In Mexico, A Pathetic Admission That All Is Lost In War Against Drugs...

By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer

BROWNSVILLE, TX - In the three and a half years since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched the army against the drug cartels in an unprecedented offensive, what Mexico has seen is a bloody war that has failed and has left more than 22,000 citizens dead, some 6,000 along the U.S. Border.

Now, as he prepares to meet with President Obama in Washington, D.C. next month, the betting here is that he will acknowledge defeat and ask for U.S. Military intervention. Perhaps he will seek asylum, goes the joke in the Mexican capital, where he is now written about as a drunkard and a willing accomplice to at least one drug cartel.

The U.S., meanwhile, has been poring through a depressing report presented to Congress by a fact-finding team working for the foreign intelligence committee. In it, investigators will say Mexico has been woeful in its approach to curtailing the flow of drugs and in controlling the warring drug cartels. The report will highlight the Mexican bordertown of Cd. Juarez, where even locals now call it Murder City, the world's number one city in that unflattering regard.

"What has happened during the length of these three and a half years in the combat zones, beyond the executions, the gunfights, the grenade-launchings, the taking of hostages, the deaths of citizens, the many, many government declarations that, more and more, mean less and less?" the respected Mexico City PROCESO magazine posed recently.

Felipe Calderon's war has not gone well. Critics within the country say it has no end under the current approach. In a mind-numbing style, Calderon has taken to ordering the much-criticized Mexican Army into and out of cities in towns where the battles rage, retreat, and then return. The result is an aftermath of wanton killings, unexplained tactics and an emboldend opposition.

In Reynosa less than 60 miles west of here and other towns, the cartels have been brave enough to hang banners from bridges and overpasses declaring their intent, day and time of their battles, and, in fact, even asking the public to stay home during these military incursions. The banners are signed so that there is no mistaking its author.

Protesters, in turn, carry and hang their own signs and posters. "To live better, resign Calderon," read one in Juarez. Another read, "No war in my name." Another: "Mr. Calderon, you want to end the delincuency...first end the corruption in your Cabinet." The worst: "Mr. Narco-President, if you want to end the insecurity, stop protecting the narcotraffickers like El Chapo Guzman, Ismael 'El Maya' Sambada, the Michoacan Family, and the partisan government officials, who like yourself, are Narcos like the ones before you."

In its wake, the mess in Mexico leaves a young population so traumatized as to lead the country's own psychologists to say Mexico has now ruined its present and its future. An incident at Monterrey Tech that saw two students gunned down on campus is now as famous in Mexico as the shootings at Kent State in this country during the Vietnam War protests. The only difference is that there was no protest at Monterrey Tech.

And so it goes in bloodied Mexico...

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