| | |  Editorials | Issues | November 2008 
Mexico's War: The Iraq Next Door
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 |  | The war Mexico is fighting is fueled by drug consumption north of the border, reason enough for the U.S. to share responsibility. |  | | | |
The accelerating drug war in Mexico cries out for more attention. The horrific violence signals something already too big for Mexico to fight alone. It will spread north. The U.S. can't afford to wait.
As Americans went to the polls last week, Juan Camilo Mourino, Mexico's interior secretary, was falling to Earth over the capital in a fiery crash that killed him and 13 others.
Investigators are trying to determine why the helicopter carrying Mexico's second-highest official failed, but many think it was the work of drug cartels that Mexico has been at war with since 2006.
If traffickers were indeed responsible, they have sent a signal that they're coming for the government and can take down Mexico's leaders anywhere, anytime. If it was an accident, there's the disturbing implication that Mexico's aircraft are deficient even for its leaders. Either way, the U.S. ought to do more to help.
Some 4,400 Mexicans have been killed in the drug war this year alone - including a record 58 in one day last week. Grisly killings of honest cops, officials, innocent bystanders, kidnap victims and other traffickers engulf border towns like Juarez and Tijuana.
But the carnage is spreading even to formerly placid vacation spots such as Rosarito Beach on the west coast. The tourists, of course, are gone, U.S. State Department travel advisories are up, and local economies are withering.
Mexico has also become the kidnapping capital of the world, not only in numbers but in viciousness. Victims are often killed even after a ransom is paid. And they're no longer confined to the wealthy.
A week ago, the 5-year-old son of impoverished street merchants was taken and then, when a ransom wasn't paid, killed with an injection of acid into his heart. This week, 27 farm laborers were kidnapped. Twenty-six Americans have also been abducted in Mexico, and there are signs that it's spreading north of the border. A few weeks ago, 8-year-old Cole Puffenberger of Las Vegas was taken because a relative owed debts to drug cartels.
Two years ago, when Mexico went on the offensive against the drugs, every analyst dismissed the idea of Mexico becoming "another Colombia." No one believed that the impact of the drug trade could ever be as pervasive as in that South American country.
There, drug lords aligned with Marxist terrorists, burned down the Supreme Court, won seats in Congress and fought pitched battles with weapons more advanced than those used by the Colombian military. By 1998, they had nearly toppled the government.
The country was saved by a U.S. infusion of $6 billion in training and equipment that gave the country the tools it needed to fight back. That aid, combined with strong Colombian leadership, has worked wonders. Today, Colombia is a growing country with safe cities and victory in sight.
The U.S. still spends $600 million to train drug-fighters in Colombia, but that's $200 million more than we give Mexico for the same purpose. All of this pales in comparison with the $3 billion a year we send to Israel and the $1 billion sent to Georgia for reconstruction after the Russian attack, not to mention the $10 billion a month that goes to defending and rebuilding Iraq.
Yet we have a long, unguarded border with Mexico, where the drug war claimed more victims last year than the U.S. has suffered in fatalities since the war in Iraq began in 2003.
This is a bad skewing of priorities, and not just because of Mexico's proximity to the U.S., its capacity to ship millions of illegal immigrants and its status as America's second-largest trading partner.
The war Mexico is fighting is fueled by drug consumption north of the border, reason enough for the U.S. to share responsibility, as Mexico has asked. Mexico's war also has more potential to spread here than any other, and its insidious violence has a capacity to corrupt institutions and create insecurity. It should not fight this alone. |
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