Pubdate: Mon, 05 Mar 2012
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2012 Miami Herald Media Co.
Contact:  http://www.miamiherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Robert Dollar

FIGHTING DRUG SCOURGE

Can there be any better example of the irrelevance of North American
policy in our own hemisphere than Paul Stockton's March 2 Other
Views article, The U. S. defense role in Latin America, Caribbean?

While he blathers on about significant and positive implications,
multilateral institutions and collaborative frameworks and the rise of
security exporting partners, we watch the few remaining judicial and
prosecutorial institutions capable of transcending volatile political
personalities corrode. Democratic institutions in Mexico, Guatemala,
Colombia and Honduras are under siege from our children's thirst for
illicit drugs.

The last thing the Department of Defense needs to do is provide more
bureaucratic expertise in the form of pointless verbosity as exists in
this article. We must act now to support legal and enforcement cadres
in those countries seething with drug gangs, illicit cash and
made-in-America assault weapons.

Robert Dollar

Miami
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MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.