales — mostly stuck to basic things like investigating tax returns and following the money. There was never any thought of sending in the soldiers. The only thing calling out the Army does is put more firepower into the mix. Which may be the point.

All of which makes me think that Lopez Obrador is on to something.

Vicente Fox, being a business executive, saw the drug export trade as a business — a nasty one — but a business nonetheless. You get the feeling he was content to let “market solutions” resolve the worst problems (i.e. let the gangsters kill each other) and tried to correct some abuses at the consumer level — must to the horror of the U.S. press, which had Fox’s very good idea (defining what constituted “personal use” narcotics, and not wasting police resources on small users) completely ass-backwards … reporting it as “legalized drug use”. Fox, alas, was not the Great Communicator… or even a particularly good communicator.

You’d expect Felipe Calderon, with degrees in economics and administration, to recognize the drug export wars as economic and the police problem as basically an administrative one. Which he has. But, like George W. Bush and others, he turns away from the conservative belief in “grassroots solutions” and opts for federalizing and nationalizing “problems” with a single solution.

Lopez Obrador, as a social worker, is looking at the problem from his perspective. I realize that Lopez Obrador’s natural reaction to anything Felipe Calderon does is to start singing the old Groucho Marx song, “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It,” but AMLO does seem to be the only one focused on the issue as a social problem.

Fox was correct in a lot of ways. Cocaine is not Mexico’s problem (coca doesn’t even grow in Mexico), but because it is transshipped through Mexico, dumping surplus cocaine on the Mexican market is a problem. Other than working with users, there isn’t a lot that could be done here, until the U.S. deals with their consumption problem, or with the financial and material support it provides to Mexican shippers. But, that’s not a Mexican problem. If cocaine doesn’t come through Mexico, it will come through somewhere else until something is done about consumer demand.

Mexico’s domestic drug exports — marijuana, methamphetamines and some heroin, are alll rural products. AMLO was correct in suggesting more legitimate resources need to go to the rural regions. While Calderon’s government has had some success in cutting off supplies for meth production, until rural residents have better incomes, they’re going to continue growing what they can sell — including opium poppies. (I wonder if it wouldn’t be more costThe Mex Files › Edit — WordPress effective for the U.S. to simply offer to buy up the harvest at market prices… and maybe throw in a school or a few medical clinics and supermarkets than to spend money building prisons and trying to force Mexico to buy hardware with U.S. money).

If I’m reading AMLO’s suggestions correctly, he’s blaming capitalism and the corporate media for the violence. Socialists are supposed to blame capitalism, so that’s expected. But unless he’s talking about nationalizing the marijuana industry (now there’s a thought!… or I suppose Mexico could find a domestic market use, like Bolivia did with coca), I think he’s referring to the same platform he always has… more development funds for the rural areas (and, I’d suggest spending more on rural police training and salaries, which would cut down on the need for military intervention) and concentrating on domestic market development is going to do more than any fleet of heliocopters.

Blaming the media… well, of course AMLO does that, but he doesn’t seem to mean that they’re glorifying the “drug war” or glamorizing the combatants. And suggesting that “one size fits all” when it comes to resolving the issue. And assuming there is a “war” to be won or lost.