Today's Stories

March 13 / 15, 2009

Peter Lee
What the Chas Freeman Fight Was Really About

Diana Johnstone
NATO's Global Mission Creep

March 12 , 2009

Sharon Smith
Bottom Feeders at the Trough

Christopher Ketcham
Full Spectrum Penetration: Israeli Spying in the United States

Mike Whitney
Haircut Time for Bondholders

Ray McGovern
Obama Caves to the Lobby

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
The Doublespeak of a Discredited IMF

John Ross
The War is Not Over

M. Reza Pirbhai
Men in Black: Another View of Pakistan

Chris Floyd
Lost Liberty Blues: Prisons, Profits and the Banality of Evil

Steve Early
Why Labor Doesn't Need a "House of Lords"

Quentin Gee
Hiding the Costs of Coal

Website of the Day
Amadee Coral Reef: a Spherical Panorama

March 11 , 2009

Mike Roselle
From Birmingham to Coal River: Why is the Environmental Movement So Timid?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Criminal Injustice System

Henry A. Giroux
Academic Labor in Dark Times

Nikolas Kozloff
The Death Cries of the Salvadoran Right

Norm Kent
I am Patient Number 380206011

Mitu Sengupta
Reforming the World Bank: Different Image, Same Tune?

Ludwig Watzal
The Structure of Israel's Occupation

David Macaray
The Battle Over EFCA Has Begun

William S. Lind
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Martha Rosenberg
A Merger From the Folks Who Brought You Vytorin

Website of the Day
American Indicator: One in Fifty Kids are Homeless

March 10 , 2009

Franklin Spinney
What Israeli Peace Process?

Vijay Prashad
What Did Hillary Clinton Do?

Stan Cox
There's No Free Lunch on Your Browser: the Internet's Energy Drain

Zoltan Grossman
Coffee Strong: Listening to the G.I. Voice at Fort Lewis

Reuven Kaminer
Pure and Unadulterated Racism

Jonathan Cook
Memoricide in the West Bank

Dave Lindorff
Business Rules

Brian McKenna
How Anthropology Disparages Journalism

Harvey Wasserman
Is This the End of the Age of the Automobile?

Corey Pein
He Told You So

Website of the Day
AIG and Systemic Failure: $1.6 Trillion in Insured Deriviatives

March 9 , 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the Sorkin Affair

Ralph Nader
Too Big...Period

Peter Lee
Meet Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: the US's Worst/Best Hope for Afghanistan?

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Charade

Peter Morici
Fixing the Banks: Treasury's Doomed Strategy

Dean Baker
Why Do We Need a Private Health Insurance Industry, Anyway?

Steve Ault
Kiss Thailand's Tolerance for Gays Goodbye

Stephen Lendman
Guantánamo Under Obama

Farooq Sulehria
Tennis Without Spectators

Belén Fernández
Chávez, a Cockfight and the Caracazo

Website of the Day
How Lincoln Learned to Read

March 6-8 , 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Harlots High and Low

Chris Floyd
Tangled Up in Karl

Uri Avnery
Remember Ophira?

Dave Lindorff
Kiss the Banks Goodbye

Mark Weisbrot
The Crisis vs. the Dogma

David Ker Thomson
Against Work

Phil Aliff
Soldier Suicides

Rebekah Ward
Georgia Injustice: Another Young Life Wrecked

Tracey Briggs
How Capitalism Feels in the Head

Dean Baker
Depression Nostalgia?

