|
Today's
Stories
May 8, 2008
Sharon Smith
Rockefeller Family Fables
May 7, 2008
Winslow T. Wheeler
Drowning in Dollars
Joanne Mariner
Torture After Dark
Col. Dan Smith
It's Lying and It's Murder: How KBR Electrocuted US Troops
Brian M. Downing
Reports From Foreign Provinces
Andy Worthington
Who are the Prisoners Released with Sami al-Haj?
John Stauber
Pentagon Propaganda Documents Go Online, But Will the Media Ever Report on Them?
Christopher Brauchli
Outsourcing Tax Collection
Nelson P. Valdés
Cinco de Mayo and Cinco de Agosto: Mexican History and Manufactured Identities
Rep. Keith Ellison
High Court Deals Blow to Voting Rights
Dan Bacher
Undam the Klamath, Mr. Buffett!
Website of the Day
Green Porno
May 6, 2008
Pam Martens
The Obama Bubble Agenda
Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. is Promoting Secession in Bolivia
Marjorie Cohn
Under U.S. Law Torture is Always Illegal
Ralph Nader
America's Pay-or-Die Health Care System
Yigal Bronner
Archaeologists for Hire
Brian Cloughley
No Laws for Bush America
Jacob Hornberger
Killing Enemies Without Trial
Walter Brasch
People Who Don't Need People
Paul Krassner
An Open Letter to Michael Moore
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Running Mates from the Imaginary Plane
Website of the Day
Some People
May 5, 2008
Pam Martens
Obama's Money Cartel
Conn Hallinan
The Syrian Affair
Corey D. B. Walker
The End of Politics
Uri Avnery
Crusader Anxiety: Israel at 60
Dave Zirin
Refocusing Olympic Protest
Corporate Crime Reporter
Wiist's Crusade Against Corporations
Robert Jensen
The Selling and Shaping of Our Souls
Daniel White
What People Want to Hear About in Austin, Texas
Benjamin Dangl
May Day Raid on General Dynamics
Website of the Day
McCain's Pastor of Hate: "Starve. I Don't Care. Starve."
May 3 / 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Has Rev. Wright Cost Obama the Presidency?
Nikolas Kozloff
The Shameful Failure of the Black Congressional Caucus
Diane Farsetta
What the Pentagon Pundits Were Selling on the Side
Tariq Ali
New Labour is Dead
Harry Browne
The USA's Other Island: Irish Leaders and the War on Terror
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan's New Daughter of Destiny? An Exclusive Interview with Fatima Bhutto
David Yearsley
A
Challenge to Jeffrey Eugenides
Greg Moses
Salamat, Riad Hamad
William Blum
Rev. Wright, the CIA and the AIDS Thing
Robert Fantina
The Rhetoric of John McCain
Fred Gardner
The Greatest Story Never Told
Dave Lindorff
Blame It On Paraguay: The Bush Family's Bad Real Estate Deal
Seth Sandronsky
Standardizing Learning
Binoy Kampmark
Brown, Boris and the British Council Elections
Howard Lisnoff
The Lost First Amendment
Daniel Cassidy
Slanguage: Paddy Works on the Erie
Bill Moyers
Shrink-Wrapping the Theology of Rev. Wright
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
John Holt / Akbar Khan
Website of the Weekend
Ed Abbey, Patron Saint of the Walker's Rights Movement
May 2, 2008
Andrew Cockburn
Secret Bush "Finding" Widens Covert War on Iran
David Isenberg
The Return of Limited Nuclear War?
Vijay Prashad
Driven to Terror: the Case of the Lackawana Six
William Blum
Spies Without Borders
David Macaray
Shutting Down the West Coast Ports:
the ILWU's May Day Strike
Rannie Amiri
Is Sadr City Becoming the Next Gaza?
William James Martin
The Carter Coup
Stephanie Westbrook
As Italy Lurches Rightward, a Ray of Hope from Vicenza
Linn Washington, Jr.
A Battle Over Murals in Parisian Ghettos
Anthony Papa
How the Byrne Fund Corrupts Cops and Destroys Lives
Website of the Day
The Serota Petition
May 1, 2008
Michael Hudson
The Fed Sinks the Dollar
Behzad Yaghmaian
Blaming the Yuan for the Deficit with China
Wajahat Ali
The Dark Knight: the Real Rise of Obama
Dedrick Muhammad
Senator Obama, Please Come to Your Senses
Cynthia McKinney
Police in America Can Kill Some People With Impunity
Corporate Crime Reporter
Farm Broadcaster Fired After Ripping Monsanto's Goon Squads
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Speech That Might Have Been
Reza Fiyouzat
Stop Obliterating Yourself!
Leigh Saavedra
Suspending the Federal Gas Tax
Tom Semioli
Hollywood Hypocrite: an Open Letter to Michael Moore
Website of the Day
Why Won't McCain Release His Medical Records?
April 30, 2008
William P. O'Connor
The Day I Lost My Innocence
Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
Did the Supreme Court Just Elect John McCain?
Tariq Ali
Storming Heaven: 1968 Revisited
John Ross
Bad Jazz in NOLA: Three NAFTA Leaders Sit It for the Last Time
Glen Ford
Pop Goes the Race-Neutral Campaign!
Joshua Frank
Election Season Piffle: Thinking Outside the Voting Booth
Ashley Smith
Iraq After Basra
Robert Weissman
Medical R&D That Works in the Developing World
Sen. Russ Feingold
Bush's Shroud of Secrecy
Website of the Day
Richard Nixon, April 30, 1970
April 29, 2008
Uri Avnery
The Military Option
Roedad Khan
Why Gen. Musharraf Must Go
Chris Floyd
The Torture Election
Paul Craig Roberts
The Iraq War Morphs Into the Iran War
Dave Lindorff
Invasion of the Pumpheads
Mats Svensson
Mental Barriers in Palestine
Peter Morici
Will the Fed Broaden Its Focus?
