Mexico says we're the problem...

[FrodeMk3]

We are now the source of THEIR troubles, according to them:

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Sat May 24, 9:51 PM ET
 


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The chief of Mexico's war on drug gangs said Washington should concentrate on halting the flow of arms to Mexican drug cartels rather than haggle over how much aid to give Mexico's anti-smuggling operation.

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 Reacting to a vote by U.S. lawmakers to trim an aid package for the drug war, Mexico's deputy attorney general, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, said an alternative would be to keep the cash in the United States and use it to curb illegal arms trafficking across the border.

"Some of us were talking, remarking that, well, this (sum of money) is all very well, but why don't we tell the Americans they could spend it on their (border security forces) to stop the flow of arms to Mexico," Santiago Vasconcelos said in remarks on local radio distributed by his office on Saturday.

Santiago Vasconcelos, the point man in Mexico's crackdown on drug smuggling gangs, said 97 percent of the weapons used by Mexican drug gangs came from the United States.

He said Mexico would evaluate whether to accept any U.S. offer of funds and under what conditions.

Mexico is spending $7 billion of its own money to fund its 18-month-old crackdown on the powerful and violent cartels that smuggle Colombian cocaine north to U.S. consumers.

U.S. President George W. Bush had offered to add $1.4 billion in three tranches to pay for surveillance equipment and speedy aircraft, but his opponents in Congress have haggled over the amount and asked that human rights conditions be attached.

The U.S. House of Representatives this month cut the first tranche of the so-called Merida Initiative, named after the Mexican city where it was conceived, to $400 million from $500 million, and the Senate Appropriations Committee put forward a figure of $350 million.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has made the war on drug cartels the centerpiece of his presidency, deploying some 25,000 troops and federal police across the country, but the operation has sparked considerable bloodshed.

Turf wars between rival cartels and battles with the army have killed 1,380 people this year, nearly 50 percent more than the same period last year, according to the attorney general's office.

(Reporting by Catherine Bremer; Editing by Peter Cooney)

From here:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080525/pl_nm/mexico_usa_dc_1

Maybe we ought to post in international news what a problem-solver their gov't. has been with our Illegal immigration problem?

[JB88]

im not sure that i follow your argument.

[bj229r]

im not sure that i follow your argument.

You don't see the irony in Mexico complaining about illegal stuff (in this case, automatic weapons) crossing the porous border into their country, and them demanding we do something about it?

[Reschke]

Funny thing there but I would be willing to bet that better than 80% of those illegal arms are coming into Mexico from South America (probably Venezuela) and are former "Soviet Bloc" weapons that have been sitting around in some middle eastern country or Africa just waiting on some little man to need them.

[Maverick]

You don't see the irony in Mexico complaining about illegal stuff (in this case, automatic weapons) crossing the porous border into their country, and them demanding we do something about it?

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see anything about automatic weapons in the article. Frankly as few as there are and given the cost of them I doubt seriously that there are much, if any coming from the US. There are too many former soviet as well as chinese weapons being circulated on the global market in black market operations to sweat MG's from the US.

Perhaps the place to start is in the graft and corruption in the Mexican Army and Police as they do have access to that kind of hardware. If they can get those organizations to stop providing assistance to the drug lords they may be on a road to solving their problems. Most of their problems are home grown.

[uptown]

Someone needs to post a mission to take that place once and for all!!!!!

[Mr No Name]

Someone needs to post a mission to take that place once and for all!!!!!

  LMAO!

Look, we need to ship all of their countrymen back, anchor babies and all to help them solve their own problems

[wrongwayric]

Stop giving Mexico any money! Build huge wall with armed guards, shoot anyone crossing into the kill zone from Mexico into U.S.! Absolutely no trade with mexico of any kind. No more cruise ships allowed to land in mexico and anyone retired and living there will receive no government retirement/ssn checks from the U.S.. No mail from U.S. or any form of monetary transfers allowed at all!
Let's see how long Mexico lasts without american dollars!
It really seems to me that the latin american countries are really pushing for a fight with us and maybe we would should oblige them?!

[moot]

No need for all that, just enforce the laws.  E.g. penalize employers.

[Samiam]

We *are* the problem!

Our puritan drug laws fuel an economy of corruption and death.

[FrodeMk3]

Funny thing there but I would be willing to bet that better than 80% of those illegal arms are coming into Mexico from South America (probably Venezuela) and are former "Soviet Bloc" weapons that have been sitting around in some middle eastern country or Africa just waiting on some little man to need them.

I'd say not so much Venezuela, but places more like El Salvador, Nicaragua, and possibly some funneling in from Cuba. But yeah, lotta stuff out of South/Central America is there to be had, Backlash from the Reagan-era insurrections' that used to be so common there.

[FrodeMk3]

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see anything about automatic weapons in the article. Frankly as few as there are and given the cost of them I doubt seriously that there are much, if any coming from the US. There are too many former soviet as well as chinese weapons being circulated on the global market in black market operations to sweat MG's from the US.

Perhaps the place to start is in the graft and corruption in the Mexican Army and Police as they do have access to that kind of hardware. If they can get those organizations to stop providing assistance to the drug lords they may be on a road to solving their problems. Most of their problems are home grown.

From Mexican Gov't. sources, very likely-there are stories on the internet of the Mexican army actually providing security for Drug shipments' right up to the U.S. border. Actively supplying arms' to the same drug cartels would sadly be in their character.

[FrodeMk3]

Let's see how long Mexico lasts without american dollars!
It really seems to me that the latin american countries are really pushing for a fight with us and maybe we would should oblige them?!

They'll just go to the Euro. They aren't pushing for a fight. They are pushing for more handouts. The whole, "Maybe the U.S. should keep the money and stop guns from El Norte" line is just a whine to elicit more money from us than they were gonna get in the first place; They only said this when Congress decided to cut the money we were gonna give them from $500 mill. to $400 million. They expect us to say, "We can't stop the flow of guns out of the United States, without totally sealing out borders, (for some huge amount of money) and stopping it in Mexico would be the best way."

The Mexican response will be, "Then we need more money than what you were gonna give us in the first place to make that happen..." and of course, nary a dime we give them will go where we intended it to go.

[FrodeMk3]

No need for all that, just enforce the laws.  E.g. penalize employers.

Amen to that, if it happens.

[FrodeMk3]

We *are* the problem!

Our puritan drug laws fuel an economy of corruption and death.

It doesn't matter if we pass laws' that say you can't eat green spinach the day after New Year's, if it's corruption in another country that is causing problems' in said country. The Mexican's need to own up to themselves' as a people, and decide to enforce a moral standard of living everyday through adherence and enforcement of their laws. If that means' getting rid of everyone in their gov't. to do so, then they should. Until they do what's right, It's not up to the U.S. to re-write it's own code of laws to try to fix problems' in a seperate, sovereign nation.