From this excellent piece by Todd Miller published by NACLA:
“Washington is funding both sides of the drug war. U.S. military aid to this corrupt system has flowed rapidly under the Obama administration.”
Here’s the synopsis:
The July 5 mid-term election in Mexico will continue narcotraffickers’ creeping reach into all sectors of the country’s political life. The army and police are already drenched in narco-scandals, while reports show that political campaigns and government offices have also been infiltrated or co-opted by traffickers. But Mexico is not a failed state, such extensive corruption and illicit wealth creation actually depends on the state.
The rest here.
The Obama administration’s condemnation of the coup in Honduras has been lukewarm compared to the rest of the world.
[Read this great piece on recent coup in Honduras to get insight into whose side President Obama is on in the ‘war on drugs’. Ed.]
Also, here are calls coming from inside the country for international support:
“The recently formed Popular Resistance Front called for delegations to travel to Honduras to stand by the popular organizations of Honduras in support of the return of the democratically elected president and inform the situation.
The Front has called for mass demonstrations in the country. It also called on foreign media, members of grassroots organizations and human rights groups to increase pressure on the coup and support the call for reinstatement of the president.”
Monitor this site for updates.
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
(Op-Ed Columnist, published in the New York Times)
June 13, 2009
This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won.
“We’ve spent a trillion dollars prosecuting the war on drugs,” Norm Stamper, a former police chief of Seattle, told me. “What do we have to show for it? Drugs are more readily available, at lower prices and higher levels of potency. It’s a dismal failure.”
(Read on here)
June 1 2009
Kristina Aiello
for NACLA
These efforts to suppress political dissent are part of a growing trend of increased governmental aggression towards activists and social movements occurring across Latin America. Accompanying this repression are huge increases in military spending authorized by the Bush administration to combat drug trafficking and “terrorism” in Latin America via programs like Plan Colombia and now the Merida Initiative.
The Obama administration has a chance to walk U.S. anti-drug policy back from this long favored militarization stance. But recent actions taken by the new administration are disappointing for those seeking a dramatic change in U.S. policy in the region.
Read the rest of this clarion call, here.
The Obama administration plans a new round of ‘public safety’ programs in Latin America.
by Jeremy Bigwood
Published in In These Times, May 13, 2009.
From the article: “Obama may not understand the dangerous waters his administration is drifting into by expanding “public safety” policing programs. If the history of the OPS and similar projects are any indication of what will come, U.S. policing initiatives in Latin America and elsewhere could result in violence and political repression.”
Read all of it, here.
New Laws Strike a Symbolic Blow to Prohibition, But Net Result is Increased Law Enforcement Powers
Written by Kristin Bricker for Narconews. Published May 9, 2009
Is the Mexican government planning to incarcerate 100s of thousands of casual drug users? Or does it only want to use the threat of draconian sentences to frighten many individuals so as to control and deploy them?
Read the whole piece here.
Translated by Kristin Bricker from a piece in Milenio by Victor Hugo Michel
Two key passages of the article:
First, Dyncorp. . . :
‘The increase in the concentration of new personnel includes support from private companies that have been contracted by the State Department to bring their own specialists, known as private service contractors.
As of now, the Dyncorp company has contracted three employees to administrate its participation in the Merida Initiative, one of whom will be in Mexico City and will help the Narcotics Affairs Office in the Embassy to “maintain good contact with Mexican security agencies.”‘
Second, who are the ‘human rights organizations’ which might be bought with the Merida blood money (you’ll likely have to follow a paper trail to find out):
“The contracts PSC-09-010-INL and PSC-09-019-INL were offered to two specialists in training Mexican police and military personnel, particularly police, inspectors, judges, and prosecutors.”
This piece, by Laura Carlsen, Director of the Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) [americas.irc-online.org] remains a benchmark for analysis on how the media with their ‘defense’ industry-tied pundits are promoting an expansion of the lucrative destabilizing wars (including the ‘war on drugs’ in Latin America). It was written on March 9, 2009.
When read together with Bill Conroy’s pieces exposing how the United States Government’s Direct Military Sales of lethal hardware and training are a key component of the supply-chain for the narco-cartels, this article offers a critical understanding of Plan Mexico.
Drug War Doublespeak
“Through late February and early March, a blitzkrieg of declarations from U.S. government and military officials and pundits hit the media, claiming that Mexico was alternately at risk of being a failed state, on the verge of civil war, losing control of its territory, and posing a threat to U.S. national security.”
<more>
Available in translation: Doble discurso en guerra contra la droga
Human Rights Organizations Break from Amnesty International’s 2008 Pro-Merida Initiative Letter
Check out this excellent piece by Kristin Bricker, written especially for The Narco News Bulletin on May 7, 2009.