Mike Ferner
Inside American Royalty's Security Bubble
John Weisheit
Towing Icebergs to San Pedro
Amit Srivastava
China Olympics, Tibet Crackdown, Coke Profits
Website of the Day
Tom Friedman Gets Creamed
April 28, 2008
JoAnn Wypijewski
On Queen's Boulevard, the Night Sean Bell's Killers Got Off
Mike Whitney
Jeremiah Wright Delivers the Knockout Punch: But Will It Topple Obama?
Iris Keltz
The Fruiting Fig Tree: Memories of East Jerusalem
Steve Niva
The New Walls of Baghdad: the Israeli Model Surges Toward Iraq
David Macaray
CAFTA's Bloodtrails
John Ross
"Adelitas" Shut Down Mexico's Congress
Stephen Lendman
The Politics of Green Scare
Malou Innocent
On "Withdrawing Responsibly" from Iraq
Christopher Brauchli
Want to Learn the Ins-and-Outs of the Slumping Economy? Just Ask Ashley ...
William Kaufman
Michael Moore's Embrace of Obama:
a Polemic Devoid of Politics
Website of the Day
Get Your Fix
April 26 / 27, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Nothing Will Get Hillary Out of the Race
Ralph Nader
A World of Hunger
Peter Camejo
A Crying Shame: the Wages of Left Capitulation
Harvey Wasserman
Making You Pay for the Next Chernobyl--in Advance!
Franklin Lamb
Will U.S. Policy in Lebanon and the Middle East Ever Change?
Wajahat Ali
Fisk Fighting: an Exclusive Interview with Robert Fisk
Mike Whitney
Food Riots and Speculators
Andrew Wimmer
Obliterate Them!
David Yearsley
Nero, Frederick the Great, Nixon ... They All Did It Better Than Clinton
Greg Moses
Chicago: the Stupid Experiment
Ron Jacobs
Walking the Lonely Road
Robert Fantina
Bush v. Carter:
Let History Judge
Missy Comley Beattie
Introducing President McCain
Linn Cohen-Cole
The Criminalization of Raw Milk:
a Mennonite Farmer is Hauled Away
Paul Krassner
Remembering Ruben Salazar
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Buknatski, Khaiyat, Lair, and Kowit
Website of the Weekend
Justice for Sean Bell
April 25, 2008
George Ciccariello-Maher
Embedded with the Tupamaros
Dave Lindorff
The Bitter and the Biased: How Clinton Courted Racists in Pennsylvania
Franklin Lamb
The Israeli Project Has Failed in Lebanon
Alan Farago
Hacking the Development Code:
the Politics of Zoning in Florida
John W. Farley
Syiran Nukes:
the Phantom Menace
Kathleen M. Barry
Some Questions for "Femininists for Clinton:"
Is There Really Any Difference Between Hillary and Condi?
Mohammed Alireza
Cowboys and Iranians
Nick Dearden
Haiti and the Black Hole of Debt
Carmelo Ruiz Marrero
Why Biotech is Betting on Biofuels
Bruce Springsteen
Farewell to Danny
Website of the Day
It's Bigger Than Hip Hop
April 24, 2008
Linn Washington, Jr.
Duplicity Demeans Clinton Campaign (or When Bill Praised Farrakhan)
Franklin Lamb
Bush to Nasrallah: an Offer Hezbollah Cannot Refuse?
Jennifer Van Bergen
The High Crimes of John Yoo: the President's Executioner
Joanne Mariner
U.S. Hypocrisy and the Malaysian Guantánamo
Mark Engler
Trade Politics and the Battle for the Soul of the Democratic Party
Dave Lindorff
The Politics of Obliteration: Hillary's Monstrous Threat
John Blair
Obama's Missed Opportunities in Evansville: Did He Even Know It Was Earth Day?
De Clarke / Stan Goff
Politics is Food is Politics
Binoy Kampmark
Bowling for Boris: the Tories, Red Ken and the London Mayoral Race
Philippe Marlière
Sarkozy and the Specter of May 68
Peter Morici
The Bank of England Misses the Point
Website of the Day
Fair Food Nation
April 23, 2008
Cockburn / St. Clair
Straggling to Denver
Vijay Prashad
McCain's Mask
Paul Craig Roberts
What the Iraq War is About
Stephen Soldz
The Involuntary Drugging of U.S. Detainees
Laura Santina
Hillary: Another Feminist Perspective
John Stauber /
Sheldon Rampton
Pentagon News Networks
Dave Lindorff
What Double Digit Win? Media Round Up in PA
George Ciccariello-Maher
Radical Chavismo Growls a Challenge
Ralph Nader
Andy Stern's Rackets
John Weisheit
Rearranging Deck Chairs at Glen Canyon Dam
Website of the Day
Wal-Mart's "Cost of Admission"
April 22, 2008
David Isenberg
Spinning Saddam's Linkages
Stan Cox
The Political Economics of Greenwashing
David Macaray
Memo to the Clinton Campaign: They Are Still Murdering Labor Unionists in Colombia
Jeff Birkenstein
Playing the Opposite Game: Or Why Can't I Sell Out?
Mike Whitney
Memo to Bernanke:
Enough With the Rate Cuts, Already!
Nikolas Kozloff
Bush's Paraguayan Fiasco
Floyd Rudmin
From Lhasa to Bilbao: Journey of a Double Standard
Carlos Villarreal
Why John Yoo Should be Dismissed From Boalt Law School--And Prosecuted
Ray McGovern
What About the War, Pope Benedict?
Michael Gould-Wartofsky
El Barrio Fights Back Against Globalized Gentrification
Robert Ovetz
A Fish Tale
Pat Wolff
Rightwing Power Grab in Cornhusker State
Website of the Day
Defend the Rutgers 3!
April 21, 2008
Bill Quigley
The U.S. Role in Haiti's Food Riots
Uri Avnery
The Lion and the Gazelle
Dave Lindorff
The U.S. Economy and the Costs of War
Wajahat Ali
Finding Osama Bin Laden with Morgan Spurlock
Andy Worthington
Hollow Gestures at Guantánamo
Robert Jensen
The Sorrows of Race and Gender
Ron Jacobs
Clampdown at Evergreen
Dan Bacher
The Great Salmon Closure
Harvey Wasserman
Where's George?
Danny Alexander
Remembering Danny Federici
Website of the Day
Save Our Taco Trucks!
