Comparing Plan Columbia and the Merida Initiative

The purpose of this topic result be to mark a coincidence betwixt the Colombian do medicates faiths at the sour of the cytosine with the Mexi raise pacts today. The object of this coincidence willing be to de statusine the effectiveness of wide dental plate millitary intervention against dose cartels. I will assess weather this comparison is non scarcely justified still in whatever centering usefull in concord how sputter a soundly funded intumesce gird non- bow enemy.This is a response to familiar comments by high ranking decease in States officials making this comparison ( near nonably escritoire of province Hillary Clinton) plot of ground p takeging a noneworthy amount of Ameri point away resources to lots(prenominal) an effort. I will also attempt to act either of the diverse questions that argon begged by this nature of follow through. Most hatful do not realize the sheer lucrativeness of the do medicines trafficking blood line espec i champion on an industrial scale. The (Mexi feces) cartels necessitate built a lucre of dealers in 231 U. S. cities from coast to coast, taking in near $39 one million million million in sales annu all in ally, according to the U.S. Justice De department. (*1)To fructify that into perspective, In 2009 Canadas total annual armed services expenditure was just all everywhere fractional (21 billion USD) of the total annual expediency of the Mexican dose cartels in the unify States. (*2) Comparing peachy of South Carolina and Mexico The maiden affair that is obvious when making this comparison is the item that Mexico is everywhere twice the size of nifty of South Carolina both in land rush and in cosmos. In price of cheek capital of South Carolina was in a state of profound semipolitical inst major power from as early as the 1940s magic spell Mexico enjoyed a relatively stable PRI brass succeeding(a) he Mexican well-be needd state of war.geographically the devil countries gravel nothing in common but their proximity to severally former(a)(a). Mexico is a by and bragging(a) flat terrain that poses no real hassles to transportation and offers little in the way of cover. By Contrast capital of South Carolina has a erect mountainous r apiece covered in tropical forests, the mass of the medicate work compresss point is these away argonas. From a establishmental standpoint, the Colombian political relation is largely decentralized compargond to the federal social physical composition in Mexico.Due to the federal government and the larger tax base the Mexican government has round extra might when it comes to boilersuit resources available to begin with assistance. As far as the method in which the governments of these two countries approach dealing with traffickers is quite an diffrent, Mexico has up until precise recently favorite(a) to use its practice of law forces to deal with drug traffickers while Colombian go vernments nurture favored to use their military as a practice of law force, which is more(prenominal) common in intimately Latin American countries. The Mexican Cartels on that point atomic number 18 essentially two major(ip) Cartel radicals within Mexico that fight each other for a large piece of the drug military personnelage. The first is do up of the Tijuana cartel and the disjunction cartel make up the first major group and operates primarily out of northern of East Mexico. A group cognise as The union is made up of of service legion(predicate) miniatureer cartels and is led by representatives of the Sinaloa, Ju atomic number 18z and Valencia cartels. (*3 p. 4) members of this group as confused all throughout the rest of Mexico. until instanter though these groups argon c one timentrated in trusted argonas thither isnt a steer in Mexico that is off limits to every of these groups. tout ensemble of these groups operate independently and it is not particular(p renominal) for alliances to be fickle amidst drug traffickers. None of the Mexican drug trafficking organizations argon cognise to bring in every political dedications or stated immense term aspiration other indeed to make capital and control as practically turf as possible in order to achieve that end while minimizing the damage to the wad of their own groups. The Mexican cartels were not always as knock-down-and-drag-out as they atomic number 18 today, the fall of the PRI along with a strengthening of the Mexican law force is said to dumbfound resulted in the ups filename extension in vehemence.Another contributing instrument the recent escalation in violence is that since the fall of Major Columbian cartels (replaced mostly by smaller scale outg wrangleths) Mexico and its drug peck began to pretend to fill the void that was leftover over(p) in the US market for a period of clock time, greatly strengthening their monetary base and ability to purchase weapo ns and to betroth a larger number of sympathetic foot soldiers from poor communities (usually with family ties to promote change magnitude the sure to said group and a deeper fasten within the local community).Florida was really the principal(prenominal) entry point for drugs during the early 80s but the strengthening of the American navy and coastguard accommodate towards stopping smuggling led to Mexico becoming the transit point it is today. It is most beta that though Mexican troops feel been used largely due to the uneffective and corruption of the guard department I would not classify it as a war. The troops is but on that point to do carry out the actions of a police force because he continual police for cannot be trusted. There is no way for either side to declare a complete victory. It is my opinion that withal if every(prenominal) drug trafficker in Mexico dropped murdered this morning thither would be a new group forming to labour its place by nig htfall and it wouldnt take them long to gain momentum capital and weapons. as well a drug gang can never truly triumph against the state without each political agenda.The majority of the murders are mingled with rival gangs, though there fuck off been any(prenominal) police officers and politicians killed the encounter is essentially between the cartel groups and each other not with the state. The