Mexico: Red, White, And Bloody
Fred Reed writes on Lew Rockwell about what's happened to Mexico:
When I came to Mexico some eight years ago, it was a peaceful, moderately successful upper-Third-World country - middle-class, barely, literate, though often barely, and as democratic as the United States, which is to say barely. Things were improving, though often they had a long way to go. The young were visibly healthier than preceding generations. The birth rate was in sharp decline. Women entered the professions in substantial and growing numbers.And it was safe. Expats sat over coffee at the plaza laughing at people back in the States, insular, fearful, ignorant of the world outside their borders. (For recent college graduates, Mexico is a country south of the United States. "South" is down on maps.) Mexico, they believed, was most astonishing perilous. Don't drink the water, avoid ice. Salads were thought especially lethal. The Federales would kill you for sport, like squirrels. On any given day, you would probably be shot several times by bandidos. It was nonsense.
Then Vicente Fox left office, and Felipe Calderon came in. He declared war on the narcotraficantes. Why he did this, I don't know, since Mexico didn't have a drug problem. My guess is that Washington pushed him into it, but I don't know.
Unfortunately Mexico, which neither produces nor uses a lot of drugs, lies between Colombia, which produces vast amounts of drugs, and Americans, who want vast amounts of drugs. Washington does not want Americans to have vast amounts of drugs. Neither did it want to lose votes by imprisoning white users of drugs, such as college students, high-school students, professors, Congressmen, lawyers, and blue-collar guys driving bulldozers. The answer was to make Mexico fight Washington's wars.
But Mexico couldn't fight the narcos, because the United States was actually on the side of the traficantes. Does this sound counterintuitive? What happened was that the narcos gave the Americans the huge quantities of drugs they wanted, and in return Americans gave the narcos huge amounts of money and military-grade weaponry: chiefly AKs, but also grenades and the occasional RPG. The Mexican police, lightly armed, barely paid, and utterly corrupt, could do nothing against these odds. The narcos had a further argument: Do what we say, and we will give you money. Otherwise, we will kill your family.
You figure it out.
I lived for a time in Mexico and still maintain strong ties there. I traveled extensively in that country, often by myself and I don't look at all Mexican. I never felt threatened or in danger. It never occurred to me to feel that way. I would never do this now.
It's a terrible thing that we are doing to a country and people who mean us no harm.
DrMaturin at November 3, 2011 6:16 AM
He's entirely neglecting the little matter of the Cartels and the fact that they control significant portions of the country. These didn't arise w/ Calderon. So his statement..
Why he did this, I don't know, since Mexico didn't have a drug problem.
is tendentious and dishonest. He's twisting the facts to suit his narrative.
Also there's no reason to believe that legalization is going to remove the Cartels or any other foreign criminal enterprise currently involved in the drug trade.
And can we please stop condescending to the Mexicans by pretending that their every problem is because of awful white people. It's racist and counterproductive.
jim s. at November 3, 2011 6:49 AM
@jim s:
Cartels are not a natural part of Mexican society. They arose in response to the high demand for drugs in the US coupled with the high prices caused by our insane drug laws. Mexico is a naturally safe, low-crime and especially low-murder society. It isn't racist to say that our policies are inflicting awful damage on a people who mean us no harm. It's just a recognition of the facts.
DrMaturin at November 3, 2011 6:53 AM
AK's are not an American weapon. We did not give it to them as most are the select fire ones which are either illegal or 20k a piece.
"Also there's no reason to believe that legalization is going to remove the Cartels or any other foreign criminal enterprise currently involved in the drug trade." You mean like it did with the repeal of prohibition. It will vastly curtail their life blood like it did last time. They learned from our mistakes we did not.
vlad at November 3, 2011 7:16 AM
We used to go to Nuevo Laredo all the time with our youth group to take clothes and other donations to the kids in the orphanages. It WAS pretty safe. We drove all the way to Monterrey once (from San Antonio), and I remember thinking that it was beautiful, with all of the old churches, etc. Now it's one of the more violent cities; people are fleeing.
The last time I went around 1999, when I was still 18 or 19, to party... and yes, still safe-ish, even for a drunk little strawberry-blonde white girl who could barely even speak kitchen spanish. We went to my husband's grandmother's funeral in Laredo in 2007- we wouldn't have even considered crossing the border by that point. Do note, though, that even before the cartel wars started, the wealthy had glass shards embedded along the tops of the walls that encircled their homes.
But to
ahw at November 3, 2011 8:03 AM
Fred's been living in Mexico and badmouthing America while collecting a pension from the American taxpayer for years. I laugh out loud every time I see him whine about how we've ruined his paradise. That's what you get for moving right next door, Fred. If you believed your own propaganda, you would have run farther.
But you didn't, did you?
Jason at November 3, 2011 8:06 AM
This guy is either wearing some great blinders or is knowing completely full of shit.