April 19 / 20, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
McCain: What Really Happened When
He Was a POW?
Patrick Cockburn
A New Struggle is Beginning in Iraq
Wajahat Ali
Zinn Speaks
Andrew Wimmer
Papal Benedictions
Rev. William E. Alberts
Jeremiah Wright and America's Continuing
"Separate and Unequal" Societies
David Rosen
Texas Two-Step: The Polygamy Raid and
the Regulation of Sexual Life
Robert Fantina
McCain Detests War?
Ramzy Baroud
The Politics of Armageddon: McCain's
Pastors and the Middle East
Saul Landau
The No Escape Clause on Iraq
Dr. Susan Block
Raelians, Aliens and Evolution
David Yearsley
Suitcase Arias and Ithacan Jazz
Phyllis Pollack
On the Red Carpet with the Rolling
Stones
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Hartz, Newberry and Khaiyat
April 18, 2008
John Ross
The
Bush Legacy: Losing Latin America
Dave Lindorff
Courage and Conviction: In Praise of Bill Ayers
Dan Glazebrook
An Interview with Robert Fisk
Carl Finamore
A Look Inside the Hangars
Rannie Amiri
J Street: Do We Really Need Another Pro-Israel Lobby?
Richard Morse
A Creepy Roadblock at Midnight
Ko Young-dae
CONPLAN 8022: Inside Bush's Nuclear War Plan for the Korean Peninsula
Farooq Sulehria
A Himalayan Surprise
April 17, 2008
Michael Hudson
Hillary
Joins the Vast Rightwing Financial Conspiracy
Robert Bryce
The
Ethanol Apologists
Kathy Kelly
Weary of War? Don't Collaborate
Madis Senner
The Carrion Feeders' Ball: How Hedge Funds Reap Billions Off
Economic Misery
Peter Morici
The G7, the Banks and GE
Ron Jacobs
Washington, al-Maliki and the Militias
William S. Lind
A Confirming Moment in Basra
James Murren
Obama's Disconnect with Small Town America
Ben Terrall
Losing Haiti
Walter Brasch
Political Log Rolling in Clinton County, PA
Website of the Day
Stealth Attack: Homegrown "Terrorism" Bill
April 16, 2008
Bill Kauffman
The
Candidates from Nowhere
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Colonization and Massacres
Saul Landau
How to Leave Iraq
Peter Morici
McCain's Economic Plan: GOP Out of Ideas (But So are the Democrats)
Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
Bankers Saved, Human Rights Sacrificed
Jeff Ballinger
Inside Nike's Asian Sweatshops: Squeezed Vietnamese Workers Strike
Back
David Macaray
Union Strikes and Replacement Workers
Gary Leupp
Electoral Revolution in Nepal
Richard Morse
The Food Riots in Haiti
George Ciccariello-Maher
Einstein Turns in His Grave
Dave Lindorff
Letters from the Bitter Belt
Website of
the Day
Surviving Prozac
April 15, 2008
Ralph Nader
The
Politics of Distraction in an Age of Gotcha Capitalism
Uri Avnery
Manifest
Destiny and Israel
Brian Cloughley
Arrogant
Lies
David Price
Outrageous
Pre-Tour de France Ban
Joe Bageant
Bitter America: Media Shit Storms and Heartland Reality
Steve Early
The Purple Punch-Out in Dearborn
Mats Svensson
To Create Something from Nothing: the Making of a Palestinian
State
Michael Donnelly
Dead-Eye Hil and the Elitist
April Howard /
Benjamin Dangl
Dissecting the Politics of Paraguay's
Next President
Laray Polk
Let's Not Put the Torch in a Bubble
Charles Modiano
What Does a Woman Have to Do to Get on the Cover of Sports Illustrated?
Website of
the Day
The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree
April 14, 2008
Carl Finamore
Airline
Deregulation Makes a Hard Landing
Michael Hudson
A
Trillion Dollar Rescue for Wall Street Gamblers
M. Shahid Alam
Hizbullah's Big Win: Has Israel Finally Met Its Match?
Patrick Cockburn
A
Cleric, a Pol and a Warrior
Paul Craig Roberts
Petraeus Sets Up Iran
Joanne Mariner
Redition to Jordan: What Happens When the Gloves Come Off?
Martha Rosenberg
Suicide and Cymbalta
Dave Lindorff
The Bitterness Thing: Is Obama Channeling Nader
P. Sainath
Hot Messages to Sex Dancer Doom Condi's New Finnish Pal
John V. Whitbeck
On Hypocrisy Over Tibet: a Personal Reflection
Website of the Day
Spying on Environmental Groups
April 12 /
13, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Olympic
Torch Toasts US Candidates
Patrick Cockburn
Warlord:
the Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr
Mike Whitney
Want to Save the Economy?
David Yearsley
Film Scores and Westerns: the Stealth Cavalry of Empire
Robert Fantina
Bush's Brand of Morality
Conn Hallinan
Another Defining Moment in Iraq
Bill Hatch
In Praise of Hippies and the Counter-Culture
Ramzy Baroud
The Basra Battles
George S. Hishmeh
Back to Square One
Ron Jacobs
The New New Left in Latin America
Nikolas Kozloff
Olympic Torch in Buenos Aires
Charles Thomson
The British Prime Minister and the Tate's Tin of Shit
Alexander Billet
The Disney-fication of CBGB
Missy Beattie
Huffing and Puffing to Failure
David Michael Green
America's Jones for War
Seth Sandronsky
Education Entrepreneurs
Prairie Miller
Meeting David Wilson
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Ko Un, Ibn Salma and Greaves
Website of
the Weekend
Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights
April 11, 2008
Nikolas Kozloff
The Clintons and Their Sordid
Colombia Advocacy
Wajahat Ali
Revenge of the Ghetto Nerd: an Exclusive Interview with Junot
Diaz
Sharon Smith
Let
Them Eat Ethanol!
