Thread: Mexico Meltdown:Bush Team's Parting Assessments Should Alarm

Links within the article are on the source link below.

More On Mexico’s Meltdown: Bush Team's Parting Assessments Should Alarm Obama


By Brenda Walker

As George W. Bush’s reign wound down, more alarming judgments about the President's favorite neighbor, Mexico, trickled out.

First there was a report here, then an uncharacteristically honest remark there, about our narco-neighbor to the south.

In fact, there was a torrent of truth at the end of the Bush administration—to the point where bad news about Mexico's worsening chaos was reported with an uptick in urgency by the mainstream media, complete with punchy headlines like Mexican collapse? Drug wars worry some Americans [AP, January 18, 2009].

Even the Wall Street Journal warned of "a failed state next door". [Mexico's Instability Is a Real Problem, by Joel Kurtzman, January 16, 2009].

Most of the Main Stream Media [MSM] has long treated border porosity with Mexico as not a real problem but rather as something that has been blown out of proportion by right-wing crazies like me. But facts and assessments in the last two months have grabbed the reporters' attention because they are too dire to ignore.

Even tone-deaf Washington must have noticed Mexico's carnage during the last year. In particular, the more than 5300 dead in drug-related violence—twice the number of 2007.

Victims included ordinary cops, police chiefs, soldiers, journalists and ordinary Mexicans, as well as members of warring drug gangs whose made up the lion's share of the fatalities.

Mexico's national police chief, Edgar Eusebio Millán Gómez, was gunned down in front of his home in May. Since 2000, 45 journalists have been murdered in Mexico, with ten deaths occurring in 2008 alone. Many reporters consider Mexico the second-most dangerous place in the world to work after Iraq.

Much of the leaking bad news has come from departing Bush lieutenants who finally made realistic estimates of Mexico's prospects for genuine meltdown. (Nothing of the kind from the President himself however, who is reputed to have long-standing business connections with unsavory Mexicans. His extraordinary blind has caused me to call him The MexiChurian Candidate.)

Even a Mexophile like Ambassador Tony Garza spoke ill of his ancestral homeland, hinting at chaos:

"Calderón must, and will, keep the pressure on the cartels, but look, let's not be naïve – there will be more violence, more blood, and, yes, things will get worse before they get better. That's the nature of the battle."

Garza continued:

"The more pressure the cartels feel, the more they'll lash out like cornered animals. Our folks know exactly how high the stakes are." [Emphasis added][Mexico's drug violence expected to intensify in '09, Dallas Morning News, January 4, 2009]

Garza’s candid advice for Americans traveling to Mexico: check State Department alerts at www.state.gov before their departure.

A U.S. intelligence official based along the Texas border has warned that U.S. officials, American businessmen and journalists will "become targets, if they're not already.

When outgoing CIA chief Michael Hayden left Washington, he focused his attention on two countries as trouble spots: Hayden sees Iran, Mexico as top issues [Baltimore Sun, By Greg Miller, January 16]. He warned that Mexico's worsening narco-violence could require more help from the United States if it is to be contained.

Given declining border conditions, Homeland Security boss Michael Chertoff put a few more cards on the table recently.

In his January 7th wrap-up published in the New York Times, Chertoff expressed a realistic view of Mexico, rather than the hollow promises of "partnership" one often hears from the State Department. The news here is the planning for a US military presence on the border in the case of a security meltdown in Mexico that would directly affect America:

From his telephone interview with the NYT, Chertoff said:

"We completed a contingency plan for border violence, so if we did get a significant spillover, we have a surge—if I may use that word—capability to bring in not only our own assets but even to work with" [U.S. Plans Border ‘Surge’ Against Any Drug Wars, By Randal C. Archibold, January 7, 2009]

Chertoff has expressed concern in recent months about Mexican violence. But the DHS contingency plan has not been publicly debated, nor has any announcement of it been made. Department officials said Chertoff had mentioned it only in passing.

It is nice to know that not all Washington officials are oblivious fools, although they often do a fine imitation as a part of the diplomacy expected in their jobs.

Pretending that Mexico is an excellent next-door neighbor—responsible and normal—must require Hollywood-level acting skills, mouthing platitudes like "It's always a great pleasure to visit your lovely country, el Presidente Calderon!"

Professionals in government are paid the big bucks not to roll their eyes at those words.

Among the most serious reports have appeared recently, one was issued by the National Drug Threat Assessment 2009, published by the Department of Justice in December 2008.