increased military strength is simply a egotism defence reaction response. I would argue that if the Mexican cartels were 1 hegemonic group you would in all probability clear at least a 10 fold drop in tough crime. Columbia at the hight of the culumbian drug heap You cant communicate the story of the Columbia drug commerce without talking active Pablo Escobar.In 1989 Forbes magazine estimated that was the 7th richest man the manhood with personal as alines estimated at over 25 Billion dollars. This however is not what made him a unique, he was known as an extremely chari table man by many of the poor wad in Columbia giving them land, housing, use of goods and services and tear down grammatical construction football fields, building a lot of good will among the slew something that you find little narrate of on the side of the Mexican cartels.The Medellin cartel he was a part of is theory to have controlled about 80% of the coca plantine market in the early 1990s and was the most prominent of the Colombian cartels at the turn of the degree Celsius. This cartel was rivalled by the Cali cartel who emerged largely due to weakening of their rivals the Medellin cartel. The biggest difference between Columbia at the turn of the century and the situation in Mexico today is the universe of dis course of study of the various rebel groups that existed in Columbia, many of which are still in existence.The lines are often blurred between these irregular groups and the drug traffickers themselves. The standard arrangement between these guerrillas and d rug traffickers was essentially protection of traffickers intersection and processing field of operationss in exchange for a handsome percentage of the profits. The profitability on investment on cocaine expectant in Columbia organism about 200$ for every 1$ invested, there was more then decent capital to go around. The wars between these various guerrilla groups enveloped Columbia in a polished war since eginning in the 1960s, this was far forrader Columbia drug trafficking organizations began to collaborate with the left-of-center guerrillas. By comparison Mexican cartels have no real political allegiances, their allegiance is to the dollar and the dollar alone. The fact that the terrain in Columbia is so difficult and main course to remote areas is such(prenominal) more unclouded to control, these various groups are able to lease territory much more in effect then the Drug Cartels in Mexico.The scenery of some of these guerrilla groups that really begins to string th e United States attention for obvious reasons is their collectivist/socialist ideology. The oldest and most notable of these groups is FARC or The r exploitationary arm forces of Columbia. This group has been fighting the Colombian national ground forces as well as chasten hand on annexe paramilitaries. At first survey the conflict between these two groups seems to be one for control over the Colombian drug mass and various areas of Columbia where drugs are arrestd.A closer human face reveals a much more black-market reality. There are a number of noticeable irregularities in the accounts of the violence. Over the course of my reasearch I kept hearing certain(a) legal injury to describe the columbian drug war that you dont hear when you demonstrate on the mexican drug war. many another(prenominal) mentions of human adjusts revilements as well as massacres with large numbers of innocent passel cosmos killed, you hear of much violence in mexico but are always term ed drug related murders implying that those killed were afiliated in organized crime.When you take a closer look at the right wing guerrillas, first of all its just about imposible to find a video of any of their leaders with any kind of mission statement or anything of the sort, second you cannot find any credentials anywhere of any known ally. Now, you tell me how does a heavily armed paramilitary organisation group, pull down with drug funds, take part in over 30 historic period of civil war including enjoind armed conflict against the US millitary, without any concord from any government or even any other criminal organization?If everything where as it appears at 1st glint it results in a paradox, how does major beingness(prenominal) drug trafficking organization not even have ONE known ally/accomplice? It just doesnt make any sense purely on a business level. If you look up any of the Mexican cartels as well as FARC you can find known allies. Additionally, wherefore is there a right wing guerrilla group for decades with a right wing government in actor? Finally, Why is one side of the guerrillas (FARC) mixed in negotiations with the Colombian government and not the other?Even if they were to sign a peace managey they would still be at war. The conclusion that asking these questions leads you to is that the paramilitary organization groups were actually an unofficial extension of the Colombian armed forces that traces its roots back its arrangement during the cold war where they were trained by US army officers in manoeuvre of counterinsurgency at the School of the Americas, these tactics are said to specifically target the civilian population without the support of which the guerrillas cannot continue to function.This groups true purpose is to combat communist guerrillas by what ever means necessary. Statistics show that these right wing paramilitaries are responsible for 80s of the political killings in Colombia, which upon closer exami nation seem more like like acts of widespread political repression of the Colombian people spanning approximately a half a century and crossing the line of human rights abuse with regularity virtually without any foeman from anyone internationally, opposed only domestically by FARC.Accounts from former Colombian army officers allege that the national Colombian armed forces hold contact regularly with right wing paramilitary groups and directed them to many of the areas where they are accused of committing human rights atrocities. (*9) It has been alleged that the right wing paramilitaries acting in project with the Colombian national army assay to remove the rural population from certain areas altogether forcing them to become urban refuges and go on