Daniel P. Wirt, M.D.
Remove the Handle From the Health Insurance Misery and Death Pump

Carl Finamore
The Recovery Plan: Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us

Wajahat Ali
The Pakistani Monster

David Michael Green
Smart is the New Stupid

David Macaray
The Minimum Wage Revisited

Michael Dickinson
On Financial Fools Day

Susie Day
Line in the Sand

Bob Sommer
Echoes of the Townhouse Explosion

Ben Sonnenberg
No Forgiveness for the Bourgeoisie: Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel"

David Yearsley
Sonic Fakery in "Slumdog" From the Mozart of Chennai

DC Larson
They're Writing Those Depression Songs, Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Live Truth: Music Sans Headphones

Poets' Basement
Dominquez, MacNeil and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Environment & Obama: a Conversation with Jeffrey St. Clair

March 5 , 2009

James G. Abourezk
This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn

Kathleen and Bill Christison
U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Robert Weissman
Wall Street's Best Investment: Paying for Public Policy

Patrick Cockburn
My Day at the Terror "Charity"

William Blum
Being Serious About Torture...Or Not

Robert Fantina
From Iraq to Afghanistan: Augmentation All Over Again

Saul Landau
The Unseen Crisis

Benjamin Dangl
Striking a Blow Against the Beer Cartel: a Grassroots Victory in Utah

Christopher Brauchli
The New Leaders of the GOP

Website of the Day
The Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude

March 4, 2009

Marjorie Cohn
Blueprints for a Police State

Mike Whitney
Blowing Up the Economy: How Securitization Lit the Fuse

Ron Jacobs
The Banality of Occupation: the Rand Papers

Ashley Smith
War by Another Name

Joanne Mariner
Obama's War on Terror

Dan Bacher
The California Water Wars: Why It's Not a Conflict Between Fish and People

Mark Engler
Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?

Franklin Lamb
"What's Hezbollah Done for Us Lately?"

Cal Winslow
Slugging It Out in California

David Mandelzys
Apartheid Week

Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List

March 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Long, Dark Night of Pakistan

Brian M. Downing
The Changing Game in Afghanistan

Robert Larson
External Damnation: Companies are Designed for Destruction

Daniel P. Wirt, MD
Single-Payer Health Reform

Russell Mokhiber
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

William Loren Katz
Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

Kathy Sanborn
The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Pauline Imbach
A New Start for the World Social Forum?

Christopher Ketcham
The Best Journalism You'll Write is Priceless

Website of the Day
The Surveillance Self-Defense Project

March 2, 2009

Andrea Peacock
A Poisoned Town's Shot at Justice

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's Budget

Peter Lee
Pakistan Lurches Toward the Abyss

John Blair
Locking Down Big Coal

Peter Morici
Treasury's Flawed Plan for Citigroup

Uri Avnery
10 Ways to Kill Fatah

Michael Donnelly
Resistance to the War on the Wild

Fred Gardner
The Judge Who Ruled Marijuana is Medicine

Sonia Nettnin
Middle East Medical Mission Heroes

Andrew Lehman
A New Deal for the Web

Website of the Day
Pentagon Papers II?

Feb. 27 - March 1, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Is Nancy Pelosi Really Against War Crimes?

Harry Browne
Where the Cheats Have No Shame

Anthony DiMaggio
From Bush to Obama: Seven Years of Wartime Propaganda

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Dennis Ross and Iran: the Fox and the Chicken Coop

Mischa Gaus
The Banks' War on Workers

Felice Pace
The Economy and the Big Picture

Mike Whitney
Is Free Market Capitalism Possible Without Accountability?

Lee Sustar
Blaming the Autoworkers

Peter Lee
The Other Side of the Coin in Afghanistan

Nicole Colson
Ruining Young Lives for Profit

Roger Burbach
Et Tu, Daniel? The Betrayal of the Sandinista Revolution

Rannie Amiri
King Abdullah Has No Robes

Missy Beattie
Owning Disaster

Dave Lindorff
America's Stupid Health Care Debate

Robert David Steele Vivas
Intelligence for the President--and Everyone Else

John Ross
Teotihuacan Gets Mickey-Moused

Ralph Nader
Civic Heroism Awards

Yves Engler
Haiti's Harsh Realities

Alan Farago
The Story of Leonard Abess, Banker

Zulfikar Majid
Understanding Kashmir

David Yearsley
Don't Stay Up Too Late, Johan!

Charles R. Larson
Sleeping with Dogs

Kim Nicolini
Spitting at Dark Times: Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky"

Lorenzo Wolff
So You Wanna Be a Garage Rock Star

Poets' Basement
Puthoff, Payne, Gaffney and Gray

Website of the Weekend
Sleep Now in the Fire

February 26, 2009

Dave Lindorff
Obama's Address to Congress

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Military Mephistopheles

Patrick Cockburn
Did the US Learn Anything in Iraq?

Mike Whitney
The Geithner Put

Eamonn McCann
"Make Bono Pay Tax"

Tim Wise
Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

Tom Barry
Napolitano's Hard Line

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission

Adam Turl
The Enemies of Unions and the Lies They Tell

David Macaray
When People are Fired Illegally

James McEnteer
Rush to the Rescue: Limbaugh's Secret Plan to Save the Economy

Website of the Day
The Carbon Casino

February 25, 2009

Chris Sands
Afghanistan: Chaos Central

M. Shahid Alam
Israel in 1948: Poised for Expansion

Chris Floyd
Obama's Non-Withdrawal Withdrawal Plan

Dave Lindorff
Wall Street and Bernanke: the Blind Leading the Blind

Norman Solomon
The Slow Pullout Method

Rachel Godfrey Wood
Neoliberals Do The Amazon

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Teacher and Student: the New Class Struggle

Ron Jacobs
It Ain't Over Till It's Over

Nadia Hijab
The First Waltz

Dennis Loo
The Water Line

Website of the Day
Hitchens Gets Stomped by Syrian Nerd

February 24, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
How the Economy was Lost

Uri Avnery
Coalition Theory

Peter Morici
Is Nationalization Inevitable?

Jonathan Cook
Arab Parties Face Most Hostile Knesset in History

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
The Man Who Shouldn't be King (of Afghanistan)

Andy Worthington
Who is Binyam Mohamed?

Brian Horejsi
Crisis Creates Hope for Reality

Julia Stein
I was a Writer for the Government

Norm Kent
How Judges Disgrace the Bench

Rachel Smolker /
Brian Tokar
Biofuels, Promise or Threat?

Dennis Loo
The Water Line: Doing What Must be Done

James McEnteer
The Oscar for Denial

Website of the Day
How to Destroy a Fox News Anchor

February 23, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Language of Looting

Mike Roselle
On Cherry Pond: Going Up Against Big Coal in W. Virginia

Patrick Cockburn
The New War in Iraq

Franklin Spinney
Obama Steps on the Pentagon Escalator

Einar Már Guðmundsson
A War Cry From the North

Ralph Nader
How Credit Unions Survived the Crash

Jordan Flaherty
A New Orleans Intifada?

Helen Redmond
Ted's Table: Kennedy and the Corporate Lobbyists Craft a Health Plan

Dennis Loo
The Water Line

Harvey Wasserman
Jet Crashes and Nuclear Reactors: Feds Ignore a Serious Risk

Terry Lodge
The Intelligence is Wrong

Website of the Day
BadCreditReport.Com

February 20 / 22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Lawyer's Tale

Michael Neumann /
Osha Neumann
Remove Our Grandmother's Name from the Wall at Yad Vashem

Ismael Hossein-zadeh
Herbert Hoover Copycats

Paul Craig Roberts
Bill of Rights Under Fire

Linn Washington Jr.
The NY Post's Chimpanzee Cartoon

Saul Landau
On the Road Again

Marjorie Cohn
War Criminals Must be Prosecuted (And Their Lawyers Too)

Binoy Kampmark
Cricket and Cartels: the Fall of Sir Allen Stanford

Dave Lindorff
Using the Recession to Hammer Workers

David Yearsley
Edward Said's Greatest Musical Writings

David Macaray
A Closer Look at the Employee Free Choice Act

James McEnteer
Last Mambo in Minnehaha

Rick Salutin
A Canadian Looks at Obama

Wayne Clark
South Carolina Nears the Abyss

Richard Rhames
Got Farms?

