Pubdate: Tue, 13 May 2008
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2008 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Note: Rarely prints out-of-state LTEs.
Author: Andres Oppenheimer, Tribune Media Services
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/mexico (Mexico)

DEMOCRATS WRONG ON CUTTING MEXICAN ANTI-DRUG AID

The murder of the acting chief of Mexico's federal police amid an 
unprecedented wave of drug gang attacks on security officials will 
soon become a major issue in the U.S. presidential candidates' 
escalating war for Hispanic votes.

Until now, Republicans and Democrats had tried to make as little 
noise as possible about the Bush administration's Merida Initiative, 
a request for $500 million to help Mexico fight its drug cartels. 
They hoped to pass it quietly, fearing that a high-profile debate 
would stir up political passions on both sides of the border and kill 
the proposal.

But with drug war violence in Mexico escalating to record levels in 
recent memory, that's changing fast.

Likely Republican candidate Sen. John McCain will probably try to cut 
into the Democrats' growing lead among Hispanics by saying that their 
proposal to reduce the Merida Initiative by up to $190 million 
amounts to "abandoning" Mexico at a time when President Felipe 
Calderon's government is facing a bigger than ever attack from the 
drug cartels.

It may be much like when McCain blamed Democrats for "abandoning" 
Colombia by resisting ratification of the U.S.-Colombia free-trade 
agreement. Only that, in Mexico's case, the political stakes at home 
are higher because more than 65 percent of the more than 10 million 
Hispanic voters are of Mexican origin.

When I asked the McCain campaign Friday evening for a reaction to the 
Democrat majority-proposed cuts to the Merida Initiative, I got a 
statement from McCain's top foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann 
that sounded like the opening salvo of the coming Republican offensive.

"At a time when we have a Mexican president willing to take the fight 
to vicious narco-traffickers, it is appalling and irresponsible that 
congressional Democrats would cut funding," Shuenemann said. "This is 
just the latest example of Democrats undermining our allies."

Carl Meacham, a senior Republican staffer at the Senate Foreign 
Relations, said that last week's killing of acting federal police 
chief Edgar Millan Gomez is "a huge thing." He added, "An escalating 
war is raging along the U.S. border, and many in Congress are 
refusing to assist a neighbor who has come for our help."

The slain police chief was the highest-ranking of about 200 officers 
killed by drug trafficking gangs over the past year and a half in 
apparent retaliation against Calderon's military offensive against 
the drug cartels.

According to a U.S. Senate report authored by Meacham, 2,600 Mexicans 
have lost their lives in police actions against drug traffickers over 
the past year, and the Mexican government has invested $3 billion and 
deployed 30,000 troops in an effort to combat the drug cartels.

The Merida aid package is aimed at helping Mexico buy eight transport 
helicopters, improve intelligence sharing, and reduce the massive 
smuggling of .50 mm rifles, grenades and other high power U.S. 
weapons to Mexico. The plan does not contemplate the presence of U.S. 
troops in Mexico.

Most Democrats in Congress say they want to vote for aid to Mexico, 
but they object to what they say is an excessive focus on military 
aid at the expense of institution-building assistance, and they note 
that some anti-immigration Republican legislators are opposing the 
Merida initiative.

Senate Western Hemisphere subcommittee chairman Chris Dodd of 
Connecticut told me in an e-mail that "we are planning to provide the 
Mexican government with critical financial assistance, while at the 
same time ensuring that we can also address various humanitarian 
emergencies around the world."

On Friday, the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers, which are baking 
the Democrats in the November elections, called for blocking the aid 
plan, citing concerns over human rights abuses.

My opinion: In this column a week ago, I ripped McCain for moving 
increasingly closer to anti-immigration hawks in his party, and for 
leaving behind the comprehensive immigration plan he once supported 
to embrace a new stand that I described as economically stupid, 
politically unwise and dangerous from a national security point of view.

Today, it's the Democrats' turn to be singled out for caving in to 
the populist-isolationist wing of their party, and irresponsibly 
turning their back to an escalating war against the bad guys on the 
U.S. border. Unless Democrats and their candidates give their full 
support to the initiative, they should face a backlash among some of 
the growing numbers of Hispanic voters who have flocked to the 
Democratic Party in recent months.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom