Clinton: U.S. Fueling Mexican Drug Wars

Secretary Of State Blames America's Demand For Illegal Drugs, Inability To Stop Weapons Smuggling

(CBS/AP)  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that America's "insatiable" demand for illegal drugs and its inability to stop weapons from being smuggled into Mexico are fueling an alarming spike in violence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Clinton said the United States shares responsibility with Mexico for dealing with the violence and that the Obama administration will work with Mexican authorities to improve security on both sides of the border.

President Barack Obama himself said Tuesday that he wanted the U.S. to do more to prevent guns and cash from illicit drug sales from flowing across the border into Mexico. But Clinton's remarks appeared more forceful in recognizing the U.S. share of the blame. In the past, particularly under the Bush administration, Mexican official have complained that Washington never acknowledged the extent that the U.S. demand for drugs and weapons smuggling fuels the violence.

"I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility," Clinton told reporters accompanying her to Mexico City a day after the Obama administration said it would send more money, technology and manpower to secure the Southwestern frontier and help Mexico battle the cartels.

"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," she said. "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians."

In an interview with CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan, Mexico's foreign minister welcomed the change in Washington's attitude.

"We want to address together the challenges that we are facing," Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said.

But Mexico says it will never allow U.S. troops to operate on their soil and the possibility the U.S. could deploy National Guard troops to the border is causing concern.

"It is seen as a very delicate issue," Espinosa told Logan.

Criminals are outgunning law enforcement officials, Clinton said, referring to guns and military-style equipment like night vision goggles and body armor that the cartels are smuggling into Mexico from the United States.

"Clearly, what we have been doing has not worked and it is unfair for our incapacity ... to be creating a situation where people are holding the Mexican government and people responsible," she said. "That's not right."

Clinton said she would repeat her acknowledgment as loudly and as often as needed during her two-day visit to Mexico City and the northern city of Monterrey during which she will brief Mexican officials on U.S. plans for the border and counter-narcotics aid to Mexico.

In her discussions, Clinton plans to stress Obama's commitment and encourage Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his top aides to boost efforts to combat rampant corruption by promoting police and judicial reform, according to senior U.S. officials.

President Calderon has been forced to deploy Mexico's army against ruthless narco traffickers and the network of corrupt police and officials supporting them, reports Logan.

Just hours before Clinton arrived, the Mexican army announced it had captured one of the country' most-wanted smugglers, a man accused of controlling the flow of drugs through Monterrey for the powerful Beltran-Leyva cartel. Clinton will visit Monterrey on Thursday.

The administration announced Tuesday that it would increase the number of immigrations and customs agents, drug agents and antigun-trafficking agents operating along the border. It will also send more U.S. officials to work inside Mexico.

However, on Wednesday several senators questioned whether the administration's plan can be successful without more money and people.

Those measures fall short of calls from some Southwestern states that troops be deployed to prevent further spillover of the violence, which has surged since Calderon stepped up his government's battle against the cartels.

[honestabe8]

Also, Jimmy: This reduction in smoking...was that achieved by prohibitiing it? How about drinking? I am not talking about drinking and driving. That is a bad thing....as much as drugging and driving. One of the reasons that Clinton ended (some of) the ONDCP propaganda is that no one believed it. They went completely over the top and made themselves look foolish. "This is your brain on drugs"...remember that campaign? The public knows that they are lying about pot, would it be a stretch to believe they are lying about other stuff? In that sense, the lies about pot damage their credibility about much more serious and dangerous drugs.

[honestabe8]

"I am making a point that demand for drugs makes money for people who have no problem killing innocent men, women and children to ensure they continue to make money. That money mostly comes from people who wink at drug usage as mostly harmless fun." - jimmyc

And I am making the point that it is the prohibition that you support is what drives the value of simple agricultural products to the point of being very lucrative, which drives those miscreants who would like innocent men, women and children. That prohibition mostly comes from people who (intentiionally or not) who are protecting the legal pushers in this country who sell people (in some cases) much more toxic drugs.

[texasbeta]

WHEN THE BERLIN WALL WAS UP, WERE THERE A LOT OF DRUGS AND GUNS BEING SMUGGLED BETWEEN EAST AND WEST GERMANY??? NOOOOOOOOO!!!
Posted by ivehadit9 at 12:31 AM : Mar 26, 2009


Ah, so your solution would be for the United States to take the place of Russia? Do your knuckles drag when you walk too? Tell me monkeyboy....do you know the comparitve distance between the two? Have you any idea how large the border with Mexico is? Now take a few minutes and look up how Russia monitored and secured that wall...how many soldiers per kilometer? Now, get a calculator out...because you have proven that you lack the skills to do simple mathmatics...and figure out how many people that would require for the United States to "secure" that border with Mexico in the same manner as the USSR did the Berlin Wall.
After you do all of that...take a look at your logic. Simply throwing out a generic wall, and saying, "Hey, this wall held!"...doesn't prove that a wall between Mexico and the US would work. By that logic, the hole you punched in the wall would prove that the wall between Mexico and the US would NOT work.
You need to try harder...10 yr olds can dismantle your logic. You are ridiculous

[texasbeta]

For the record, "America" doesn't have an insatiable demand for illegal drugs - SOME, SELECT INDIVIDUALS do. And if the Mexican government could do its job to keep its citizens from making illegal drugs to export across the border, the American government wouldn't have to spend money patrolling the border to keep it out.
Posted by jennifer-marie

You obviously have no concept of supply and demand, nor cause and effect. It must be fun to stay a child forever

[jennifer-marie]

For the record, "America" doesn't have an insatiable demand for illegal drugs - SOME, SELECT INDIVIDUALS do. And if the Mexican government could do its job to keep its citizens from making illegal drugs to export across the border, the American government wouldn't have to spend money patrolling the border to keep it out.

