The so-called drug war in Mexico

This story would be a political parody if the lives of nearly 60,000 Mexican citizens were not the death toll of the so-called drug war. And that makes this story a horrific & tragic tale. Here a Mexican soldier is carting off marijuana plants during a military operation in Tequila, Jalisco, MX, where troops found 100 acres (40 hectares) planted. Since former president, Felipe Calderon ordered 45,000 troops into the drug war (bankrolled by the US) in 2006, the acreage dedicated to marijuana farming has almost doubled in Mexico; acreage devoted to opium poppies has also gone through the ceiling, making Mexico the second-leading heroin producer in the world, after Afghanistan.

Mexican troops burned out 77,500 acres of marijuana in 2005, the year before Calderon took office. But last year they cleared just 43,000 acres, according to the Mexican army. The official explanation for this is that troops are deployed to cities to wage urban warfare against narco-criminal gangs & Mexican soldiers are up to their eyeballs fighting cartel gunmen in places like Monterrey & Acapulco. They can’t rip out marijuana plants in the countryside & fight the urban cartels too!  Mexican heroin production has grown from 8 metric tons in 2005 to 50 metric tons in 2009. Do they honestly expect us to believe they can’t spare some of the 45,000 troops to locate thousands of acres devoted to marijuana & poppy production because they’re so busy in the cities!?

There is no US-Mexican war against drugs in Mexico; there is only a drug operation run by criminals in the highest levels of the US & Mexican governments & business. The violence is directed at immigrants from Central America & Mexico, & not at drug peddlers. The evidence of that is the death toll, which is primarily the gruesome murder of hundreds of undocumented immigrants & no more than a dozen arrests of drug traffickers.  (Photo by Alejandro Acost/Reuters)