Militarization

The death toll in Mexico's prohibition wars has passed 5,000 this year, making it comparable to the death tolls in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mexico's high levels of prohibition-related violence are taking their toll on public confidence south of the border. But they are also making Mexicans more amenable to thinking about legalization, according to a new poll.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón staked his political reputation on doing battle with the drug cartels. Now, with prohibition-related violence at record levels and violent common crime also on the rise, he is looking for more money to save his legacy.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón called out the army to put the hurt on drug trafficking organizations. But with a rising prohibition-related death toll, as well as public impatience with common crime, his policies may be putting a bigger hurt on himself.

Faced with rising levels of violence as Mexican drug traffickers, police, and soldiers engage in a multi-sided struggle for supremacy, Mexico's left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party may be about to call for legalization of the drug trade -- in both the US and Mexico.

The Merida Initiative anti-drug assistance package for Mexico and Central America passed the House this week, but Mexico is balking at human rights and other conditions in the Senate version of the bill. Will the Senate sacrifice human rights on the altar of the drug war?

More than 100 people, including several top federal police commanders, have been killed in surging prohibition-related violence in Mexico in recent days as the so-called drug cartels strike back hard against police, soldiers, and each other.

As the US Congress begins to move toward passing a massive anti-drug aid package aimed mainly at the Mexican military, abuses by soldiers in the drug war there have prompted a serious legal challenge.

High US officials hit the road for Latin America this week in a series of trips to lobby for passage of Plan Mérida, the $1.4 billion anti-drug aid package for Mexico. But at a forum on drug policy in Culiacán, Sinaloa, there was little but objections to the plan, especially its emphasis on using the Mexican military in the drug war.

Mexican soldiers poured into Reynosa and other border towns in the state of Tamaulipas last month in response to a wave of drug prohibition-related violence. They haven't stopped the violence, but they have put the screws to some sectors of the local economy and committed some human rights violations. Few observers there or across the river think the answer lies in Washington's proposed massive anti-drug aid package.