Recognition comes to drug insurgency in Mexico

Ralph Peters:

IMAGINE if our country were so ravaged by drug cartels that the president sent the military into a third of the states to break the terror.

That's where Mexico is today. We all pay the price.

Narcotraficante infighting took over 3,000 lives in Mexico last year as the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels struggled for turf. With government officials and police officers facing the old choice of "silver - or lead," out-of-control corruption plagued the country.

Entire states fell under the influence of the drug lords. Narco-violence spread to previously safe regions, such as Monterrey - the most prosperous city between the Amazon and the Rio Grande. By late 2006, Mexico faced its gravest internal crisis since the Revolution of 1910.

In response, Mexicans elected a tough president, Felipe Calderon. And President Calderon took action, ordering the army into nine states and deploying troops to cities such as Tijuana and the run-down resort of Acapulco.

But the drug lords are fighting back. Today, the level of violence transcends mere crime. Mexico faces a narco-insurrection. And its government needs help.

The Bush administration is working with Calderon's team to craft a counter-drug aid package that would provide surveillance equipment, transport aircraft and training. The program could be announced when the leaders of the U.S., Mexico and Canada meet in Quebec on Aug. 20. The finalized program will probably cost several hundred million dollars.

Money well spent.

It's not only the Mexicans who are lucky to have Calderon in office. We're lucky, too. Calderon broke a foreign-policy taboo to extradite over a dozen high-level drug criminals wanted in the United States. Previously, kingpins could count on staying in Mexico if arrested. Now they're scared.

But this is going to be a long struggle. Ninety percent of the cocaine and much of the heroin and methamphetamine entering the United States now transits Mexico. For us, the immediate problems are addiction and crime. Drug abuse was behind many, if not most, of the 1.8 million violent crimes committed here in 2005. And urban property crime is drug crime.

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The drug trade and its consequences have killed far more of our fellow citizens than al Qaeda or the struggle in Iraq. Of course, it's not a choice of "which war to fight." We have to fight both enemies, terrorists and drug lords. And the two often overlap.

Calderon needs and wants our help....

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I have been talking about this drug insurgency for around three years and it is good to see that others are finally taking note. There is a growing sense that there is collusion also between teh narco terrorist and the Islamic terrorist and they may be working together in cell in this country too. We have a shared interest in helping Mexico win this war.