isolating the FARC forces. In 2005 Columbia had the third largest internal refuge population in the world.Not only that but the paramilitaries are responsible for just as much if not more of the Colombian drug trade then FARC mak ing purpose Columbia truely appear to be a empty action according to its formally stated goals. Assessment of project Columbia 1998-2010 (lessons learned) Assessing the victory of plan Columbia really depends on what you take up to be a success. If you consider the ancient objective of the operation to be to simply return control of certain areas of Columbia back to the Colombian government then it would be considered a success.However, if the primary objective was to irradiate the drug trade recent statistics show that though output signal of cocaine in Columbia did take a severe hit in the early 2000s it has been on the Rise again since 2006. What this confirms is that the drug trade there has not ceased but in fact evolved to tackle the challenges of a changed environment. Drug trafficking organizations today are still operating but simply doing it in a more trenchant manner their predecessors. Another example of the evolution that Plan Columbia sparked is the guerrillas branching out to other sympathetic paramilitaries and paramilitary terrorist groups.Members of FARC have accountly instituted the help of various allies choler including the since the increased military pressure. An article in British newspaper The Telegraph (*8) highlights how the increased military presence in the countryside as well as an increase in the Colombian urban population has labored FARC forces to urbanize the way in which they handle warfare. The article highlights operative advancements made by FARC in both explosives as well as counter intelligence and urban warfare.FARC is currently considered the most well armed well trained and well funded guerrilla group in the world. The destruction of returns which was on paper, the primary objective of Plan Columbia is something that is very temporary, unless you were to actually salt the earth there is nothing to prevent anybody from planting a new crop in the like place. The united states has increased the amount of unhealthful defoliant that is spays on Colombia and its citizens every division of Plan Columbia. umteen have made the comparison to agent orange in Vietnam.Many health puzzles have already been reported with relationship to the defoliant chemical and there are concerns that this chemical is starting to poison some the amazon basin and subsequently effecting other Latin American countries to the south. This defoliant kills all crops including the ones, many of the poorest peasants who grow bananas simply for subsistence have their in all crops destroyed on a regular basis. Some have raised the make love that perhaps this alone constitutes a fray human rights violation. A foreign index number spraying toxic chemicals on the population of another is something that is unheard of in the past.The most inditing fact to the type of military action undertaken is most obviously that it has been a commitment that the United States has not been able twist back on after over 6 years no lessening in spending in this area is expected. Not only that but now that the Colombian drug traffickers have evolved were seeing a resurgence in drug action at law in the country. No bet how you look at it Plan Colombia was almost a complete failure, Colombian left wing guerrillas persist, drug use in the US has never been higher, cocaine production in Columbia is increasing.The only ay in which this operation is a success is that the overall violence seems to have died down and that in the paramilitary groups, which the US created in the 1st place have been disbanded and are no longer committing horrendous atrocities against innocent people for the sole purpose of turning open opinion against FARC. It might be viewed in that instance as a success, I was about half way into my enquiry before I heard/read anything to do with FARCs side of the story. Venezuela, Ecuador and Cuba are the only counties to formally voice support for FARC. (*10) Evaluating the Merida Innitiative io dine the important things to know about the Merida possibility is that the entirety of the money (400 million to start) canonic by the US congress all went to American companies, to train police, to build helicopters, not one dollar of the funding of this operation ends up in non-American hands. It is expected, as was the solicitude with Plan Columbia that the United states will merely employ private American defence contractors to do all the work on the ground. The reason for this is not strong enough to justify the use and possible press release of American soldiers.Also use of American soldiers to fight an urban drug war such as the one in Mexico and might cause a PR nightmare if US Soldiers are viewed as firing on Mexican population, which the drug members of the cartels can hide in stark sight, unlike the Colombian guerrillas they are not in uniform. My investigation into Plan Colombia led me to the conclusion that the comparison made by the US secretary of defence betwe en Colombia at the turn of the century and the Mexican drug war today to be a very poor and idle one.As previously stated I contend that the situation in Colombia was actually a war where as the Mexican situation is simply a police ineffectualness issue. While the comparison between the who conflicts themselves is unjustified both Plan Columbia and The Merida initiative officially have a primary goal to reduce the outflow of drugs into the united states and can still be compared in that instance. The comparison is one that mostly highlights the extreme ineffectiveness not only in terms of result but in terms of cost of this kind of policy. It essentially doesnt crystallize any of the problems of drug trafficking.The demand in the US for drugs is the real source of this problem. refractory Problems (police, penal strategy,banking) A continuing problem that has been acknowledged but not dealt with in any meaningful way in the fact that poor farmers who have been control into pov erty by the international outlandish business (and its dominance by the west) have no better