Hillarysworld

Jen the Michigander · SuperModerator

U.S. pledges more help in Mexico drug war (LA Times 3/24/10)

Sanders · Diamond

Hillary Clinton In Mexico Pledging U.S. Help In Drug War

March 24, 2010

Al Jazeera's Mariana Sanchez reports from Mexico City.

Hilllary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has pledged to help Mexico broaden its war on drug gangs, saying the cartels were not just at war with the Mexican government but with the US as well.

The focus now, US officials say, is that some of the $1.6bn aid package, known as the Merida Initiative to fight the drug war, will be redirected to target the roots causes that generate the violence.

Some of the money will be used to reinforce social programs and government institutions that combat the drug cartels.

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I am glad to see this development.

It is a more mature position for a country to take than to pretend we have no role to play in the growth of drug traffic. It takes two sides to make it happen.

Let's hope it leads to some major drug cartel busts and growth of other more productive health-friendly economies.

-- Edited by Sanders on Wednesday 24th of March 2010 01:25:13 PM

Sanders · Diamond

Hillary Clinton’s ‘War Cabinet’ sweeps in to Mexico for drugs summit (Times Online UK)

An extraordinary delegation of senior US officials, including Hillary Clinton and military and intelligence chiefs, landed in Mexico City yesterday for talks on the country’s rocketing drug-related death toll.

Ten days after an American consulate worker, her husband and the relative of a Mexican consulate employee were shot dead in the border town of Ciudad Juárez President Obama’s diplomatic, war and intelligence Cabinet arrived en masse in a delegation usually reserved for visits to Iraq or Afghanistan.

After travelling through Mexico City in motorcades the group spent the day in talks with senior Mexican officials, including a session with President Calderón, on how to disrupt and dismantle the cartels, whose power and bloodlust grows by the day.

Mrs Clinton told reporters that the US had to do its part to curb the demand for drugs in America and the flow of guns into Mexico. Declaring that the cartels were waging war on civil society, she added: “We have watched with great grief the terrible tragedies and murders that have taken place here in Mexico and then our hearts were broken by the murders in Juárez. They were the latest horrible reminder of how much work we have to do together.”

Turning to the gringos for help

As drug-related violence continues to rise, Mexican and American officials unveil plans for unprecedented security co-operation. But will they work?

Mar 25th 2010 | MEXICO CITY | From The Economist print edition

LAST March, after Mexican officials took offence at warnings from their American counterparts about security south of the border, Hillary Clinton travelled to Mexico City to repair the diplomatic damage. The secretary of state accepted blame for her country’s demand for illegal drugs, recognised its need to control the southward flow of guns and cash, and vowed that the United States would be an equal partner in the “war” against drug gangs and organised crime declared by Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón. Some of those promises have been kept, in a modest way: over the past year, Barack Obama’s administration has seized a little bit more drug money, begun to search southbound freight trains, examined its budget for trying to cut drug demand and raised it by 13%, and shared intelligence that led to the finding (and death) of a top drug trafficker.

But the drug “war” in Mexico has intensified, with 6,600 killings last year, up from 5,800 in 2008. This year has started badly. In the border city of Ciudad Juárez, 555 people have already died in 2010, compared with 449 in the first quarter of 2009. The violence is starting to strike innocents. In January 16 teenagers at a party were massacred in Juárez. Two students at Monterrey’s Technological Institute were killed in crossfire this month; afterwards the traffickers organised roadblocks of stolen and torched vehicles, causing chaos in the city, Mexico’s industrial capital.

In Reynosa the Gulf “cartel” and its former armed wing, the Zetas, concealed their violent split for weeks by threatening local journalists, killing one. Residents were reduced to finding out about the gun battles they heard nearby on Facebook and Twitter. On March 13th the traffickers broke a taboo against taking on the United States. In simultaneous drive-by shootings, gunmen killed a visa worker at the American consulate in Juárez, along with her husband and that of another employee there.

Continues at the link above.

-- Edited by Sanders on Thursday 25th of March 2010 01:23:59 PM