Stephen Martin
Silver Mist Descending

Mitu Sengupta
Slumdog Millionaire's Dehumanizing View of India's Poor

Charles R. Larson
Slumdog Reality?

Richard Morse
Carnival Ramble in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Desperation in an Unavoidable Groove

Poets' Basement
Three Poems of Tu Fu (Trans. K. Rexroth)

Website of the Weekend
Ron Paul: What If the People Wake Up?

February 19, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
The Cleanser: Lobbyists Whistle Up Cordesman to "Prove" Israel Waged a Clean War in Gaza

Harry Browne
How Ireland Went Bust

Robert Bryce
Why the Promise of Biofuels is a Lie

Brian M. Downing
The Winding Road: From Western Europe to Kyrgyzstan

Fred Gardner
The DEA Chief's $123,000 Flight

Andy Worthington
Obama's Uighur Problem

Wajahat Ali
Aftermath of a Beheading

Laura Carlsen
A New Attitude at the White House Toward Bolivia and Venezuela?

Deb Reich
Gaza: Choose Life!

Christopher Ketcham
Crisis? What Crisis?

Website of the Day
Taking Back NYU

February 18, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
President of Special Interests

Mike Whitney
Trouble at Treasury

M. Shahid Alam
Afghan Pitfalls

Patrick Cockburn
A Real Surge at Last

Conn Hallinan
Death's Laboratory

Dave Lindorff
Whatever Happened to Antitrust?

Rannie Amiri
The Perils of Blogging in Egypt

Gareth Porter
Pushing Back Against Petraeus on Pullout Risks

Eric Hobsbawm
Remembering V. G. Kiernan

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Predicament

Martha Rosenberg
It's the Cymbalta Stupid

Website of the Day
Red Gold

February 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Oligarchs' Escape Plan

Mike Whitney
The Global Ditch

Ralph Nader
The One-Dimensional Congress

Joanne Mariner
Benchmarking Obama: How to Evaluate the New Administration's Counter-Terrorism Policies

John Ross
Commodifying the Revolution: Zapatista Villages Become Hot
Tourist Destinations

Belén Fernández
The Venezuelan Referendum From the Back of a Pickup Truck

Mats Svensson
Who is a Terrorist?

David Macaray
Why America Needs Labor Unions

Gregory Vickrey
$400 in Change

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
Another Hamastan?

Michael Dickinson
Unrest in Istanbul

Website of the Day
Take a Stand for Open Access

February 16, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Reconstruction: the Greatest Fraud in US History?

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera
The Truth About Colombia's New Emperor

Paul Craig Roberts
Who Remembers Guns and Butter?

Uri Avnery
Livni's Bitter Options

P. Sainath
The Meltdown: Whose Crisis Is It?

Dedrick Muhammad / Michael Brown
White Recession, Black Depression

Carla Blank
A New New Deal for the Arts

Patrick Irelan
Venezuela Ends Term Limits

Dan Bacher
Is Delta Pumping Driving Salmon and Orca Decline?

Fidel Castro
Chavez's Clarion Call

Harvey Wasserman
Hail to the Spleef: Did George Washington Smoke Pot?

Website of the Day
Mining Black Mesa

February 13 - 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Rocks

Joshua Frank
The Myth of Clean Coal

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Coming Out Party

George Ciccariello-Maher
Venezuela's Term Limits: More Hypocrisy From the NYT

Nikolas Kozloff
Venezuela Beyond the Referendum

Brian M. Downing
Pakistan on the Brink

Paul Craig Roberts
Deficit Nonchalance

Christopher Ketcham
Israel's Ball Boys

Ron Jacobs
At a Campus Sit-In Against Israeli Occupation

Dave Lindorff
Why Can Judd Gregg See What Obama Can't?