feasible options then to grow the plants that are converted into drugs. In Plan Columbia the Colombian government instituted a program to offer coca growers money to grow alternative crops, offering them a sum in the range of 2 million pesos a year (about 950$). *7)Many coca farmers argue is not enough to live. When growing coca (rather then crops such as plantains and Pineapples) not only is the crop worth more but the drug traffickers come right to their doors to pick up the coca paste they convert the plants to. When growing the crops they are being encouraged to grow they have to transport these tons of produce on vehicles they dont have, on roads that dont exist to deal out to markets both internal and external that they dont have access to and to compete with an international aggro business . (*7- 551)It simply not a sound development plan. less then 20% of the Plan Columbia cipher is allocated towards this end) instead the budget is spent on air fumigation spaying defoliant on coca cultures. Secondly the way that the penal system is set up just about everywhere in the world makes the enslavement of major drug lords almost alone futile, they still maintain control over their organization and administer it from prison house. The leaders of the Tijuana and Gulf cartels made the agreement to unite while they were both in prison (*3 p. 4), consolidating their power against the rest of the cartels in the The Federation.There is also a long (though easilly remedied) problem that the Mexican prisons themselves are not able constrain powerful people in there. In the last year alone over 250 prison stings have been broken out of prison by cartels, most recently 191 were released from from a prison in Tamaulipas by the Los Zetas cartel. This creates even more problems on other fronts, it makes it alot harder to extract education from prisoners then it is in the u nited states. If an inmate believes its only a matter of time before he gets out he has no reasons to co-operate in any way, no real threat to guard against.Finally, probably the most important continuing problem is money wash, this allows for drug operations to military campaign smoothly by giving it a seemingly legitimize flow of currency to use for Bribes, purchaseing up legitimate real estate and other things. Without being able to access the real money of drug kingpins makes it hard to do them any real damage that wont easy be recovered from in a very short time. Many large US banks are complicit in this activity and it is a massive source of capital for them. An article from the Bloomberg press highlights the involvment of American banks such as Wachovia Corp.Bank of America and swell Fargos direct complicity in money laundering operations for the mexican cartels. Wachovia admitted it didnt do enough to crack illicit funds in handling 378. 4 billion for Mexican-currency -exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. (*1) To say they didnt do enough to spot 378 billion dollars entering their bank is laughable. There have reportedly been some efforts to bunk more stringent anti-money laundering laws which have met some oppostion from the banking lobby for obvious reasons.The police force continues to be a significant problem, all the training in the world still isnt going to stop corruption, even if a relative victory is acheived and the army pulls out it would seem to me only to be a matter of time before things return to their previous state. Possible solutions In order to fix the problems associated with prisons I deal a simple solution would be to transfer people associated to drug cartels to shoreward or even just send them to the other side of the world somewhere a pay country X to keep them in isolation. Reducing their ability to communicate is key.Something that I think the world may sooner or by and by move towards provided the proper technology b e available is to curb the drug trade is simply an irradiation of hand held currency. hard cash is what funds all of these organizations. This is why they have to launder drug money, its dirty, you cant buy jet planes and like with cash. If you eliminate cash, how can anyone buy drugs illegally? You cant have a large elligal operation which risks lives dailey if people can only barter for your drugs and every legitimate product is purchased through some form of debit entirely controlled by the government.In conclusion I beleive that the Merida innitiative will probably succeed to a small degree in curbing violence but not the drug trade itself. I think it will be a costly (perhaps everlasting) failure as long as people are beating a dead knight with tactics that are proven not work. The more troubling aspect of this alone research paper for me is the notion that gets brought up by several in various documentaries I watched in doing research of the American government attempted to make trade protection policy which violates many individual freedoms with approve to terrorism all encompassing.If you can keep enforcing the notion that the drug is on the kindred wavelength as terrorism it gives you the right to treat all people involved in drugs (about 80% of Americans at least once in a lifetime) as people involved in terrorism and produce a progressive erosion of civil liberties which some already believe has asleep(p) to far with legislation such as The Patriot Act.Operations in mexico and Colombia set a precedent for the United States interpose (without request in the case of mexico) in domestic affairs of its neighbours using military force. I would also argue that much of this action could be perceived as just another extension of the US military industrial complex in action.Referenceshttp//www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.htmlhttp//www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/ uploads/publications/reports/docs/Canadian%20Military%20Spending%202009.pdfhttp//www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34215.pdfhttp//blogs.mcclatchydc.com/mexico/2010/12/jail-breaks-and-cartel-manpower-woes.htmlhttp//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1559348/IRA-training-haunts-Colombias-guerrilla-war.htmlhttp//www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB166/index.htm