Mexicans weary of drug war USA Today
It appears that when you fight a deadly war on your own citizenry, it creates resentment.
Taxi driver Francisco Arroyo rues the day he voted for Mexican President Felipe Calderón.
Three years ago, promises by Calderón’s National Action Party, known as the PAN, to crack down on drug cartels sounded like a good idea, Arroyo said. But as congressional elections approach and Mexico staggers under an unprecedented wave of shootings, kidnappings and beheadings in areas near the U.S. border, he and other Mexicans have their doubts.
The law of unintended consequences of Calderon’s actions are brutally punishing the Mexican people at the border. Soon they will punish him for creating an un-winnable situation that has cost them dearly.
Across Mexico, voters are beginning to grow weary of Calderón’s offensive, resulting in a surge of support for other parties with different anti-drug strategies. Calderón’s party is in danger of losing control of the lower house of Congress to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, said Héctor Zamitiz, a political science professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Other parties loudly demand a change in strategy, their proposals ranging from reinstating the death penalty to legalizing drugs.
That’s right, Legalization has found proponents in Mexico and we can credit to Plan Mexico and the death and suffering that it (and Felipe Calderón) has brought to Mexicans.
Days after beginning his six-year term, he announced he was dispatching troops to quell drug-related violence in his home state of Michoacán. That was followed by offensives in Tijuana, Juárez, Monterrey and other drug-smuggling corridors. About 50,000 troops — more than the United States has in Afghanistan — patrol Mexican border cities and comb the deserts for drug smugglers. The United States has pledged $1.4 billion in aid for the effort.
Surely the majority of Mexicans are supportive of Felipe Calderon’s historic push to impose law and order in these provinces..
A poll by El Universal newspaper last month showed the PRI leading Calderón’s party by 15 percentage points in the congressional races. Other polls by the Mitofsky and Demotecnia consulting companies showed the PRI ahead by 9 and 6 points, respectively.
“When the PRI governed, there wasn’t this kind of violence in the streets,” Samuel Aguilar, assistant secretary-general of the PRI said. “The PRI was more efficient in controlling the cartels.” In recent months, the PRI has become more critical of Calderón’s military strategy against the drug lords. It has called for Mexico to create a national guard to take over anti-drug duties, saying the military is not properly equipped to perform police work inside the country.
As usual, legalization proponents are just beginning to find their voice..
The Social Democratic Party has filed a bill that would legalize drugs. Mexicans could grow marijuana and mushrooms for their own use, but not sell them. The government would produce cocaine and heroin and administer it to addicts at centers supervised by doctors.
“Bullets don’t solve anything,” the party’s television ads say.
Hard-line policies against drugs have only fed the illicit trade and strengthened the cartels, said Luciano Pascoe, vice president of the Social Democratic Party. “The country has come to a point of no return,” he said. “There is only the military way or a new, avant-garde way.”
I’ve never thought legalization is “avant-garde” but just good common sense. But hey, I’ll take every legalization activist no matter what you call it. When we win justice for marijuana users here, the US will once again fire the first shot that will be heard across the world. But it must happen here first, and it’s up to you to determine when that will happen.
