Posted on 06/29/2008 6:49:55 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
As if our military didn't have its hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan, the head of the Minuteman Project border security group seems to think Minutemen might make good narcotics cops.
Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist suggested in recent radio interviews that the U.S. give Mexico 12 months to corral its criminal drug cartels and rising violence, particularly in border towns such as Juarez and Tijuana—or deploy the U.S. Army to do the job.
That's the Minutemen. Their remedies for the drug war next door sound simplistic, but at least they're paying attention.
While most of us north of the border have been absorbed with our presidential sweepstakes and other happenings, our southern neighbor has exploded into the full-scale drug violence previously associated with Colombia or Peru.
For now, we're not sending troops, just money. The Senate last Thursday approved a $1.6 billion, three-year package of anti-drug assistance to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Known as the "Merida Initiative," it includes $400 million for military equipment and technical assistance for Mexico's anti-drug fight. The bill was passed earlier by the House and President Bush is expected to sign it.
Mexico's government cheered the bill because it waters down proposed restrictions that would have required Mexico to change the way it handles allegations of human rights abuses by its military. Mexican leaders threatened to reject the money if there were too many restrictions on their sovereignty.
But the omission brought jeers from Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, such as the Friends of Brad Will, founded in the name of a freelance New York journalist who was shot and killed while shooting video of a teachers strike in Oaxaca two years ago. A native of Chicago's North Shore, Will was 36.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Words fail...
yeah, right!
do you know how much mexican nationals in mexico resent the american military?
All we have to do is legalize Marijuana, Cocaine, and Heroin and the war in Mexico would end tomorrow.
Whats happening in Mexico is second only to needlessly dead cops in the bad effects of the drug war.
Once we begin sending advisers, then it's obvious that we've really screwed the pooch.
Sorry but, the Drug wars have been IN this country a very long time. Not just the Hispanics but, the Russians, Chinese, Italians, etc...
I agree. Build the fence and put a 300 yard no man’s land on this side of the border, the entire length and pass a law anyone caught in that area will be shot on sight without prior notification. Simple. The word will get out soon. Best place now to train our National Guard & Reserve troops on how to shoot moving targets.
Living in San Diego and 15 miles north from the S.D. - Tijuana border, your simplistic idea in the real world
is a joke.
With your logic, you would legalize hit & runs and robbery
so not to have any needless deaths.
No offense to the minutemen or the army or whoever, but they’ll fail as epically as anyone else who wants to become a drug warrior. The problem isn’t with their desire or intelligence or anything, but with the fact they (like the rest of the drug warriors) are trying to stop the law of supply and demand, which is impossible.
Holy awful analogies Batman!
Illicit drugs are no different from alcohol. Actually, alcohol is a drug. There are certainly negative effects from having a drug legal (increase usage and the negative circumstances of increased usage...in the case of booze increased violence and traffic accidents among other things), but there are also positive effects (no more criminals creating a black market, no jail spaces being filled with people just in jail for alcohol possession an d all the other jail spaces filled with everyone in an illegal alcohol trade, no idiots coming across the border with alcohol for sale).
The key is whether the positive effects outweigh the negative effects. Obviously for alcohol the public believed there were some positive effects for making it legal as they tried making it illegal and didn’t care for the negative side effects of prohibition.
I cannot see any positive effects from legalizing robbery.
There is a big demand for evil in the world.
Smarter than the US government's plan to fund a $1.5 billion CF to solve the problem.
I suppose its a simple answer but it worked for alcohol. No more gang warfare over alcohol sales.
Of course. That’s why you see billions in alcohol sales in this country every year.
It is much larger than that.
Many folks on FR live in small towns and their lives are
black or white, this or that.
There is a big world out there and you can’t put simple minded answers to much larger situations you know nothing about.
The Drug cartels are more than dealing with drugs, kidnappings is a major problem, beheadings, all forms of corruption.
I got this in my email. Not much activity on the board, but it’s free and has a good layout.
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