Pubdate: Wed, 10 Sep 2008
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: A14
Copyright: 2008 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491

MEXICO'S WAR

The Government's Battle Against Drug Gangs Is Deadlier Than Most 
Americans Realize.

MANY PEOPLE in Washington are rightly alarmed about the rising toll 
of military and civilian casualties in Afghanistan. They might be 
surprised to learn that a roughly equal number of people have been 
killed so far this year in a war raging much closer to home -- in 
Mexico. More Mexican soldiers and police officers have died fighting 
the country's drug gangs in the past two years than the number of 
U.S. and NATO troops killed battling the Taliban. Civilian casualties 
have been just as numerous, and as gruesome: There have been scores 
of beheadings, massacres of entire families and assassinations of 
senior officials. By the official count, kidnappings in Mexico now 
average 65 a month, ranking it well ahead of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The challenge facing Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who 
courageously declared war on the drug syndicates shortly after taking 
office in December 2006, gets relatively little attention here 
because Americans are only rarely among the casualties. But U.S. 
money and weapons are fueling this war. Billions of dollars from 
American drug users flow to the syndicates, along with thousands of 
weapons smuggled across the border. Congress recently approved $400 
million in aid for the Mexican government, most of which will be used 
to better arm and equip the army. The stakes are large for the United 
States: not just the success of Mr. Calderon's liberal and friendly 
government but the survival of Mexico's democracy; not just the 
stability of a neighbor but the ability of the United States to 
control illegal immigration.

Some Mexican officials argue that the scale of the violence points to 
the government's success -- by taking on and damaging the drug gangs, 
it has provoked a backlash. But most Mexicans appear to believe the 
government is losing the war. Tens of thousands marched in cities 
around the country on Aug. 30 to protest the government's failure to 
protect citizens. A 75-point, three-year strategy unveiled by Mr. 
Calderon earlier in the month, including proposals to build new 
prisons for drug traffickers and track gangsters through cellphones, 
looked underpowered to critics in the opposition and the media.

Mr. Calderon's biggest problem may be the absence of reliable forces. 
Most of Mexico's police are hired and managed locally; only 20,000 
are federal. The army is less corrupt, but even the commitment of 
40,000 troops has failed to turn the tide against the gangs. The new 
U.S. funding should help, but the next administration in Washington 
would do well to explore whether more assistance can be provided in 
training Mexican forces, much as U.S. advisers have helped 
professionalize the Colombian army. More must be done, too, to 
curtail the cross-border gun trafficking. Mexico's war is in its own 
way as critical to U.S. interests as Afghanistan's is; in both cases, 
a larger American commitment is needed. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake