My friend Frank sent me an e-mail with a link to the following analysis of the Drug War.
Mexico, which neither produces nor uses a lot of drugs, lies between Colombia, which produces vast amounts of drugs, and Americans, who want vast amounts of drugs. Washington does not want Americans to have vast amounts of drugs. Neither did it want to lose votes by imprisoning white users of drugs, such as college students, high-school students, professors, Congressmen, lawyers, and blue-collar guys driving bulldozers. The answer was to make Mexico fight Washington’s wars.
But Mexico couldn’t fight the narcos, because the United States was actually on the side of the traficantes. Does this sound counter-intuitive? What happened was that the narcos gave the Americans the huge quantites of drugs they wanted, and in return Americans gave the narcos huge amounts of money and military-grade weaponry: chiefly AKs, but also grenades and the occasional RPG. The Mexican police, lightly armed, barely paid, and utterly corrupt, could do nothing against these odds. The narcos had a further argument: Do what we say, and we will give you money. Otherwise, we will kill your family.
You figure it out.
So we have a program designed to kill Mexicans because the government fears arresting white drug users in any great quantity. Of course this is incredible information. Until you read Under Cover of Privilege: College Drug Dealing in the United States on page 17 of the pdf.
However, as our research on college drug dealers reveals, the war on drugs in the United States has not been waged with an even hand. Instead, despite the unyielding “zero-tolerance” zealotry accompanying U.S. drug policy, the illicit drug-using and drug-dealing behaviors of the most vulnerable and marginalized members of U.S. society have been more heavily scrutinized by the drug war hawks than similarly illicit behaviors of those with more social, political, and economic capital.
Vulnerable and Marginalized? I believe what this academic means is Blacks. I guess saying that Blacks (and to a lesser extent Hispanics) are the target of the Drug War is not done in academic circles. Although the previous section of the pdf is entitled Getting the Message: Hip-Hop Reports on the Drug War. Well everyone has their own style. And each section was written by a different set of authors.
So let me give you the bottom line:
It will not stand.
Cross Posted at Power and Control
Comments
5 responses to “Losing Votes”
and in return Americans gave the narcos huge amounts of money and military-grade weaponry: chiefly AKs, but also grenades and the occasional RPG.
That’s just silly.
The Americans who gave all that money were the people buying the drugs.
They got the AKs and RPGs from other places, chiefly Venezuala from Chavez.
http://www.assaultweb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=24358\
They get M-16s and 40mm grenade launchers we sell to the Mexican army because the Mexican military is like any third-world military, corrupt.
The Mexican gov’t is also very corrupt and on the side of the drug lords, for cash. To blame it all on America makes that article look stupid.
The Mexican gov’t has not changed appreciably since shortly after Santa Ana. They have ignored the border gangs in return for bribes. It’s just what Mexico does now and has always done.
Every problem in the world is not America’s fault.
Veeshir,
You are not usually so obtuse. The point is that the Drug War Is A Racist Enterprise.
Have you factored in Project GunRunner BTW?
I have looked very stupid in the past. Until others saw what I saw. So I don’t mind looking stupid. Heck, I don’t even mind being wrong from time to time. It keeps me humble – sort of.
BTW how does quoting some one else make me look stupid where the major point of agreement was the Racism of the Drug War?
You know – I’m seeing this a LOT these days. Where even people on my side fear lifting the rock.
The rock is going to get lifted 2 Oct 2011. Check your local listings for time and station.
Prohibition – the movie
Veeshir, you might want to reconsider Fred Barnes view from inside Mexico. He’s lived there for the last 8 years and may have some inside insight. Not that past accomplishments always matter, but he is a Marine with a Purple Heart from Vietnam. And a war correspondent. From a small section of his bio:
I spent the last year of the war between Phnom Penh and Saigon, leaving each with the evacuation. Those were heady days in which I lived in slums that would have horrified a New York alley cat, but they appealed to the Steinbeck in me, of which there is a lot. After the fall of Saigon I returned to Asia, resumed residence for six months in my old haunts in Taipei, and studied Chinese while waiting for the next war, which didn’t come.
I didn’t call you stupid, I called the guy who said that silly.
The Mexican gov’t is aiding and abetting the drug cartels. To say the US gave them AKs is silly.
Fast and Furious was only over the last year or two and it wasn’t RPGs, it was stuff you can get in American gun stores. Which does not include grenades or RPGs or AK-47s. You can get stuff like a WASR-10, which is an AK that’s been made into a civilian semi-auto rifle, it is not an automatic rifle.
They got the automatic AKs from elsewhere.
I stand by what I said and I’ll double down, it’s fucking stupid to claim the US gov’t, except the Obama admin in trying to gin up a reason for gun control very lately, is arming cartels.
Fucking stupid.
Veeshir,
OK. I see your point. But it brings up another interesting one. Why are gun groups and gun blogs so totally AWOL when it comes to the WODs?
I even queried one gun blogger on the subject. Well he was against the WOD – good. Then I asked him when his last WOD article was (I queried him after Fast and Furious) his reply? He was sure he had done one maybe a year or three previous.
When gunners say the 2nd protects all other rights they are not serious even when it impacts their interests.
Which is interesting.