Obama Readies Major Anti-Drug Effort On Mexican Border

Washington Post:

President Obama is finalizing plans to move federal agents, equipment and other resources to the border with Mexico to support Mexican President Felipe Calderón's campaign against violent drug cartels, according to U.S. security officials.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[larmarch5]

01:09 AM on 03/23/2009

I lived in Denton, TX when businessman Rex Cauble was found to be importing marijuana into his air conditioned horse barn. He was an upstanding citizen and big supporter of the boy scouts. Here's an interesting take on confiscated drug dealers' spoils.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954087,00.html

[undrgrndgirl]

09:13 PM on 03/22/2009

time to quit wasting money and LEGALIZE !!

[rabiddog6708]

08:55 PM on 03/22/2009

Round up all drug dealers and send them to China. China knows how to deal these guys.

[SammyD]

08:20 PM on 03/22/2009

waste of time and money----again.....someone in this administration get a clue and an education

[esquire07]

04:57 PM on 03/22/2009

Lol... As if it will do any good. The War on drugs is a joke... just like the "War" in Iraq.

Drug violence = Profit

The only solution is legalization of marajuana.

[harriscrl3]

05:40 PM on 03/22/2009

Legalization of marijuana? Do you seriously think marijuana is what is fueling these drug wars. I think its drugs that are much more potent than marijuanana.

For those that think legalizing these potent drugs is the answer look what happened to alcohol when it became legal. Whether its perscription drugs, over the counter drugs under counter sniffing inhalants or snorting cocaine we are a drug consuming culture legalizing it will create an even bigger problem than the one we already have. For whatever reasons Americans want to escape their existence which is ironic since we have so much freedoms folks should want to enjoy them or heck maybe thats why they want to escape.

Carol

[Mexitli]

09:57 PM on 03/22/2009

I strongly disagree.

1st, 40% of "drug cartel" income comes from Marijuana sales.
2nd, There is not evidence that decriminalization will cause people to use marijuana.

Marijuana is not a drug. Drugs are processed and refined.

Meso-Americans have been smoking marijuana for 10,000 years.

"Americans" really do not have "freedoms." They have the illusion of freedoms. most Americans have messed up lives, a messed up passed and messed up future. And there is no real depth to their culture, hence, the need for escapism.

Alcohol was legal and there was prohibition for a brief period. No change occurred when alcohol became legal again. Except that a federal agency had nothing to do. And the racist politicians decided to make Marijuana illegal in its place.

Parents need to teach their children from day one to stay away from drugs and the schools need to teach the consequences of drug usage starting in pre-school.

There is well over 1 million children that have at least one parent in prison for using drugs.

Education, not prohibition, is the key.

[Mexitli]

09:58 PM on 03/22/2009

Sorry, I meant "past."

[deadcustodian]

04:39 PM on 03/22/2009

Obama should send in all of the tough talking heads from Faux News.

[larmarch5]

04:37 PM on 03/22/2009

We need a massive Grass Roots movement to legalize marijuana.
Talking points:
Most hard drug users started with Grass; most non-hard drug users started with Grass
Grass can be regulated and taxed the same as alcohol and better than tobacco
Grass doesn't lead to crime; arrests for grass possession lead to crime
Everyone who smokes or ever has smoked marijuana must come out to the closet
The real reefer madness is the waste of money and lives in prohibition
The beneficiaries of illegal Grass are prison industries, prison guard unions, gun sellers and really bad criminals who go unfettered due to resources wasted on the war on Grass.

[PrairieVillain]

05:25 PM on 03/22/2009

Legal weed, si. Taxing it? P!ss on that.

[bigironal25]

06:27 PM on 03/22/2009

As an old Hippie and one who has been on both sides of the street( reefer and booze) I know one thing for sure, and that is alcohol is without a doubt the most insidious drugs, on the face of the earth,and it's legal! I have seen otherwise stable, caring, intelligent people go crazy after becoming intoxicated from to much alcohol and this happens to everybody who uses alcohol, sooner or later,even if they don't get themselves in a real jam,they will, at the very least, make a complete fool out of themselves if they keep doing the alcohol thing! I quit drinking in 1980 and life has been so much better, no hangovers,no missed work,not knowing what I did while drinking, and I'm just a better person and I have MANY friends that use marijuana and these folks don't get in any trouble as a result of smoking!As long as our elected officials are in the drug companies pocket, nothing will change and that is a shame, and the fact that we look back on prohibition and learn NOTHING!

[richmx2]

02:14 PM on 03/22/2009

(--MORE--)
Also, as reported in Cuilican's El Debate, police are not being retrained or replaced, but local governments are just expecting the Federal forces (the Army and AFI... our version of the FBI and DEA) to pick up the slack for expanded police presence. In other words, throwing federal units at a social problem does not mean more long range resources. IN Cuilican, despite calls for more policing, the actual number of police officers is the same as it was six years ago... newer, hopefully better trained officers, but not more of them.