Alan Maass
Lincoln at 200

Chuck Spinney
Grassley Sounds Off on Obama's Man at the Pentagon

Phil Gasper
Mr. Darwin's Reluctant Revolution

Stephen Lendman
A Short History of Business Handouts

Charles Thomson
Tate Cruises: Caveat Emptor on the High Seas

Kathy Sanborn
The Suicide Rush

Saul Landau
Bowled Over

Len Wengraf
The Nightmare in Somalia

Harvey Wasserman
Striking a Blow Against Nuclear Power

David Macaray
An Easy Call for Obama on Joining a Union

Tom Stephens
Four Freedoms, Four Changes

Seth Sandronsky
Lincoln and the Collective Mind

David Yearsley
On the Road Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Freaking Out With Danny Barnes

Kim Nicolini
The Body of the Worker: What "The Wrestler" Says About the State of America

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Buknatski and French

Website of the Weekend
The Iranian Revoution and the US Dual Containment Policy: a Presentation

March 13 / 15, 2009

Sorting Reality From Hype

Drug War Doublespeak

By LAURA CARLSEN

Through late February and early March, a blitzkrieg of declarations from U.S. government and military officials and pundits hit the media, claiming that Mexico was alternately at risk of being a failed state, on the verge of civil war, losing control of its territory, and posing a threat to U.S. national security.

In the same breath, we're told that President Calderon with the aid of the U.S. government is winning the war on drugs, significantly weakening organized crime, and restoring order and legality.

None of these claims is true. Instead they are critical elements in waging the hypocritical drug war in Mexico.

Drug-war doublespeak pervades and defines the U.S.-Mexico relationship today. The discourse aims not to win the war on drugs, but to assure funding and public support for the military model of combating illegal drug trafficking, despite the losses and overwhelming evidence that current strategies are not working.

Sorting Reality from Hype

Mexico, and particularly border cities and other key points along the drug routes, has a serious problem. In these places, violence characterizes daily life. But Mexico is not a failed state. It is a tragic example of the results of failed policies—on both sides of the border. Both governments want to obscure this simple fact.

In the past, exaggerated risk assessments, amplified by the media and accompanied by dire warnings to the public, prepare the ground for military intervention. They usually pack hyperbole or outright lies, the most recent example being the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq.

While military intervention in Mexico is not on the horizon, the recent hype has been accompanied by requests for military build-up on the border. Texas Governor Rick Perry jetted to Washington to ask for $135 million and 1,000 soldiers. Talk of sending more National Guard troops circulated, along with mentions of a border "surge." The Texas state government announced a rapid-mobilization plan in case Mexico "collapsed," replete with tanks and aircraft.

After outgoing Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff spoke of a contingency plan for the border, the media wondered aloud whether incoming head Janet Napolitano would be tough enough. She responded by calling the situation a "top priority." Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called the Mexican drug war "a serious problem." He raised a maelstrom of protest in Mexico with the announcement that the disappearance of Mexico's anti-Pentagon biases had cleared the way for tighter cooperation. The U.S. Embassy was forced to issue a press release declaring that the United States had no intention of sending troops into Mexico.

Congress also leapt to respond to the rhetoric. Hearings have been called in both houses, including the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee under Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) who, according to news reports, will be looking for "potential implications for increased terrorist activity." The committees will likely hear testimony primarily from persons who confirm the perceived threat in lurid and imprecise terms.

The Mexican government has responded by lobbing counter-accusations at the United States. Calderon cites the U.S. role in gun-running, money-laundering, and demand for narcotics.

The motivations behind the recent hype vary. Alarmist cries of a Mexican collapse help clinch the passage of measures to further militarize the southern border and obtain juicy contracts for private defense and security firms. Local politicians are finding they can be a cash cow for federal aid.

The flurry of panic about the spillover of violence from Mexico also arises just as Congress considers the latest installment of the Merida Initiative, now tucked inside the omnibus spending bill. The Merida Initiative, designed by the Bush administration, is the $1.4 billion vehicle for bolstering the war on drugs launched by Mexican President Felipe Calderon in 2006. It provides military-to-military aid for the domestic battles being waged by some 40,000 Mexican Army troops, and imposes U.S. training in policing, forensics, penal, and judicial practices.