Yigal Bronner
/ Neve Gordon
Digging for Trouble: the Politics of Archaeology in East Jerusalem
Alan Farago
Eating South Florida
Dave Lindorff
On Waking Sleeping Giants: Lessons for America from China
George Wuerthner
Money for Nothing? The Problems with the Conservation Reserve
Program
Christopher
Brauchli
Prostitutes Don't Do Funerals
Website of the Day
Animals Explain the Insurance Industry: a Health Care Video
April 10, 2008
Mathieu Vernerey
Tibet
for the Tibetans!
Elizabeth Schulte
Slavery
in the Fields
David Macaray
Labor
Unions Will Never Get a Fair Shake
Ashley Smith
The Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr
Peter Morici
Driving Up Debt and Dragging Down Growth
Jacob Hornberger
The Military's Distintegrating Family Life
Harold Austin
Snitch or Else: Prison Officials Threaten Gang Drop Outs
Website of the Day
Hillary: the Wal-Mart Videos
April 9, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Fading American Economy
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Congressional
Theater: the Petraeus / Crocker Hearings
C. Hand
Why Dave Marash Left Al Jazeera
Paul Krassner
Sex and Violins
Paul Wolf
Colombian "Magnicidio" Remains a Mystery After 60 Years
Wajahat Ali
Alien Invasion!
Karyn Strickler
Lost in the Fumes: the Sierra Club Sells Out to Clorox
Dan La Botz
Confronting the Economic Crisis
Eric Walberg
The Shadow of Munich: Another NATO Flop
Robin Millenthal
Enough Already! Growth and the Tar Sands Economy
Website of the Day
Conservative
Nanny State
April 8, 2008
Mike Whitney
Should
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be Set Free?
Nikolas Kozloff
Bush
Bullies Congress on Colombia Deal
Greg Moses
Migrant Detention in South Texas
Joshua Frank
The Other Military Draft
John Ross
Mexico City's Urban Tribes Go on the Warpath Against EMOS
Michael Donnelly
Hillary's Western Swing
John V. Walsh
Why Obama Lost Massachusetts
Jeff Nygaard
Health, Security and Mandates
Bill Piper
Last Shot for a Bush Legacy?
Sen. Russ Feingold
Legal Representation and the Death Penalty
Website of the Day
Catonsville 9, Forty Years Later
April 7, 2008
Ishmael Reed
The
Irish Black Thing
Harry Browne
Irish
Peace Activist Acquitted; Deported
Uri Avnery
Tibet and Palestine
Lenni Brenner
Obama's Constitution, His Pastor and His Unbelieving Mom in Heaven
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
America Must Respect Pakistan's Democracy
Robert Fisk
Fearful Lives in the Land of the Free
Edwin Krales
Ensuring the Success of Fascism in Spain: the US Corporate Role
Chris Genovali
Vancouver Island's Dwindling Ancient Forests
Website of the Day
LA Artists Against War
April 5 / 6,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
Did
the Elites Want MLK Dead?
Ramzy Baroud
There
are No Checkpoints in Heaven
Ralph Nader
Runaway Bailouts
David Yearsley
How Scott Joplin Had Wall Street Down
Saul Landau
Sex Politics in America
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Petraeus and Crocker Show
Lawrence Korb / Ian Moss
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a True Patriot
Seth Sandronsky
Meet America's Promise Alliance: Colin Powell's New Gig
John Ross
La Cumbia de la Doctrina Bush: Colombia Kills Four Mexican Students
in Ecuador Bombing
Robert Fantina
McCain, Republicans and Family Values
David Michael Green
Back to Disaster: Hoover at Home, Tet Abroad
Missy Beattie
McCan't
Patrick Bond
Vultures Circle Zimbabwe
Dr. Susan Block
The New American Pot Dealers
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones Meet the Press
Adam Engel
The Boobus in the Lie
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Diamand
and St. Clair
Website of the Weekend
Richard Pryor Goes to the Gun Shop
|
May 8, 2008
The Militarization of Mexican Society
A Primer on Plan Mexico
By
LAURA CARLSEN
On Oct. 22, 2007 President Bush announced the $1.4 billion dollar "Merida Initiative," security aid package to Mexico and Central America. The initiative has fatal flaws in its strategy; instead of leading to a stable binational relationship and peaceful border communities, its military approach will escalate drug-related violence and human rights abuses.
Mexico and the United States face a joint challenge in decreasing transnational organized crime and they must cooperate to strengthen the rule of law and stop illegal drug and arms trafficking over the border. This misguided policy will result in an inability to achieve its own goals and will waste taxpayers' money. It will also seriously undermine the U.S.-Mexico relationship and Mexican stability.
Soon the U.S. Congress will vote on the Initiative, popularly referred to as "Plan Mexico." The little-known appropriations request has been tagged on to the multi-billion dollar Iraq supplemental bill and has been presented as an unprecedented effort to fight burgeoning drug trafficking and violence related to organized crime in Mexico. But the "regional security cooperation initiative" goes far beyond cooperation in stopping the flow of illegal drugs. It would fundamentally restructure the U.S.-Mexico binational relationship, recast economic and social problems as security issues, and militarize Mexican society.
Over half of the packet would go to Mexican military and police forces accused of documented and yet legally unresolved human rights violations. At the same time, no money is allotted for drug treatment and harm reduction in either country, and the colossal "cooperation" package completely ignores the serious problems that exist within the United States, including the entry of illegal drugs, widespread sale and consumption, crossborder gun-running, and money laundering.
This aid packet would place the United States' binational relationship with one of its closet and most sensitive allies in the realm of vaguely defined security issues. While mandating a huge increase in aid to Mexico, it includes no funds to finally address the poverty gap and development needs of our southern neighbor.
To begin a public debate on the dangers inherent in Plan Mexico, first it is important to understand what it is.
What is Plan Mexico?
Plan Mexico, or the Merida Initiative, was presented after months of anticipation and hermetic negotiations as a three-year, $1.4 billion "Regional Security Cooperation Initiative." Members of the U.S. Congress immediately complained that the Bush administration provided no information to congressional committee members until the deal was done.
The request for fiscal year 2008 for $550 million has been attached to the Iraq Supplemental Appropriations Bill, to be voted on in Congress in the coming weeks. Fifty million dollars are earmarked for Central America, while the remaining half-billion goes to Mexico, primarily for military and police equipment and training.
