Junkies investment in the killing of Mexican cops

Houston Chronicle:

The United States needs to do more to help Mexico battle narcotics gangs, since Mexican police are dying in a war fueled largely by U.S. drug consumption, Mexico's president said Thursday.

"The drug-trafficking problem, that has been and continues to be the principle cause of border violence, comes down to one undeniable fact: The American narcotics market is the biggest in the world," President Felipe Calderon told a meeting of U.S. and Mexican border governors in Mexico City.

Gangland violence has killed some 4,000 Mexicans since Calderon unleashed his anti-narcotics offensive in January 2007. While many of the victims are suspected members of the drug cartels, an increasing number are soldiers and federal police who are on the front lines of the drug war.

On Monday, seven federal police officers were mowed down in the violence-torn city of Culiacan by narcotics gangs armed with grenades and AK-47 assault rifles.

"While Mexican police die fighting this battle every day, the majority of the consumers are Americans," Calderon said.

The U.S. Senate last week approved $350 million in anti-narcotics aid to Mexico under the provisions of the Merida Initiative, a multi-year, $1.4 billion program advocated by President Bush for Mexico and Central America. However, the aid package is conditional upon Mexico reining in human rights abuses by its soldiers.

Calderon complained about the strings attached to the funds in Thursday's meeting, said Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

He said he explained to Calderon that the bill was a federal matter. But he proposed that he and the governors of New Mexico, Arizona and California work harder to fight drug consumption at the state level.

Perry said he also offered to lobby the federal government to crack down on arms smuggling into Mexico.

...

The problem in Washington is the Democrats. They are more interested in terrorist rights than in stopping the killers. Cutting the funding and putting strings on them at this point is absurd. It is part of the labor bosses attempt to undercut our friends in places like Mexico and Colombia where they also opposed the trade deal. What the Democrats are doing is deeply disturbing at a time when Mexico is fighting a drug insurgency that could spill over our border.