Deconstructing Drug War Doublespeak

Drug war doublespeak enables the architects of the drug war to justify the military responses it promotes, despite poor or counterproductive results, and serves to spin failure as success. The language of exaggerated threats infantilizes society with fear as it clears the way for militaristic, patriarchal measures.

Now that the hype has taken control of the media agenda and wiggled its way into the public's perceptions, it's important to determine the true dimensions and nature of the problem by deconstructing drug war doublespeak.

First, the "facts" used to prove the thesis of Mexico as a failed state or national security threat are mostly wrong. Here are a few examples:

"Mexico had more violent deaths than Iraq in 2008." The Iraq Body Count calculates the 2008 civilian death total at between 8,315 and 9,028. The Mexican government puts the Mexico tally for the same year at 6,290, and that figure includes the deaths of soldiers and police excluded from the Iraqi count.

"70% of Mexicans are afraid to go outside for fear of crime." This statistic has been cited without a source. It's ridiculous. In a recent poll Mexicans nationwide named the economic situation over crime as the biggest problem in the country by a margin of two to one. I live in Mexico City with my family and our activities are virtually unaffected.

"The Mexican government has lost control over broad swathes of the country." No facts are offered to back this up. There are some villages and neighborhoods where crime gangs collect payments from local business and provide services, but that does not mean there is no presence of the State and this affects a relatively small proportion of the country. Second, the facts used to prove that Mexican violence is "spilling over"—the phrase du jour—into the United States, when provided at all, are even more specious.

Phoenix now ranks second in the world in kidnappings for ransom at 366, behind Mexico City at 6,000. We're supposed to assume that this is a per capita ranking but are not told where the ranking comes from, how it is done, or by whom. Sloppy journalism is important to propagating doublespeak.

Beyond the lack of sources for the ranking or methodology, the inaccuracy of this claim lies in what is left unsaid. "Kidnap for ransom" conjures images of the abduction of wealthy denizens of society. Such is not the case. According to Claudine LoMonaco who covers the beat for Arizona Public Media, the vast majority of kidnappings are of undocumented workers by their own smugglers, in an attempt to extort more money from their families.

That's certainly a problem, and it's certainly kidnapping. But it is a very different problem than the spill-over of Mexican drug violence as it's being portrayed. Here, another prohibitionist policy, this time one that prohibits human beings, has created an organized crime industry that insatiably feeds even on its own goods—the migrants themselves. The double bind of the victims is perhaps the most poignant example of perverse policy results in modern times.

The 6,000 kidnapping figure for Mexico City has equally murky origins. The figure, from the Citizens' Institute for Crime Studies, derives from taking the number of reported violent crimes, multiplying by nearly 10 to reflect the supposed rate of under-reporting, and multiplying by .05% to sort out kidnappings form the rest of the crimes. It's a guesstimate, not a count.

Moreover, the statistic includes thousands of cases of a common crime we don't ordinarily think of as kidnapping. This is the "express kidnapping," 2-3 hour abductions for the purpose of withdrawing money from cash machines. So what we really have in this number that has been picked up widely in the U.S. press and trumpeted as proof of Mexico's descent into lawlessness, is a rough calculation, padded with the far more common robbery charge. In deconstructing drug war doublespeak, it's important to always beware of statistics.

Another common tactic in the press stories that led Sen. John McCain and others to call for hearings and make dire statements is to cite cases of gruesome violence—on the Mexican side. The stories then tag on declarations that this kind of violence could seep over the border, with no evidence that it has.