Although the proposal has not been presented to the public in the United States or Mexico, leaked documents(1) reveal the military logic and nature of "Plan Mexico."
Under the rubric of "Counter Narcotics, Counter Terrorism, and Border Security" the initiative would allocate $205.5 million for the Mexican Armed Forces. Over 40% of the entire packet goes to defense companies for the purchase of eight Bell helicopters (at $13 million each, with training, maintenance, and special equipment) for the Mexican Army and two CASA 235 maritime patrol planes (at $50 million each, with maintenance) for the country's Navy.
Most of the $132.5 million allocated to Mexican law enforcement agencies also lines the pockets of defense companies for purchase of surveillance, inspection, and security equipment, and training. The Mexican Federal Police Force receives most of this funding, with Customs, Immigration, and Communications receiving the remainder.
The rest of the 2008 appropriations request is comprised of $112 million in the "Rule of Law" category for the Mexican Attorney General's Office and the criminal justice system. This money is earmarked for software and training in case-tracking and centralizing data. The initiative would also give $12.9 million to the infamous Mexican Intelligence Service (CISEN) for investigations, forensics equipment, counterterrorism work, and to other agencies including the Migration Institute for establishment of a database on immigrants. The U.S. government allots $37 million of the packet to itself for administrative costs.
The proposed 2009 budget of a reported $450 million to Mexico is much the same, with a larger share going to the police, assuming that by then the notorious corruption among those agencies will have been at least partially remedied—a dubious assumption at best ($120 million to the armed forces and $252 million to the police and other law enforcement agencies).
All of these programs are directed to the goals of supply interdiction, enforcement, and surveillance—including domestic spying—according to the "war on drugs" model developed in the United States in the early 70s under then-President Richard Nixon.2 This military model has proved historically ineffective in achieving the goals of eliminating the illegal drug trade and decreasing organized crime, and closely related to an increase in violence, instability, and authoritarian presidential powers.
The NAFTA Connection
The "Merida Initiative" received its name from a meeting between Presidents Bush and Calderon in Merida, on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, in March 2007. The official story is that President Calderon, already committed to a "war on drugs" that relies heavily on the use of the army in supply interdiction, requested U.S. assistance at the Merida meeting and, after negotiations on the details, the U.S. government acceded.
With the emphasis on counter-narcotics efforts, in the lead-up to the October announcement of the package, both governments marshaled studies and statistics to support the contradictory thesis that drug-trafficking and related violence in Mexico had reached a crisis point, and that Calderon's offensive against the drug cartels was working.
This is not the real story of the Plan's origins. The Bush administration's concept of a joint security strategy for North America goes back at least as far as the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) as an extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).3
When the three North American leaders met in Waco, Texas in March of 2005, they put into motion a secretive process of negotiations between members of the executive branches and representatives of large corporations to facilitate cross-border business and create a shared security perimeter. Subsequent meetings including the April 2008 trilateral summit in New Orleans4 extended these goals amid mounting criticism.
Through the SPP, the Bush administration has sought to push its North American trade partners into a common front that would assume shared responsibility for protecting the United States from terrorist threats, promoting and protecting the free-trade economic model, and bolstering U.S. global control, especially in Latin America where the State Department sees a growing threat due to the election of center-left governments. While international cooperation to confront terrorism is a laudable and necessary aim, the Bush national security strategy5 entails serious violations of national sovereignty for its partner countries, increased risk of being targeted as U.S. military allies, and threats to civil liberties for citizens in all three countries. Moreover the counterterrorism model, exemplified by the invasion of Iraq, has by all accounts created a rise in instability and terrorist activity worldwide.
Extending the concept of North American economic integration into national security matters through the closed-door SPP process raises grave questions about how security is defined and who does the defining.
Thomas Shannon, sub-secretary of Western Hemisphere affairs for the State Department put it bluntly in a speech on April 8, saying that the SPP "understands North America as a shared economic space and that as a shared economic space we need to protect it, and that we need to understand that we don't protect this economic space only at our frontiers, that it has to be protected more broadly throughout North America. And as we have worked through the Security and Prosperity Partnership to improve our commercial and trading relationship, we have also worked to improve our security cooperation. To a certain extent, we're armoring NAFTA."6
The SPP effort seeks to lock in policies that do not have consensus and have not been debated among the public and within Congress. Citizen groups in all three countries have called for a halt to SPP talks due to the lack of representation of labor, environmental, and civilian representation, and transparency to the public. On the security front, the Bush administration's concept of military-based rather than diplomacy- and social policy-based security is strongly questioned in the United States and outright rejected among the vast majority of Mexicans and Canadians.
In this context, instead of reviewing polices and opening them up to public debate, the Bush administration has launched its boldest advance yet within the SPP context—Plan Mexico. Speculation was that the Plan would be announced at the Montebello SPP meeting in August of 2007, but perhaps because of the presence of SPP protestors at that meeting President Bush delayed the official unveiling of the "Merida Initiative" several months. However, the last two SPP meetings have included discussions of Plan Mexico and the State Department has been clear about the link.
It is important to understand the roots of Plan Mexico in the Bush administration's deep integration agenda. The Plan implies much more than a temporary aid program for fighting drug cartels. It structurally revamps the basis of the binational relationship in ways meant to permanently emphasize military aspects over much-needed development aid and modifications in trade and investment policy. The scope of the Regional Security Cooperation Initiative demonstrates that it goes far beyond a joint war on drugs and cements into place failed policies on immigration enforcement, militarization of the border, economic integration policies, counterterrorism attacks on civil liberties, and the intromission of security forces into social policy and international diplomacy. To do this, the outgoing Bush administration has relied on the support of two economically dependent allies to try to assure that its policies will be irreversible under a Democratic presidency in the United States.7
What's Wrong with Plan Mexico?
Plan Mexico embodies a logic of confrontation that can be criticized on the following ten points:
- The "war on drugs" model doesn't work.
- Mexico has a serious problem with illegal drug trafficking and drug-related violence. But there is more than one way to go about solving it.
