Thread: Mexico violence calls for new tactics

Mexico violence calls for new tactics

By E. Anthony Martinez / Guest columnist
Posted: 11/22/2009 12:00:00 AM MST

Ciudad Juárez is at war. From the lips of Richard Nixon in 1971, the U.S. War on Drugs has transcended metaphor and emerged on our doorstep as a too-real war. Like Afghanistan and Iraq, it is a war with guns, soldiers, tanks and unrelenting death.

With the world watching, 15,000 people have died in Mexico over the past three years in a multi-faceted war between drug cartels and the Mexican army. In Ciudad Juárez alone, drug violence has killed nearly 3,800 people in two years.

When we do the numbers, the death toll in Mexico equals five 9/11 attacks.

In fact, just like the war that came from that attack, this drug war is "a different kind of war" -- in this case, not a war of nations or ideology, but a private-sector war fueled by an insatiable hunger for profit.

To achieve a sustainable peace, Ciudad Juárez must have a deliberative, comprehensive strategy short-term and long-term. And in this different kind of war, we will need a different set of solutions: international peacekeeping; commitment to a rule of law; and U.S. drug regulation.

Foremost, the urgent need in Juárez is security. The small-time mordida we are familiar with -- a few dollars for speeding or running a stop sign -- takes an insidious hue as systemic corruption paralyzes Mexico from governing itself; and as corruption empowers violence.

Juárez business leaders took an important step this month when they petitioned the United Nations to bring peacekeepers to the border region. This enemy has no nation and no borders; Mexico cannot do it alone.

The U.N. can bring to Juárez civilian and military peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, ceasefire agreements and the establishment of peace zones.

Both Mexico and the United States are members of the U.N. Security Council, the small body that controls peacekeeping operations. It is dumbfounding to imagine that the Council might be uninterested in bringing security to the border of two of its own 15 member states. The U.N. has a record of thinking outside the box in Bosnia and Haiti. They can do it in Juárez, too -- if the political will exists.

Yet peacekeeping is not a permanent solution; it is a mere stopgap measure to allow for long-term solutions. Mexico must look forward to establishing a rule of law and to providing the funding to fuel it. The two go hand-in-hand.

For those of us who dream of a world with few taxes and less services, we need look no further than Mexico for the harsh reality.

In the long run, Juárez must gain the authority to tax locally and raise the revenue needed to invest in local infrastructure, physical and social; and to fund the professional law enforcement and judicial system needed for social stability.

On our side of the border, we must face our own hunger for illicit and pharmaceutical drugs. This market-driven war demands a market solution. This means a U.S. drug policy that promotes stability through market regulation, not anarchy through blind prohibition. (I DISAGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT.)

And in El Paso, with its strong military and law enforcement, we must encourage more participation from the State Department. Diplomacy and aid must be part of the solution.

The human impact of the violence dictates that we do more for peace. After 9/11, New York Magazine estimated that 422,000 suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. If this drug war equals five 9/11 attacks, rough math indicates 2.1 million people may be traumatically impacted in Mexico. That is the kind of number that alters a generation.

The continuing violence at our doorstep is an admission that we are powerless against it. That admission is unacceptable.

E. Anthony Martinez is a native El Pasoan living in Austin. This column is dedicated to 7-year-old Raul Xazziel Ramirez Ramirez.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/columnists/ci_13841873

Ron Paul of Texas favors legalizing marijuana.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8t7jqis2Mc

Ron Paul of Texas favors legalizing marijuana.

Oh really? Where did he say that?