Contradictory facts are sometimes mentioned, but take a back seat to the hype, which is considered the real news. For example, in a NYT article titled "Wave of Drug Violence is Creeping into Arizona from Mexico, Officials Say," near the end of the article we are informed that homicide and violent crime in Arizona's border Maricopa County has decreased over the past years. A few of the articles on El Paso's panic attack over spillover also managed to mention that the city has one of the lowest homicide rates in the country, but buried the fact in a barrage of alarmist statements.

Other evidence used to cite spillover from Mexican drug cartels defies logic. Operation Xcellerator—a sting operation in the United States that reportedly led to the arrest of over 700 individuals associated with the Sinaloa drug cartel—is spun as evidence of the danger from Mexico when it is a criminal network in the United States, operated by U.S. citizens, and dealing to U.S. buyers. Of course it has links to foreign supply, but that does not change the transnational—not Mexican—nature of the threat.

When questioned following his testimony before the House Committee on Border and International Affairs Feb. 23, Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw stated that, "Yes, absolutely it (spillover violence) has occurred; there's no question about it." But the indicators of spillover discussed at the hearing in the absence of rising crime included U.S. citizens treated for injuries sustained in Juarez, asylum seekers, and threats against U.S. citizens. None constituted real Mexican crime infiltration of U.S. society.

These claims and others like them, although unsubstantiated, accumulate into a critical mass to push a public consensus on implementing dangerous and delusional policies—this time not in far-off Iraq but on our doorstep. Like the model it mimics—the Bush war on terror—the drug war in Mexico is being mounted on the back of hype, half-truths, omissions, and outright falsehoods.

The Meaning of Success

The most glaring example of drug-war doublespeak is the definition of "success." Although Mexico is supposedly on the brink of collapse, members of the Obama administration, Congress, and the Pentagon have unanimously proclaimed the contradictory message that since President Calderon launched the offensive against organized crime in December 2006, his government has made great progress against illegal drug trafficking and the power of cartels, and the U.S. government must support his drug war.

But this assertion does not stand up to scrutiny.

Congress has wisely begun to place measurable benchmarks in appropriations to avoid the budgetary and military quagmires of the past. The Merida Initiative contains four "performance measurements": Break the power and impunity of criminal organizations; assist the governments of Mexico and Central America in strengthening border air and maritime control; improve the capacity of justice systems in the region; and curtail gang activity in Mexico and Central America and diminish the demand for drugs in the region.

In any other context, performance measures so patently weak, vague, and one-sided would be considered useless for real evaluation. They avoid accomplishing their stated purpose by being unmeasurable as written and containing no indicators of success or failure. Given the failure of the similar Plan Colombia to meet its objectives as shown in a recent GAO evaluation, the omission was probably intentional.

For instance, the second item on the list—assisting the governments—is not a performance measure, unless exporting U.S. defense goods and services is indeed the end goal. Improving the capacity of justice systems could conceivably be measured in shortened court times and a higher ratio of convictions to arrests, but that data is not yet available. It will be interesting to see if it is accurately compiled and presented at a later date.

For the measurement calling for the curtailing of gang activity and demand for narcotics, the United States excluded its own market—the driving force of the illicit drug trade. The performance measure requires the initiative to show reduction of drug demand only in the southern countries. Despite the dictates of common sense, the Merida Initiative contains no funds whatsoever for the reduction of U.S demand.

This leaves us with the first benchmark. Common indicators for reduced "power and impunity of criminal organizations" would logically entail a reduction in production of illegal drugs, and an increase in confiscation, thus attacking the earnings of the cartels. It would also imply more arrests and fewer violent confrontations. We can compare these goals with the findings of the 2009 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report to see if the first installment of the $1.4 billion dollar plan is on track.

Between 2007 and 2008 net cultivation of opium and cannabis in Mexico increased. Production of opium gum, heroin, and cannabis all increased. Eradication of poppies and cannabis both decreased significantly since the beginning of the 2006 drug war. Meanwhile, seizures of opium gum, heroin, methamphetamines, cannabis, and cocaine all decreased significantly. Destruction of labs fell by nearly half. In addition, the report notes, drug use among Mexican youth is rising.