Its Summary identifies Mexico as a clear menace:

Mexican DTOs [Drug Trafficking Organizations] represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States. The influence of Mexican DTOs over domestic drug trafficking is unrivaled. In fact, intelligence estimates indicate a vast majority of the cocaine available in U.S. drug markets is smuggled by Mexican DTOs across the U.S.-Mexico border. Mexican DTOs control drug distribution in most U.S. cities, and they are gaining strength in markets that they do not yet control.
Another alarming analysis came from a once familiar C Capitol Hill bigwig, General Barry McCaffrey.

His most high-visibility position was Drug Czar under President Bill Clinton, 1998-2001, where he preached that drugs are bad.

These days, he runs his own consulting company, BR McCaffrey Associates LLC, which published a report full of critical dangers, After Action Mexico Report. [December 29, 2008]

McCaffrey’s analysis warns of deteriorating drug crime leading to a meltdown of the state, with the worst imaginable outcome for the United States...

“A failure by the Mexican political system to curtail lawlessness and violence could result of a surge of millions of refugees crossing the US border to escape the domestic misery of violence, failed economic policy, poverty, hunger, joblessness, and the mindless cruelty and injustice of a criminal state.â€

Obama has surprised so many in the first two days in office, and I honestly don't think he will allow any threat to our borders. He has thrown out a few campaign promises once he found out the truth that he was not privvy to when he was campaigning. And at least this guy can multi-task, while McCain couldn't even turn on the computer.

this is what happens when you allow corruption too infest a country ...

Mexico is a failed state and we are just about there because of corrupt people running this country for the last 25 years

[Additional millions of Mexicans entering this country to "escape" its narco-culture of violence and corruption would only further burden the US with their acceptance of criminal values. Remember that bribes are normal for Mexicans, at least according to the Washington Post: For Many in Mexico, Bribes a Way of Life [October 31, 2001]

Good post! Following is Washington Post article:


For Many in Mexico, Bribes a Way of Life
Report: Fees Common for Public Services

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, October 31, 2001; Page A23

MEXICO CITY, Oct. 30 -- When the young mechanical engineer went to get his driver's license four years ago, he slipped the clerk about $10, skipped the written exam and walked out with a license in minutes. When he got married, a $10 palm greasing got him the date on the calendar he wanted for his civil ceremony. Now he's working on a construction project, and the city functionaries have told his company that the building permit will require a $100,000 bribe.

"Everybody does it," the engineer said. "It's been going on for a long time."

Now, an anti-corruption group has attempted a scientific measurement of bribes in Mexican daily life. Transparency Mexico, the local arm of Transparency International, determined in a report issued today that residents of Mexico City have to pay bribes for almost a quarter of the government services they receive.

"This is the first time we have hard facts about the dimension of the problem for households, and it is monstrous," said Federico Reyes Heroles, head of Transparency Mexico, meeting with reporters today.

The group surveyed more than 16,000 Mexican "heads of household" in June and July and asked them which public services, and some private ones, they had to pay bribes to receive. It asked about signing up children for public school, registering cars, garbage collection, water service, building permits and a range of other services.

The privately funded survey found that on average, Mexicans pay bribes for 10.6 percent of the services they receive. They said the average bribe was about $11. The services for which bribes are most frequently paid are related to cars: retrieving an impounded car required a bribe 57.2 percent of the time; avoiding traffic tickets, 56 percent; and avoiding other traffic offenses, 54.5 percent.

President Vicente Fox has vowed to reduce rampant corruption in Mexico, running a high-profile "no more bribes" campaign with posters and lapel buttons. But based on the survey results, those efforts have done little to change the ethos of thousands of police officers, public clerks and other public officials. And many Mexicans find paying bribes more convenient than waiting for service from cumbersome government bureaucracies.

In police corruption, Transparency International this year rated Mexico 19th out of 23 countries surveyed and 51st out of 91 countries surveyed on overall corruption. Those rankings were based mainly on the perceptions of academics, business leaders and others.

Based on the survey released today, Reyes Heroles said some Mexican states show a remarkably low rate of bribery: Residents in the Pacific coast states of Colima and Baja California Sur reported paying bribes for 3 percent and 3.9 percent of services, respectively.

Mexico City was the worst, at 22.6 percent, followed by the state of Mexico, which surrounds the capital city, at 17 percent, and Guerrero state at 13.4 percent.

Reyes Heroles said the higher rates in Mexico City and Mexico state may reflect the fact that bribery is most common in urban areas. He said people there have busier lives and less time, which may make them more willing to pay a bribe than wait for a service.

He also said that the "most disturbing" trend uncovered by the survey was that younger, better-educated Mexicans tend to pay bribes more often than those who are older and have less education. He said that younger, educated people tend to have less free time and more money, making bribes an attractive alternative to waiting.

Unfortunately, he said, it means that the next generation of Mexicans is already accustomed to paying bribes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... Found=true