¿Plan México? ¡Pienso que no!

As the Economist of October 27, 2007 reported, on October 22nd of this year, the United States and Mexico signed an agreement that renewed both side's efforts to crack down on the drug cartels of Mexico in which the United States would send "$1.4 billion in aid over the next three years to fight drug traffickers."

Great! If you've seen the iRack Mad TV parody before, then you'll know how futile it is to throw money at the iRack. You can't just give Mexico "aircraft... scanning equipment at the border, and new communications systems, training and technical advice for Mexican police, including help on a witness-protection programme" and expect that to be a good solution. It's costly, and it doesn't target the root of the problem.

Allow me to explain: this new agreement reached after weeks of talks by negotiators from President Bush of the United States and President Calderon of Mexico is not bad. Its intentions are good. However, expensive technological trinkets will only have limited success vis-a-vis reducing drug trafficking in Mexico. The new plan, dubbed "Plan Mexico" by many newspapers, does not target the heart of the problem.

“They are overemphasizing the technology.”
-Luis Astorga of the National Autonomous University in Mexico City.

The heart of the problem is that poverty is a widespread structural problem in Mexico that creates a situation in where normally law abiding citizens of Mexico help the drug cartel through their desperation for money. This problems even infects Mexico's local policemen who oftentimes are the ones who help the drug cartels. Thus, the reason why the new plan will be ineffective is because the technology can only help insomuch as the authorities using the technology are actually using it to crack down on the drug cartels in their country. However, if such authorities are helping the drug cartel and corrupt, then that technology will not reduce the drug trafficking in Mexico.

Speaking of technology, many Mexican officials that believe if America would stop selling the drug traffickers arms and weapons, then maybe Mexico's drug cartel wouldn't be as powerful. The October 20, 2007 LA Times notes: "An estimated 95% of weapons confiscated from suspected criminals in Mexico were first sold legally in the United States, officials in both countries say."

Hm... I wonder what could be a more effective way to help Mexico fight the War on Drugs... Give that $1.4 billion to our Border Patrol and ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency to prevent the exporting of arms illegally to Mexico (since it is illegal to carry arms and ammunition to Mexico from America) and make our borders a safer place. We're complaining that drugs are entering our country? How about we get tighter borders and promote more US investment in Mexico and have Mexico create new legislation to improve their nation's economy, set up a better welfare system (maybe), and get more worker rights laws in place in addition to their already preexisting policy of using brute force to deal with the drug cartels of Mexico (Calderon sent 30,000 troops last December to six Mexican states that were known bastions of drug cartels).