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Mexico’s President Calderon Struggles
The leader who has taken on the drug lords faces a political threat from the corrupt party that ruled Mexico for decades.
Talk about coming back from the dead.
After spending nearly a decade in the wilderness, Mexico’s disgraced and near-defunct Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has risen from the political ashes. With a strong showing in that country’s recent elections, the PRI captured the majority in the 500-member Chamber of Deputies and won five of six governorships by taking 36.8 percent of the vote. The National Action Party (PAN), which produced the last two presidents and controlled the legislative branch since 2000, suffered heavy losses across the board with only 27.9 percent of the vote. Political observers on both sides of the border interpret these stunning results as a rejection of President Felipe Calderon’s bloody war against the nation’s drug cartels. Calderon — who represents the PAN — is halfway through a six-year term and must now work with a hostile legislature.
Americans should pay attention to all this since, unlike Las Vegas, what happens in Mexico never stays in Mexico. It spills into the United States. It impacts the three policy areas that form the backbone of the relationship between the countries: trade, immigration, and drugs. Besides, the United States has pledged, via the Merida Initiative, $1.4 billion to help Calderon fight the drug lords. And we must protect that investment.
The presidency in Mexico is up for grabs in 2012, and commentators south of the border insist that the fact that the PRI dominated the midterm elections puts it in a good place to retake the top job. The PRI held the presidency for 71 years through a potent mixture of corruption and intimidation.
In 2000, the PAN’s Vicente Fox broke that streak. Shortly after Calderon was inaugurated in 2006, he declared war on the cartels and sent soldiers across the country in a crime-fighting campaign that has resulted in the arrests of more than 60,000 drug suspects and the deaths of more than 10,000 people.
This is a high-stakes and dangerous game for the traffickers, but also for Calderon. Aside from personal safety issues — i.e., a member of Calderon’s inner circle was arrested last year for feeding the cartels information about the president’s whereabouts — it’s also not clear that Mexico’s army is the right tool for fighting the drug war. As reported recently in the Washington Post, there are serious allegations of torture, abductions, and other forms of abuse by the Mexican military, much of it supposedly in retaliation for the torturing and killing of soldiers by drug cartels engaged in acts of terrorism.
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Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union Tribune, a nationally syndicated columnist, a frequent lecturer, and a regular contributor to CNN.com.
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12 Comments
1. robotech master:What mexico completely corrupt and many support the drug dealers…. yeah that really must be breaking news for old navarrette…
Heres some more breaking news MEXICO CAN’T WIN AGAINST THE DRUG CARTELS PERIOD…. UNLESS.
1. The US shuts down the border and starts shooting anyone who crosses or attempts to cross illegally.
2. The US does mass deportation which should help the anti-cartel forces both in numbers and from a money stand point.
Also a little more breaking news for you… mexico is and has been a failed state for decades….
Jul 14, 2009 - 3:41 am 2. "progressive"watch:Calderon’s first piority has to be finishing the job on the drug cartel,not worrying about who is being mean to the drug people. He must pour it on them or they will win. Fighting filth can never be done without getting some of it on you. First Calderon must get the job done and throughly done. Then he can have his regrets and pray for their souls.
Jul 14, 2009 - 6:35 am 3. Morton Doodslag:Navarette paints a realistic picture of the deplorable sewer of Mexico to our south. Drug lords as heroes. Police on the take. Utterly corrupt political parties in the thrall of drugs and loot. Widespread chaos. Widespread military torture.
All of this makes one wonder why Navarrette is such a rabid advocate of the widespread importing of this disgusting culture of corruption, drug lord worship, and lawlessness into America? His relentless advocacy of illegal “immigration” ( more accurately known as criminal invasion), and his endless bashings and slanderings of the splendid and blatantly superior American civilization as predominantly “racist” reveal him to be an enemy of America and a friend to all the malignant filth which festers in the failing state of Mexico to our south.