- The Merida Initiative departs from the mistaken logic that interdiction, enforcement, and prosecution will eventually stem illegal crossborder drug-trafficking. Studies have shown that treatment and rehabilitation are 20 times more effective in decreasing the illegal drug trade.8 Yet the Merida Initiative contains not one penny9 for treatment or rehabilitation in either country. Contrary to the stated goal of decreasing the binational drug trade, the Bush administration recently cut back funds for domestic treatment and prevention programs. This approach moves in the wrong direction.
- The supply-side model fails for one obvious reason: where there's a buyer there will be a seller. And since it's a black market, the seller must be a member of organized crime and stands to make an enormous, tax-free profit.
- The experience of Plan Colombia reveals the pitfalls of the Plan Mexico now before Congress. Plan Colombia is a similar U.S. military aid package designed to fight the drug war. Since its inception in 2000, it has contributed to entrenched violence and corruption in that South American country while failing to reduce drug flows to the United States.
- Over the past seven years of Plan Colombia the United States government has spent some $6 billion dollars supposedly to fight the war on drugs; 76% of that has gone to the Colombian military. The results are well known: Colombia remains the primary source of cocaine on the U.S. market, the price has gone down, and the purity has risen. Despite environmentally devastating fumigation campaigns, numerous studies show that the surface area planted in coca has increased or remained constant.
- As a result of crackdowns, drug cartels have adopted more sophisticated equipment and forms of organization—and closer relations with Mexican cartels. In a balloon effect, a new route opens up when an old one is closed off and new drug lords rise up through the ranks when existing leaders are imprisoned or killed.
- In addition to its failure to detain drug production, processing, and transit of cocaine, Plan Colombia has spread into aid for the Colombian rightwing government in its war against leftwing guerrilla insurgents. The U.S. government's involvement in counter-insurgency efforts was authorized by Congress in 2003, when it agreed to formally broaden the scope of Plan Colombia to authorize the use of military aid beyond counternarcotics activities and lift previous restrictions. As a result, investigative journalist Frank Smyth wrote that by 2001 Colombia had surpassed El Salvador as the largest counterinsurgency effort of the United States since Vietnam.10
- With the arrival of arms and money for the Colombian armed forces, the violation of human rights, the displacement of entire communities, and assassination of civilians has become so widespread as to be alarming even to proponents of Plan Colombia. In the recent authorization of new funds for the plan, the House of Representatives approved a version that cuts military aid, reduces fumigation, and conditions aid to more stringent human rights requirements. The total aid to Colombia's government continues to be huge and largely military, but along with the likely rejection of the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia due to human and labor rights concerns, it marks a minimal recognition in Congress that the drug war model in that nation is simply not working as intended.
- The upshot today is that a drug user has equal if not greater access to cocaine on the streets of U.S. cities and it's cheaper and more potent than ever.11 Colombia continues to be the number one source of cocaine to the U.S. market. Over 300,000 people have been displaced from their communities, paramilitary groups responsible for 80% of human rights violations run rampant, and Colombia is a militarized society trapped in internecine violence.
- This experience should be carefully analyzed before replicating a failed model with heavy collateral damage to the social fabric of an allied nation. Although Mexico is a very different country—there is no civil war or widespread guerrilla activity—many of the lessons of Plan Colombia are worth taking into consideration on the eve of Plan Mexico. The failure of the drug war model in Colombia, and Afghanistan, would seem to warrant at the very least a cautious attitude toward applying it in other countries—especially one as geographically and economically close as Mexico.
- Providing equipment and resources to Mexican security forces in the current context of corruption and impunity will deepen the problems, reduce civil society's role in reform, and inhibit construction of democratic institutions.
- Unfortunately, Mexican security forces are presently often more part of the problem than the solution. The State Department 2007 report on human rights12 in Mexico notes, "Corruption continued to be a problem, as many police were involved in kidnapping, extortion, or providing protection for, or acting directly on behalf of organized crime and drug traffickers. Impunity was pervasive to an extent that victims often refused to file complaints."
- Ranking members of Mexican security forces on local and national levels maintain close links to drug traffickers, working for them directly in many parts of the country. The army has traditionally been more independent of this dynamic, but its deployment within the country in the drug war is increasing its involvement and leading to human rights violations. Many armed forces deserters, that totaled 17,000 last year alone, receive counternarcotics training and then pass it along in service to high-paying drug cartels. The infamous Zetas (a drug trafficking network comprised of former law enforcement and military agents) illustrate the lethal capacity of military-trained groups that operate with drug cartels.
- Military equipment also ends up in the hands of the cartels. The U.S. Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms reports that 90% of arms decommissioned from organized crime in Mexico came from the United States, many registered to the U.S. Army.13 Senator Alfonso Sanchez Anaya reported to the Mexican Congress that 15 million arms circulate illegally in Mexico.14 In Iraq an investigation revealed the existence of thousands of "missing" arms thought to be in the hands of insurgents and delinquents. The black market in arms is booming. Given this situation, the likelihood that U.S. military equipment ends up in the wrong hands is more like an inevitability.
- By excluding community prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation programs, neighborhood watch initiatives, and other measures that create a more active role for civil society, the initiative tends to convert the citizenry into a protectorate of the armed forces. The redefinition of crime as a national security threat also removes it from the community realm.
- The point is not to vilify the Mexican armed forces, police, and government. Many honest and brave individuals can be found among their ranks and some have given their lives fighting corruption. Extreme statements like that of Tom Tancredo on Nov. 8, 2007 who said, "The degree of corruption inside the government and the military is so great that it's hard to see where the government ends and where the cartels begin," respond more to a Mexico-bashing mentality than a serious concern for the real challenges Mexico faces.
- But this is the reality of the situation and the challenge for U.S. binational policy is to support effective measures to clean up the corruption and end the impunity while developing mechanisms of cooperation in combating transnational crime.
- Giving arms, military equipment, spy and surveillance capacity, and training to security forces with a history of abuses that the justice system is unable or unwilling to check is like pouring gas on a fire. Ignoring root causes of criminal activity and market demand makes it very likely that military aid will empower delinquency and feed corruption.
- Plan Mexico promotes the militarization of Mexican society with few legal or social controls.
- The model of confronting the trafficking, sale, and consumption of drugs with military means increases violence and weakens democratic institutions. In countries where these are already weak it can create serious obstacles to a transition to democracy.