The drug-war model maintains that the opposite should be occurring. In fact, the only statistic that could be construed as positive in the report is an increase in arrests. But to truly evaluate this as progress, we would need to know the conviction figures as well.

The conclusion of the Mexico section of the report flies in the face of its own data. "The restructuring of security forces, coupled with the military's strong engagement in the fight to dismantle major drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), has proven to be effective. These efforts led to numerous arrests of key narco-traffickers, the discovery of clandestine drug laboratories, and a dramatic decline in the importation of methamphetamine and precursors." Curiously, there are no statistics offered for the last claim.

The report is forced into bizarre contortions to spin the drop by half in seizures of illegal drugs as "success": "U.S. law enforcement agencies attribute this reduction to better enforcement which has forced traffickers to seek alternate routes or alternative enterprises."

The U.S. report acknowledges the shocking increase in violence. But nowhere does it say that from 2007 to 2008 drug-related deaths more than doubled (2,500 to 6,290). Faced with yet another inconvenient fact, the report concludes, "The increase in violence may be due to the success of President Calderon's aggressive anti-crime campaign which has broadly deployed the military in searches and regional security plans, while more effectively using tools such as extraditions."

The U.S. government comes up with a speculative excuse for almost every poor result listed in its own report. In the doublespeak of the Mexican drug war, organized crime branching out into new regions and new enterprises—human trafficking, for example—is a positive sign. Violence is progress. Murder is an indicator of success.

Toward True Stories and Corrected Policies

Organized crime is not the sole and leading actor in the U.S.-Mexico relationship. We share a rich and highly-integrated relationship, with common interests and challenges but different responsibilities. Each nation must assume its own responsibilities to face the very real transnational threats.

A real solution to the drug war violence and the power of organized crime would require both governments to stop playing the blame game and recognize that transnational crime is transnational. Its growth is a phenomenon of globalization. Transnational crime escalates as a result of the convenient frequency of border crossings that make real inspection impossible, internationalized and unscrupulous financial systems for moving and laundering mega-earnings, and other byproducts of globalization. Mechanisms of cooperation are necessary, but pointing the finger at Mexico is a grave mistake.

Second, both countries need to cut off pork barrel contracts to defense contractors and private security companies, and factor public health into the equation. The call to treat drug addicts as patients instead of criminals, and to deal with the illegal drug trade at least in part on the community level through rehabilitation, prevention, and harm reduction programs is growing throughout the world. Meanwhile, the Mexican drug war moves us in the complete opposite direction.

Third, a new approach means opening up debate to all options including legalization. For the most part, this option has been slapped down in the U.S. discussion as untimely, non-viable, or immoral. It's time to bring it back to the table, with serious studies on potential impacts, positive and negative, of a selective end to prohibitionist laws.

That's exactly what the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy led by former presidents and drug warriors Fernando Enrique Cardoso of Brasil, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, propose. In a recently released a report, they pronounce the war on drugs a failure and call for a "paradigm shift."

The authors state, " The traumatic Colombian experience is a useful reference for countries not to make the mistake of adopting the U.S. prohibitionist policies and to move forward in the search for innovative alternatives." They suggest that Mexico, an "epicenter of violent activities," could take the lead in encouraging global debate on the current policies of the U.S. government and call on Europe and the United States to take seriously the challenge of demand reduction.

The paradigm shift they propose focuses on public health, reducing consumption, and opening up debate, including the legalization of marijuana possession. The "binational cooperation" heralded in Washington and the press leads to a deadly dead-end of confrontation. Real binational cooperation along the lines of these more humane, lasting solutions could end the collateral violence and social costs of the failed drug wars. In the long-run, they will likely be more effective in fighting organized crime. They can't be any less effective than the drug war being waged today by the U.S. and Mexican governments.

Laura Carlsen is director of the Americas Policy Program in Mexico City. She can be reached at: (lcarlsen(a)ciponline.org).

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