Pubdate: Mon, 13 Sep 2010 Source: Wall Street Journal (US) Section: Review and Outlook Copyright: 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Contact: http://www.wsj.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487 CONDESCENDING TO MEXICO The U.S. Cuts Funding For Its Neighbor To Fight The Drug Cartels. As Americans read about the massacres, beheadings, kidnappings and assassinations that have become commonplace in Mexico, they might reasonably conclude that its government could use all the help it can get in its war against the powerful drug cartels perpetrating these atrocities. The Obama Administration takes a different view. The State Department recently announced that it would withhold $26 million in funding for the $1.6 billion "Merida Initiative" until the Mexican government could make "additional progress" on its human rights record. The Administration wants the Mexican government to prosecute soldiers accused of human rights violations in civilian courts rather than military tribunals, and to expand the authority of its National Human Rights Commission. Not surprisingly, the Mexican government was not pleased. It's hard to fault the Mexicans for taking umbrage at this Obama nickel-and-dime. The country is paying a frightful price for fighting the criminal gangs that feed off America's drug habit. And while the Administration did allow the release of $36 million in previously scheduled funds, the U.S. had expended only $141 million of the allocated funds as of March 31, when the Government Accountability Office last examined the Initiative. By way of comparison, in 2009 the U.S. gave more money to Zambia and Mozambique. Does the U.S. have an interest in these countries comparable to our interest in a secure Mexico? No wonder there's a creeping sense among Mexicans that the war against the cartels isn't being won. According to the GAO report, Merida Initiative funding has so far helped Mexico to purchase 26 armored vehicles, five helicopters, 100 polygraph kits, 13 armored Suburbans and various other pieces of equipment. It has also paid for several thousand Mexican officials to get various kinds of specialized training. That's all to the good, but given that the drug cartels earn somewhere north of $10 billion annually in illicit income, the Initiative isn't exactly paying competitive wages. If the U.S. wants to be serious about helping Mexico, it ought to look to its own experience in Colombia. As former DEA Administrator Robert Bonner notes in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Colombia's drug wars dwarfed Mexico's, with a murder rate that at one point was eight times what Mexico's is today. Colombia also had, in addition to its Medellin and Cali cartels, the narcoterrorist FARC to contend with, something that so far has no equivalent in Mexico. What Colombia did have, however, was a well-funded and generally well-executed U.S. assistance strategy known as Plan Colombia. Contrary to myth, the intention of the plan was never to stop drug trafficking per se, but, as Mr. Bonner points out, to destroy the cartels and the threat they presented to Colombia's democracy. By that measure, Plan Colombia was an extraordinary success. The plan also did not abet human rights abuses, despite what many of its critics alleged. On the contrary, by helping defeat the cartels and the FARC and making Colombia governable, this U.S. aid abetted the greatest boon to human rights in the country's history. That's something the Obama Administration ought to think about in its own approach to Mexico, which deserves better than a petty exercise in moral fault finding. Mexico is not a perfect country-and as President Obama is so fond of pointing out, neither is the United States. But like the U.S., Mexico is a democracy with a robust civil society that is fighting to preserve its own rule of law against modern-day barbarians. As the U.S. has a vital interest in the outcome of that war, the Administration might want to reconsider the appropriate balance between offering meaningful support and doling out cheap condescension. And if the Administration declines, then border-state Senators and Governors need to speak up. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D