Tuesday, September 16, 2008
While that horse we call the War on Terror is beaten to death in the Middle East, we too often forget the very real war on terror being waged — and lost — in Mexico.
Violent crime attributed to Mexico’s extremely powerful drug cartels has claimed more than 4,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 — 2,700 of those this year. Kidnappings, beheadings and public assassinations of police officers are the biggest acts of terror that have swept over Mexico.
The chaos is dragging down the economy. Investors are becoming wary of doing business. According to the BBC, Mexican laborers in the troubled American housing industry have sent 6.9 percent less back home compared to the year before. Money sent back from workers outside the country is Mexico’s second largest source of legal foreign income, after revenue from oil.
In June, the United States began a three-year plan of aid. Though timely, it is not enough money and not comprehensive enough. Giving $1.4 billion is pitiful in the face of a multi-billion dollar-a-year drug industry, where an estimated $15 billion a year crosses the United States-Mexico border in cash.
If we were so concerned about Iraqis under Saddam, why do we ignore our own neighbors? Are these cartels not terrorists? The message that the Bush administration transmits when it ignores Mexican narco-terrorism is that killing for money and power isn’t as bad as killing for religious idealism. But that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
What’s needed is a fresh approach to how we combat the emergence of structures that perpetuate terrorism: the nature of our political and economic policy toward Mexico, the drug markets in the United States and our policy in dealing with them, as well as an investigation into just how high the corruption in Mexico has spread.
Calderon is pleading for our help. In order for fresh policy and a healthy relationship between the United States and Mexico to happen, the call for cooperation from Mexico needs to be answered more emphatically.
And if we are going to truly wage a war on terror, then we are going to have to begin by advocating for the victims of terror in all its forms, wherever it emerges.
Anderson is a Perry junior in creative writing.
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Comments
Anderson: What about the narco-terrorists?
Amen!
Anderson: What about the narco-terrorists?
We shouldn't give money away to Mexico. No, we should legalize all drugs and regulate the hell out of them. The fact that marijuana is still illegal, and that our population consumes more of it than any place in the world, is the number one reason why there are drug cartels killing people in Mexico. How do you eliminate the drug cartels? eliminate their source of income! legalize pot so that ordinary folks can grow it in their backyard, or cigarette companies can start marketing it to our youth. It's better than a bunch of drug lords smuggling it across the border and then killing eachother over who gets the money, amirite?
Anderson: What about the narco-terrorists?
(for the record, I was saying Amen to the column, not mr2b's racist comment)
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