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This is Your War, On Drugs
Posted By Stefan Monsaureus
A New York Times editorial recalls one of America’s other perpetual wars - the so-called War on Drugs - and applauds tentative steps by the USA to collaborate with Mexican officials to stop the flow of illegal drugs.
If Washington is serious about stopping the northward flow of cocaine, heroin and other drugs, it must begin an aggressive campaign to stop the southward flow of money and high-powered weapons that finance and arm the cartels. And there must be a far more serious effort to curb Americans’ use of illicit drugs.
The last point is perhaps the most salient. Just as military intervention in Iraq is unlikely to break the growing tide of anti-American public sentiment in the Middle East, military interdiction efforts are not going to solve what is, at best, a public health problem, and at worst an artificial problem fueled by political expediency.
Let’s draw another parallel: our failure to curb our thirst for petroleum-based energy has not only made the quest for oil a driving national security interest, it has put untold billions of dollars (now euros) into the hands of despotic leaders and Islamist states. As noted in the Times editorial, America’s demand for illegal drug imports similarly funds cartels with enormous power.
According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, between $8 billion and $23 billion in proceeds from the drug trade flowed illegally across the border into Mexico in 2005. The cartels have used that enormous financial clout to corrupt Mexican law enforcement on an unparalleled scale. The traffickers’ firepower — likened to what American soldiers face in Afghanistan and Iraq — also eclipses the puny arsenal of Mexico’s police forces. Mexican officials estimate that 90 percent of the guns they confiscate are smuggled in from the United States.
When politicians can have a serious national dialog about our efforts to eradicate drug abuse, without fear of appearing soft on crime, we may one day see the development of a rational drug policy. When politicians can have a serious national dialog on our efforts to curb Islamic radicalism without seeming soft on national defense, we may one days see a rational foreign policy.
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19 November 2007
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