U.S. militarizes Latin American drug war
In this Aug. 22, 2012, file photo released by the U.S. Marine Corps on Wednesday Aug. 29, 2012, Staff Sgt. Travis A Jakovcic, a UH-1N Huey crew member with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 467 (HMLA-467) looks back at another aircrew during takeoff at the Guatemalan Air Force Base at Retalhuleu, Guatemala. / AP Photo/U.S. Marine Corps
The crew members aboard the USS Underwood could see through their night goggles what was happening on the fleeing go-fast boat: Someone was dumping bales.
When the Navy guided-missile frigate later dropped anchor in Panamanian waters on that sunny August morning, Ensign Clarissa Carpio, a 23-year-old from San Francisco, climbed into the inflatable dinghy with four unarmed sailors and two Coast Guard officers like herself, carrying light submachine guns. It was her first deployment, but Carpio was ready for combat.
Fighting drug traffickers was precisely what she'd trained for.
In the most expensive initiative in Latin America since the Cold War, the U.S. has militarized the battle against the traffickers, spending more than $20 billion in the past decade. U.S. Army troops, Air Force pilots and Navy ships outfitted with Coast Guard counternarcotics teams are routinely deployed to chase, track and capture drug smugglers.
The sophistication and violence of the traffickers is so great that the U.S. military is training not only law enforcement agents in Latin American nations, but their militaries as well, building a network of expensive hardware, radar, airplanes, ships, runways and refueling stations to stem the tide of illegal drugs from South America to the U.S.
According to State Department and Pentagon officials, stopping drug-trafficking organizations has become a matter of national security because they spread corruption, undermine fledgling democracies and can potentially finance terrorists.
U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, pointing to dramatic declines in violence and cocaine production in Colombia, says the strategy works.
"The results are historic and have tremendous implications, not just for the United States and the Western Hemisphere, but for the world," he said at a conference on drug policy last year.
The Associated Press examined U.S. arms export authorizations, defense contracts, military aid, and exercises in the region, tracking a drug war strategy that began in Colombia, moved to Mexico and is now finding fresh focus in Central America, where brutal cartels mark an enemy motivated not by ideology but by cash.
The U.S. authorized the sale of a record $2.8 billion worth of guns, satellites, radar equipment and tear gas to Western Hemisphere nations in 2011, four times the authorized sales 10 years ago, according to the latest State Department reports.
Over the same decade, defense contracts jumped from $119 million to $629 million, supporting everything from Kevlar helmets for the Mexican army to airport runways in Aruba, according to federal contract data.
Last year $830 million, almost $9 out of every $10 of U.S. law enforcement and military aid spent in the region, went toward countering narcotics, up 30 percent in the past decade.
Many in the military and other law enforcement agencies - the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, FBI - applaud the U.S. strategy, but critics say militarizing the drug war in a region fraught with tender democracies and long-corrupt institutions can stir political instability while barely touching what the U.N. estimates is a $320 billion global illicit drug market.
Congressman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), who chaired the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere for the past four years, says the U.S.-supported crackdown on Mexican cartels only left them "stronger and more violent." He intends to reintroduce a proposal for a Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission to evaluate antinarcotics efforts.
"Billions upon billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been spent over the years to combat the drug trade in Latin America and the Caribbean," he said. "In spite of our efforts, the positive results are few and far between."
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You will know the border is secure when the price of street weed triples and cocaine goes up five times.
It happened very briefly after 9/11.
Close the border. End the drug wars in Mexico, I am fine with that.
I would like to see some evidence for this.
It' a game of negative capitalism. We outlaw something, then it becomes a precious commodity that commands high price and profits on the underground market.
Prohibition mentality gets more violent as we escalate the intolerance.
There is no living thing on the planet that does not face inconvenience. Growing intolerance to inconvenience makes us a whining and violent culture.
Failing to stare in the mirror and face our biggest enemy is what most of us are guilty of....and paying others for the privilege to never see a mirror is what makes organized crime thrive.
We see what we want to see and exclude the bigger picture that is often confronting.
There is the story of a man who woke up daily to live his life and support his family. One of his duties was a daily fight with his sworn enemy. It consumed his resources to fight, be could never defeat him, and one day while confiding in his best friend, he was provided advice and his best weapon to defeat his enemy. He was given a mirror as a weapon and advised to have the courage to tell his family that education about values to resist and reject self-defeating habits was essential to their survival. He was also told his angry and hateful intolerance to his enemy's influence had to disappear and be verified by a quick glance in the mirror. It could no longer be a matter where his family had to make a choice to follow him or his enemies. His weakened condition improved and his vulnerability became easier to live with over time. He watched his children adopt his worst habits and later coached them away from them. He was able to build his relations on trust without fear and appeared stronger and more free to enjoy his life. The real test for him came years later when his once sworn enemy lay before him in ruins. His option was to give his compassion or kill him off in front of his family's eyes. He chose to give his compassion without knowledge that he was set up for a trap and his compassion and peaceful exit was his only way out. His enemies were ready to pounce him, but had to reason. One by one, those who followed his enemies were given opportunity to reform and accept equally difficult choices. Living to fight and fighting to live is not the kind of life our creator intended us to have, but our own humanity blinds us when righteousness is offered as the prize.
playing both sides for money.