| | |  Editorials | Opinions 
Are Mexican Citizens’ Deaths Any Less Deserving of Sadness and Outrage?
 Patrick Osio - HispanicVista.com
March 22, 2010
 |  | Is it in our nation’s best interest to place Mexico as having the sole responsibility for the war on drugs? And how does it help our nation by destroying Mexico’s economy through the creation of fear to visit, loathing dealing with, and ignoring our country’s responsibility? |  | | |
It took the killing of two US citizens employed by the Consulate in Ciudad Juarez to elicit President Obama’s comment “... deeply saddened and outraged by the news of the brutal murders...” According to the Los Angeles Times, there have been 10,031 killings in Mexico since 2007 related to the war against organized drug cartels, which at no time has brought signs of sadness or outrage from the White House, be it from Obama or his predecessor. Are Mexican citizens’ deaths any less deserving of sadness and outrage?
But with the expression from Obama for the killings there is no mentioned of sadness or outrage at US citizens’ usage of drugs that according to an Editorial on the Seattle Times, “These gruesome tallies are the byproduct of a lethal industry that satisfies U.S. appetites for marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine. As the wealthy consumers of illicit goods, drug-abusing Americans are complicit in these deaths.”
U.S. drug users provide Mexican drug cartels with $31 billion annually to carry out their bloody war. Why is there no outrage at this?
Drug related deaths in the US pale in comparison to the drug related killings taking place in Mexico. In just one year, 17,000 deaths due to illicit drug use are recorded in the U.S. as compared with an annual average of 3,300 killings in Mexico.
Have we in the U.S. surrendered to drug usage as inevitable and thus quasi acceptable? Are the deaths of 17,000 fellow Americans just another statistic to which we’ve become accustomed? Other than the immediate members of the family of those whose life is so needlessly struck down, is there no sadness for their passing? Is there no outrage at drug usage and local distribution as the cause?
Is condemning Mexico and its people for ‘not stopping’ the passage of drugs to our cities and towns through their territory a substitute for our nation’s indifference to our own people’s usage of the smuggled drugs?
Are the Mexican people the lawless society due to their efforts to eradicate drug traffickers and their resulting retaliation? If so, then what is our society that allows and, through our silence, encourages illicit drug usage?
Are we not, as the Seattle Times editorial argues “... complicit in these deaths...”
What is the role of our nation’s press and other news media in all of this? Why do regional and national news media report so heavily about the killings in Mexico giving the appearance that the nation is one “killing field” when such is not the case? And, why do they not report that the U.S. as a whole is losing far more lives to the “drug war” than is Mexico?
Why do editorials advise, admonish, and preach to Mexico, but not one news outlet has championed and ongoing crusade to “stop drug usage” and “report distributors” in the U.S.?
Why does the U.S. media and popular network commentators degrade Mexico as a corrupt nation, but either lightly mention or altogether ignore U.S. corruption?
How much coverage was given to the Congressional Testimony by Kevin L. Perkins, Assistant Director, Criminal Investigation Division of the FBI, on March 11, 2010 on the state of corruption?
How many people throughout the nation were informed that Perkins testified that in the last two years alone there have been 1,600 convictions of federal, state and local officials, and that there are 3,200 public corruption cases pending and that more remains to be done and that the Southwest border is a particular focus of corruption-fighting efforts? According to the Perkins testimony, the result is over 400 public corruption cases originating from that region so far with 84 convictions.
Were the people informed that in July 2008, the FBI and DEA with Canadian law enforcement arrested a network of cocaine, marijuana and illegal immigrants’ smugglers over the Quebec-New York border? And, that the FBI conducted nearly 300 public corruption investigations along the Canadian border?
Is it in our nation’s best interest to place Mexico as having the sole responsibility for the war on drugs? And how does it help our nation by destroying Mexico’s economy through the creation of fear to visit, loathing dealing with, and ignoring our country’s responsibility?
Are we kept in the dark intentionally or does thinking less of Mexico makes us warm and fuzzy believing it makes us better?
Sadness? Outrage? You bet, but we are misplacing where it should be directed.
Patrick Osio is the Editor of HispanicVista.com and Vice President of the Baja California Medical Tourism Association. Contact at POsioJr(at)aol.com or at Posio(at)aol.com |
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