Rubin: If America is so horrible and loathsome and hopelessly racist, then why do you remain here? Why don’t you return to the Hispanic Wonderland you describe in your piece? Wallow in that Mexican stink-hole a while, and contemplate the damage you have done to the integrity of this xcellent and vastly superior nation of America (made all the more excellent without you, to be sure). And, por favore, STOP penning your treasonous advocacy of the subversion and betrayal of America by the storming of our sovereign borders by hordes of your criminal brothers and sisters.
Jul 14, 2009 - 7:33 am 4. jackw:i agree with ruben on that second paragraph. what happens in a third world country, can only be bad for surrounding countries. why isnt this stuff happening in canada, ruben?
Jul 14, 2009 - 10:02 am 5. urbanleftbehind:#4
You forgot to add “yet” between Canada and the , – for many reasons, foremost:
-Islamization
Jul 14, 2009 - 10:34 am 6. robotech master:-Lets say both #1’s and #2’s wishes come true….hows the stuff going to get in (its already happening on the human smuggling side– Air Canada’s routes to Mexico are cash cows)?
-the Quebequois get all feisty again…
Lol funny post from another forum about this topic.
OP: This mess is mexico is getting out of hand.
2nd poster: When was it in hand?
It’s Dafur, but with tacos.
I thought I’d share
To 5. urbanleftbehind
I don’t disagree that canada would pick up some of it but if the US and the mexican ppl made a real effort then we could fix mexico and turn it into a great country… instead of a complete and utter racist hellhole of a 3rd world drug run socialist paradise. Mexico has huge amounts of natural resources and could easily become a 1st world country that could even be better then countries like canada… they aren’t because of ppl like ruben and other socialists who enjoy seeing these ppl in “paradise”. Ppl like ruben also can’t wait for countries like the US to join in the paradise that is socialism.
Jul 14, 2009 - 11:11 am 7. Gary Ogletree:Mexicans, including many of their best, their honest cops and soldiers, the ones Mexico needs to progress, are taking most of the casualties in the endless War On Drugs. I can’t see any light at the end of Mexico’s tunnel. Unless there is a Lazaro Cardenas about to emerge and Team Obama repeals federal drug laws to make smuggling unprofitable. Fat chance.
Jul 14, 2009 - 11:18 am 8. robotech master:Legalizing drug in the US will make the cartels stronger in mexico not weaker…
The cartels are drug suppliers… legalizing them and giving them business permits is going to change a whole lot of how they work in mexico.
Ppl seem to be under the idea that pot makes up most of their profits and if made legal their suddenly going to stop selling the other stuff… unless you make everything from crack to heroin and a host of other drugs legal the cartels will still be there and just be stronger.
Jul 14, 2009 - 12:00 pm 9. robotech master:suppose to be “isn’t going to change a whole lot of how they work in mexico.”
Jul 14, 2009 - 12:42 pm 10. urbanleftbehind:Well, lets give Gen. Richard Sanchez a chance to redeem himself…..he knows a lot about torture and could have those cartel guys squealing like pigs in no time. i like the sound of Viceroy Dirty Sanchez. Ruben can ride the donkey behind the general.
Jul 14, 2009 - 1:10 pm 11. Peter Montbriand:Gotta be frank. This isn’t a bad article. Many have bad mouthed Ruben(rightfully so for that crappy article about judicial double standards, and probably many before it that I didn’t read due to not checking out PJM earlier), but lay off the man on this one. It’s timely, pertinent, and not full of left wing bias. That being said, there’s a time and place for torture and if you get good intel out of it(obviously torture is not your first option), then maybe it’s necessary. Are citizens who take up arms against their country still citizens? Should they still have the protections of their constitution? I think the answers are no!!
Jul 15, 2009 - 2:32 am 12. RightwingHippyChick:robotechmaster: The mobs won’t run their newly legalised business for too long unless they behave like any other legal company.
The IRS and the ambulance chasing lawyers will see to that…
Jul 15, 2009 - 10:44 am