- Former UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Louise Arbour warned of using the army in the streets on her last visit to Mexico. "I understand there are those who say that at times you have to turn to a more powerful force such as the army, but it seems to me that in the long term it is frankly dangerous," Arbour told television network Televisa. "The army should not be doing the job of the police."15
- General José Francisco Gallardo, the major proponent of human rights guarantees within the Mexican Army and a constitutional scholar who was imprisoned for his efforts states, "Here what should be done is to form a national police force that carries out these functions and is not under the military ... The presence of the Army in matters that are not under their jurisdiction displaces the constitutional faculties of the civil, federal, state, and municipal authority and goes against Art. 21 of the constitution."16
- When asked if the Calderon strategy of militarizing the drug war could lead to a return to the "dirty war" of the 70s, Gallardo—as a young soldier, one of the few members of the armed forces to protest the torture and assassination that marked that period—told the author, "We are already experiencing a return to the dirty war."17 He cited the widespread practice of torture and arbitrary detentions as proof of systematic human rights violations in contemporary Mexico.
- The 2007 report of the Mexican National Commission on Human Rights18 recommended the gradual withdrawal of the army from the internal drug war. Militarizing society by involving the army in internal functions beyond its constitutional mandate constitutes a threat to democracy. As is well known in Latin America, the Cold War militarization of society and ideology paved the way for military dictatorships that murdered civilians and set back progress toward democracy by decades. Human rights violations are expected to rise.
- The corollary to increased military support in internal matters is the rise of uncontrolled paramilitary forces as has happened in Colombia. In Mexico, the use of paramilitaries has been largely confined to attacks on Zapatista communities in the southern state of Chiapas.19 Since 2006, paramilitary organizations have been used in the state of Oaxaca to repress social and indigenous movements there. It is likely that an increase in militarization of Mexican society will lead to an increase in the scope and activity of these groups.
- Both governments have been quick to defend the Plan stating that no U.S. troops will be deployed on Mexican soil. An important difference between the domestic version of the war on drugs and that which the U.S. government has applied in other countries is the use of the Army. When the war on drugs model began, military over-extension in Vietnam, an unpopular draft system, and drug addiction among soldiers, as well as constitutional prohibitions, ruled out use of the Army. The version for export has included both U.S. and home country armies. Plan Colombia dispatched U.S. troops to Colombia but Congress has maintained a troop cap. Today a similar situation of military over-extension, now due to the war in Iraq, places practical restrictions on the use of U.S. troops.
- However, the deployment of U.S. troops cannot be the sole measure of militarization to evaluate the regional security cooperation initiative. The war on drugs in Latin America is fought more by private-sector mercenaries and national armies trained by the U.S. military. Plan Mexico follows this strategy, for the above reasons and particularly to avoid riling Mexican sensitivities regarding national sovereignty. Militarization through building up national armies to fight within their own borders and sending in private companies such as Blackwater can be even more dangerous for Mexico than U.S. troop presence. Accountability mechanisms are weak or non-existent.
- Unless checks and balances appear that have so far not been revealed, Plan Mexico could contribute to the creation of a police state in Mexico. This poses a particular threat to women. Already in addition to what happened in San Salvador Atenco (May 2006), security forces have been involved in rapes and sexual torture in cases in Oaxaca, Zongolica, and Coahuila.
- The Initiative broadens Mexico's presidential powers, skewing a weak balance of powers.
- The war on drugs model has always had this as an unspoken objective: to strengthen the executive power without effective counterbalances or transparency, subtracting powers from other levels of government and restricting citizen rights.20 In Mexico, barely emerging from decades of presidential authoritarianism, moving in this direction could erase years of building a more effective balance of powers.
- Since his hotly contested election by half a percentage point in 2006 and accusations of irregularities upheld in part by the electoral institutions, President Calderon faces a challenge to consolidate his rule. U.S. policies should encourage a process of political reconciliation, not reliance on the armed forces to bolster presidential powers.
- After taking office Calderon rapidly built an image of strength in arms. He dispatched over 24,000 army troops to Mexican cities and villages, and created an elite corps of special forces under his direct supervision.
- The message of a weak presidency bolstered by a strong alliance with the military has not been lost on Mexican citizens. While some believe this is the only way to attack public insecurity, others have criticized(21) the repressive undertones, the danger of returning to presidentialism, increasing human rights violations, constitutional questions, and threats to civil democratic institutions.
- For the Bush administration the war on drugs model serves to lock in pro-corporate economic policies and U.S. military influence in the region. When the United States exports its "war on drugs" it becomes a powerful tool for intervention and pressuring other nations to assume U.S. national security interests as their own. This global policeman role creates dependency on the U.S. military and intelligence services and militarizes diplomacy. The Pentagon takes the lead in international policy, while relegating international law and diplomacy to a distant second place.
- The war on drugs model invariably extends into repression of political opposition in countries where it has been applied, blurring the lines between the war on drugs, against terrorism, and against political opposition.
- A 2004 report documents the impact of increased U.S. military aid in Latin America and concludes that "Too often in Latin America, when armies have focused on an internal enemy, the definition of enemies has included political opponents of the regime in power, even those working within the political system such as activists, independent journalists, labor organizers, or opposition political-party leaders."22
- Persecution of dissidents has been well-documented for many periods of Mexican history including present day. The International Civil Commission on Human Rights writes in its preliminary conclusions from a fact-finding tour in February 2008: "There have been widespread arbitrary arrests of members of social movements and, on occasion, of members of their families merely for being related to them. It is normal for those who are arrested to be subjected to torture and physical abuse. To justify the arrests false evidence is used ..."23
- Journalists who report on state or drug-cartel related violence also become victims of selective silencing. The Committee to Protect Journalists lists Mexico 10th in the world on its "Impunity Index." Colombia, after nearly a decade of Plan Colombia's prescriptions for increasing rule of law, ranks fourth in the index for the unpunished assassination of journalists.24
- The Merida Initiative indiscriminately replicates the Bush counter-terrorism model, placing at risk democratic institutions and civil and human rights in Mexico where the threat of international terrorism is practically non-existent.