-- The U.S. is doing everything possible to NOT deal with the root problems. Legalization may be an answer for your user problem, but the gun-running and money laundering problems need to be addressed differently. The huge amounts of money involved are not just coming back into Mexico by way of Western Union advances, or in wads of cash hidden in auto tires. No, it's invested in your banks... and according to United Nations figures, may be propping up several of those banks. Are you prepared to forfeit the "ill-got gains" to the Mexican government?

[richmx2]

02:13 PM on 03/22/2009

Spenser Hsu's WaPo article states that "drug violence" in the U.S. has been, so far, just "cartel v. cartel" violence, not mentioning that the same can be said about the violence here in Mexico. A couple of points from here in Sinaloa:

-- U.S. violence is probably worse than what we have here, though our violence is reported nationally and internationally. U.S. "drug violence" -- not just gangsters popping each other (and removing their heads), but the users' robbing stores, beating their kids, driving while intoxicated, etc. -- is NOT reported outside of its own community in the U.S. and probably accounts for many more lives than our gangsters do. Even with an alarming growth in narcotics use in Mexico, it still is only a fraction of that in the U.S., and users are not really a problem here.

-- Military force may be couterproductive. If you look at where our violence is occurring, 90+ percent of it is on the United States border (as are most narcotics users). Most of the rest is intermural squabbling by the cartels here in Sinaloa. It doesn't really affect most of us in our daily living, though can be spun as a major crisis by the politicos to justify militarization.

-- Militarization comes at a high social cost. The media and the opposition parties are complaining now (and rightly so) about human rights abuses by untrained soldiers. And the always tempting prospect of labelling any anti-administration action as "narco" activity.

[naturallight]

03:05 PM on 03/22/2009

Rich appreciate your comments. I take issue with ""you look at where our violence is occurring, 90+ percent of it is on the United States border (as are most narcotics users)."" Didn't know border towns had most of the narcotic users? Is that who the bloods&crips are distributing to in Los Angeles? Is that who MS13 is distro to all over US. Is that who the Mexican Mafia is distribution to in Texas, South East US.? Is that who the Mob was distributing to in the French Connections or Pizza cases? you get my point.

You do bring up the larger problem or the WaPo does. We can't legalize drugs. What will poor people do for money? Rob you, kill you, burglarize you, pimp your daughters, or acutally demand political CHANGE in their nation which inevitably equals revolution. aka Hugo Chavez good bye Exxon....

[richmx2]

04:16 PM on 03/22/2009

MS-13 is a Salvadorian gang, not a Mexican one. Actually, it's a California gang, being formed by Salvadorians displaced by the U.S. sponsored civil war in that country.

Yes, border towns -- especially Tijuana -- are where narcotics addicts in Mexico are concentrated.

I'm not sure that "Mexican Mafia" distribution into the United States weakens my argument. The so-called "Mexican Mafia" is a Mexican-AMERICAN gang, not a Mexican one. And, I didn't say that Mexican gangsters weren't distributing narcotics... but that the U.S. provides a willing buyer, as well as the arms and cash that support the industry.

At any rate, should gangster be forced out of the narcotics business, a good number will still be involved in criminal enterprises. But conventional police work is relatively effective in dealing with the types of crimes that replace narcotics and money laundering -- hold-ups and truck hijackings and bank robberies do not require military intervention and abrogation of one's civil rights to solve.

[yappnmutt]

01:53 PM on 03/22/2009

.....and i'll still be able to get whatever i want when i want it for the same price as last week.

[Phalanxman]

01:30 PM on 03/22/2009

Day after day, the headlines are full of public indignation over big corporate bonuses paid for with taxpayer money. The accusation is repeatedly made that corporate decision makers who failed do not deserve any bonuses. Yet, the same decision makers that have kept drugs illegal in America for generations have also failed, and we pour billions and billions more taxpayer dollars into their pockets every year. It's too bad that a brain-washed American electorate cannot see that failure is failure, no matter if in big business, or in drug policies. Legalize drugs, end government benefits (health care, welfare) for those who become addicted to them to the point they cannot earn their own living, take their children away and put them in good homes, and impose heavy criminal sactions for crimes committed due to drugs. Within a generation, we will have no drug problem, and very, very few drug users.

[naturallight]

01:15 PM on 03/22/2009

Wow only 8 comments so far! I guess "the one"'s faithful don't like to read about his VIOLENCE

To the uninitiated, the Gulf Cartel hitmen are called "zetas". They were trained at Ft. Benning GA by the U.S. Military. Sad but true......

[cobobs]

03:32 PM on 03/22/2009

Violence
begets Violence
that
begets Violence
that
begets Violence
that
begets
VIOLENCE
that.....

[Agent420]

01:08 PM on 03/22/2009

What is so hard about taking away the profit in drugs and instantly stop all this crap.

Help cut the crime rate, legalize drugs.

[Melton Cartes]

12:58 PM on 03/22/2009

All of this is pointless until we legalize all drugs, regulate them and in one fell swoop wipe out the economic incentive and specialized niche that drug dealers and cartels thrive on.

[sparkey]

12:54 PM on 03/22/2009

It's all well and good for troops to be on the Mexican border. The only thing we won't be told is that the troops won't be allowed to have ammo.

[JooJooMan]

03:34 PM on 03/22/2009

So what?