[bobnjersey]

[President Barack Obama himself said Tuesday that he wanted the U.S. to do more to prevent guns and cash from illicit drug sales from flowing across the border into Mexico]

this is easy ... remove the substances that americans have the insatiable appetite from the category that the us govt has deemed 'illegal' and the criminal nature of the whole thing will disappear. this doesn't say you don't have a problem still ... but you wont have this problem.

those who choose to ignore history will be relegated to repeating it. there are multiple precedents for an alternate course of action ... and historical actions taken to date that has led to this situation.

it's amazing how each generation can be so stupid as to repeat the same things ... as if there wasn't innumerable generations before them that have dealt with most of what the current generation is now dealing with.

[ivehadit9]

AGAIN, PUT UP A FREAKING WALL AND GET THE MILITARY TO PATROL IT. END OF PROBLEM.

WHEN THE BERLIN WALL WAS UP, WERE THERE A LOT OF DRUGS AND GUNS BEING SMUGGLED BETWEEN EAST AND WEST GERMANY??? NOOOOOOOOO!!!
Posted by ivehadit9 at 12:31 AM : Mar 26, 2009

I do not think the WALL by itself stopped any movement between the Countries. The fact that the wall was under constant surveillance, making tunnels and the like impossible created that situation. We do NOT have that kind of money and frankly I do not want to spend that kind of money on protecting people who produce and sell the Guns to the Drug Lords to begin with. Besides have you seen what some of these folks in these states get paid for honest work? They will make much more working for the drug lords.
Posted by skyk-2009 at 4:24 AM : Mar 26, 2009
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Granted, but how many East Germans do you think managed to cross the Berlin Wall, either underground or over the air, in the 25+ years it was up??? Not 12 million, not even 1,000, although certainly a few East Germans managed to cross it. Nothing is absolute.

That $700+ billion that we spent to bail out AIG and the Big Three, that should have gone to building the wall along the border. The money that we've spent to fund the Iraqi invasion, that money should've gone to building the wall, too.

I'm not advocating the building of the entire 2,100-mile wall across the US-Mexico border all at once. Just those portions of the border where the drug cartels have easy access to the US, first, and then gradually building the wall here and there over time.

[gunownerdan]

Don't blame me or my guns for all the crime and violence caused by the failed policy of drug prohibition!

[Sha-Tang]

With all the arguments aside regarding legalizing illicit drugs and banning so-called "assault weapons", you will still end up with one certain thing:

More Government.

Once you understand and see it for yourself, Government is all about CONTROL.

[DoubleHappiness88]

365,000 PEOPLE DIED FROM STUFFING THEIR FACES WITH OBSCENE AMOUNTS OF FOOD COMPARED WITH 17,00 WHO DIED FOR DRUG USE. That is a 21 to 1 ratio.

THE WAR ON DRUGS IS A BUREAUCRATIC SCAM AND A WASTE OF YOU TAX DOLLARS.

Year DEA Budget Drug-Induced Deaths
(in millions) Number Rate

1981 $216 7,106 3.1
1982 $239 7,310 3.1
1983 $255 7,492 3.1
1984 $292 7,892 3.2
1985 $344 8,663 3.5
1986 $372 9,976 4
1987 $486 9,796 3.8
1988 $493 10.917 4.2
1989 $543 10,710 4.1
1990 $558 9,463 3.6
1991 $692 10,388 3.8

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discussion.
The finding that drug-induced deaths are positively rather than negatively associated with the federal expenditure on drug law enforcement does not support the view that enforcement of the drug laws protects the public's health. Mortality data are not ideal measures of the public's health but they are among the most complete and reliable data by which the public health can be measured (Ferrara, 1980; Duncan, 1988) and preventing deaths is part of the rhetoric of the drug war.

It would not be fair to take this as an evaluation of the DEA's effectiveness as a government agency, since the DEA has a number of official objectives and preventing drug-induced deaths is not one of them. This study is intended only as a preliminary examination of the relationship between drug law enforcement and the public health.

References
Division of Vital Statistics (1993). Advance report of final mortality statistics, 1991. (Monthly Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 42, No. 2, Suppl.) Hyattsville, MD: Public Health Service.
Drug Policy Foundation. (1993) Choose health, not war: drug policy in transition. Washington, DC: Author.
Duncan, D. F. (1988) Epidemiology: basis for disease prevention and health promotion. New York: Macmillan.
Ferrara, C. P. (1980). Vital and health statistics: techniques of community health analysis. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Office of National Drug Control Policy. (1992). National drug control strategy: budget summary. Washington, DC: Author.