- Counter-terrorism measures included in Plan Mexico ignore the fact that the threat to the United States and the threat to Mexico are not equivalent in size or nature, nor are the political contexts. Mexico is emerging from authoritarian rule, with many non-democratic institutions and practices still intact and increasing signs of a return to impunity and rule by political bosses.
- Obliging Mexico to adopt emergency counter-terrorism measures including domestic surveillance, phone tapping, warrantless searches—the "Gestapo law" (which is how the Mexican news media refers to it) proposed by the Calderon government that was defeated by popular outcry—and definitions of social protest as a criminal activity could damage fragile civil liberties protections and democratic institutions. The Merida Initiative includes funding for espionage systems directed at national citizenry, and surveillance equipment. Reforms dictated under the SPP have authorized house arrest and other measures considered a violation of rights but common in the United States now under the Patriot Act.
- Since the U.S. government's definition of "terrorism" is so broad and ambiguous, the counterterrorism model has led to mission creep and attacks on internal dissidence. The regional security cooperation initiative provides a dangerous stepping stone in that process.
- The Merida Initiative intensifies border conflict by viewing immigration through the same military lens as terrorism and organized crime.
- By including "border security" and explicitly targeting "flows of illicit goods and persons," the Initiative equates migrant workers with illegal contraband and terrorist threats. This ignores both the root causes of Mexican out-migration and the real demand for immigrant labor in the United States.25
- The Merida Initiative Joint Statement(26) reads, "Our shared goal is to maximize the effectiveness of our efforts to fight criminal organizations—so as to disrupt drug-trafficking (including precursor chemicals), weapons trafficking, illicit financial activities and currency smuggling, and human trafficking."
- The millions of dollars allocated to the immigration institute are focused on tightening Mexico's southern border through monitoring, bio-data collection, and a Guatemalan guest-worker program and border control. Mexico has a history of offering refuge to Central Americans and accepting them into its society. That has been changing as the U.S. government has pressured Mexico to intercept Central American migrants before they make it to the northern border.
- Plan Mexico advances that process and increases Mexican participation in stopping its own migrants at the northern border too. Putting immigration in the same basket as terrorist threats has already served to promote the U.S. government strategy of militarizing the northern border. The U.S.-Mexico border provides a case study in how U.S. counter-terrorism programs lead to militarization, loss of national sovereignty, and violations of human rights and even death of migrants. For Mexican workers thrown out of a job by the U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, being snagged as criminals by their own government at the border is a cruel irony.
- The problem of illegal immigration can never be resolved under this paradigm. Resulting expenditures, loss of local labor, and increased hate and violence erodes communities and local economies, especially on the border.
- A better policy would recognize immigration as a result of economic integration and adjust trade, investment, and community development programs accordingly in both countries. Job generation, local infrastructure development, programs aimed at regulating migratory flows and preventing conflict would go much farther to enhance border security in the short and long term.
- Reforming the Mexican justice and prison systems requires political will in Mexico, not U.S. taxpayers' money.
- The $112 million allocated for 2008 in the "rule of law" portion of the Merida Initiative to the Attorney General's Office and other criminal justice agencies includes mostly information technology systems for centralizing data collection, forensics labs, and training for the court system and law enforcement personnel. Although viewed by some as the "soft" part of the initiative, these programs raise serious questions as to their efficacy and appropriateness.
- First, to increase the "rule of law" what Mexico really needs is the political will—not additional resources—for reform to work. To give an example: the murder of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez has become an internationally known case and received millions of dollars from the Mexican government and international agencies to resolve the crimes. Numerous commissions have been formed and faded away without delivering results.27 A state-of-the-art forensics team called in to analyze the evidence that hadn't already been destroyed wrote up a report. Although they concluded their investigation, the report has not been released. Human rights activists close to the cases believe that they could implicate economically and politically powerful individuals.
- Second, the Mexican laws and legal system are not the same as the U.S. system. While police departments and other agencies have long-standing agreements for training and cooperation, a grand plan for the U.S. government to train and reform the Mexican legal system is viewed as negative intervention by many Mexican jurists. Mexican judges from the Supreme Court and lower courts have publicly stated objections to U.S. funds for the court system. For years, members of the judicial system have resisted attempts by international financial institutions to impose governance programs mandating reforms in the Mexican judicial system, not because the country doesn't need to improve in this area (the justice system is notoriously bad) but because only Mexico can revamp its judicial system. Plan Mexico would break through that resistance and mandate U.S. plans and training in both the judicial and prison systems.
- The U.S. government would do better to improve its own legal system in the joint effort to control the illegal drug trade and organized crime. The fact that the United States is the largest market for illegal drugs indicates a dismal record in control of illegal drug retailing, distribution, and consumption. Moreover, measures such as mandatory drug sentencing have been proven to discriminate racially and economically; consider that African-Americans make up 13% of drug uses and 59% of those convicted.28 Drug convictions, usually for users rather than dealers and leaders of organized crime, have led to over-crowding in U.S. prisons. Although this method has not proven to be the most effective in dealing with the problem, the privatized U.S. prison system creates market incentives for imprisoning casual drug users and migrants—both of which form part of the Merida initiative. This diverts resources and attention from going after leaders of organized crime and, given Mexico's already dangerously over-crowded prisons, could lead to violent riots.
- The Merida Initiative does not represent real binational cooperation.
- Several members of Congress have heralded the Merida Initiative as an unprecedented step toward binational cooperation. They argue that the United States government implicitly recognizes U.S. responsibility for the transnational drug trade by offering the aid packet to Mexico to combat organized crime.
- In fact, the Plan places the onus of the drug war on Mexico and includes no counterpart measures to reduce the U.S. market, improve customs control on the northern side of the border, reduce retailing and distribution, eliminate illegal arms traffic, and prosecute money-laundering—all problems located firmly within the United States.
- Moreover, although President Calderon has heralded the measure as an example that the U.S. government is willing to assume its part in fighting the illegal drug trade and rise in organized crime, the bulk of the budget for the initiative will never make it to Mexico. In addition to the 40% that will be spent on the military helicopters and surveillance planes, most of the rest of the budge
|