First off, I personally got sick by eating ice in a pretty well known restaurant just outside Rosarito once. Won't make that mistake again. Granted, the same thing can happen when traveling anywhere if your system isn't used to it. But to pretend it's all completely untrue, is disingenuous at best. Also, I've gotten sick drinking the lake water at Lake Sunapee in NH. Used to be everyone used the water for drinking but the huge surge in the duck population in the last 15 or so years has essentially changed it into use only for cooking, cleaning and bathing. No one drinks it anymore. So the water thing isn't just a ding against Mexico, but it is true.
My family used to travel a ton from San Diego down to just outside Ensenada (we spent most of our time outside the city) and while it wasn't massively dangerous, to pretend that it was all rosy is total crap. This was from the late '80s throughout the late '90s.
Two of my best friends are brothers that were born in Mexico who's family came here (legally) when the 4 kids ranged from about 4 to 8 in age. Today they're all citizens. They still pretty regularly visit relatives in TJ. Even in the past they talked about how corrupt the police were and how you just knew to avoid certain areas.
I wonder if part of the guy's issue is that perhaps he's in one of the interior cities. What I've learned from these friends and my own experiences with them, there is a huge difference between the border areas (down to about 100 miles from the northern border) and the internal country. First off, the internal areas tend to be far richer and tend to have a lot more european background, while the border areas are poorer and more of the native backgrounds. Yes, there does appear to be quite a bit of racism in action in Mexico too. The one brother went to medical school down in Guadalajara and he said it was a lot different than TJ and the rest of the border areas he's been to. Even they don't go into Mexico nearly as much as they used to anymore.
I really saw something interesting when we went to their sister's wedding, which was held in TJ. The groom's family mostly came from down south, many near Mexico City. They were actually just as flabbergasted at how corrupt the cops were as most visiting Americans are. A whole bunch of them had made the mistake of parking in the hotel's taxi zone and the cops were there to shake them down. My friend's and their relatives (who knew the unwritten rules) had to step in and school the others on how to handle the situation... and how to do it as cheaply as possible.
Sure it wasn't nearly like it is now, but to pretend that things were all rosy is crap. I'm thinking what's really happened is the massive corruption, and especially the drug related stuff has simply spread southward from the northern border now... so those that were essentially insulated from it before are living with it now.
Miguelitosd at November 3, 2011 10:25 AM
Fred does live further south if I remember right.
I've been reading Fred Reed for 5+ years and he's a smart guy except on this issue. In my opinion he's very much gone native (married a local) and it clouds his judgment. He's right in a lot of his criticism of the USA and Mexico has lots of great things going for it but ultimately it is still a feudalistic society, especially politically.
Sio at November 3, 2011 11:06 AM
Fred has joined the "she was asking for it" crowd. He's off-target blaming the public, but it's his blog. Or did you get to vote for a war on drugs? I didn't and I've been around a long time.
Since there is no Constitutional Amendment authorizing the war on drugs, we can't repeal it. The government likes it, because it's a license to steal. They love asset forfeiture - you don't even have to be guilty, just accused.
Meanwhile we have Predator drones for Homeland Security that they never asked for, and a town not far from here has just accepted an armored car for their police department. Maybe they should have held out for a tank. Or a tactical nuke. After all, the Occupy Wall Street mob might show up. Or even the Tea Party.
MarkD at November 3, 2011 11:51 AM
MarkD, the really ironic thing about the Predators is that they can't legally fly in U.S. airspace. Currently the FAA prohibits all flights of UAVs within the 50 states, except within restricted areas and the very small models below 1,000 feet. I'm currently involved in some related work, so I know what I'm talking about here.
(Not to mention the fact that the Predator itself isn't much use without a sensor package. They'd have to get that through the DoD, and that ain't gonna happen.)
Cousin Dave at November 3, 2011 6:18 PM
I used to read his stuff, hadn't in quite a while because I got tired of the "The US is causing problems down here!" stuff. There were big problems with the cartels before Calderon came into office; less publicized I don't doubt, but still there.
...and in return Americans gave the narcos huge amounts of money and military-grade weaponry: chiefly AKs, but also grenades and the occasional RPG.
The only way they get military-grade weapons from the US is if the government is sending it down there(considering Gunwalker, a possibility); actual AK47 rifles, let alone grenades or friggin' RPGs are rare, expensive and licensed(I don't know if a private citizen can even get a RPG, period). That '90% of the guns are from the US' crap is a lie that even BATFE gave up on. Even the 2/3's or 70% various politicians like to throw out is crap.
Firehand at November 3, 2011 7:04 PM
I know from work that in the mid 90s Mexico city was quite violent and the cops were quite corrupt - though generally a few bucks would convince them to move on to the next guy.
The Former Banker at November 3, 2011 10:38 PM
Firehand, FYI: There are no RPG's made in the U.S., and the U.S. military does not use them. There was a rule of thumb used by coalition soldiers in Iraq that if you saw a guy with an RPG, you were to shoot him immediately, since possession of one identified that person as an enemy.
Cousin Dave at November 4, 2011 4:48 PM
Yeah, they're all from former Warsaw Pact countries, I think. And China and the Norks.
Firehand at November 28, 2011 11:32 AM
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