Why Drug Legalization And Hugs For Terrorists Won’t Solve The Border Crisis At best, Mexico is a failed state. At worst, it is a rogue state, hostile to regional peace. The silence from politicians who would have otherwise cried intervention speaks volumes.By Sumantra Maitra
November 8, 2019 As Thucydides hinted, often when people are either afraid or malicious, they have historically tried to garb their fear or malice in the language of rationalization. After the ghastly massacre of Americans miles from the southern U.S. border, the firebrand Mexican leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declined the help of Mexico’s northern neighbors in eradicating drug cartels.
“We have to act independently and according to our constitution, and in line with our tradition of independence and sovereignty,†he replied after President Trump’s tweet offering to “wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.†Obrador added, “War is irrational. We are for peace. It is a characteristic of this new government.â€
This comes after his military was told to stand down and surrendered after losing an urban battle to El Chapo’s cartel last month. The rationalization then was similar: that war is brutal and there’s no point in risking life and blood to catch criminals. The criminals in this instance are those same gangs, which are now a law unto themselves.
This is nonsensical. Obrador’s policy since his election of “hugs not bullets†is similar to a lot of American progressives who believe in reformative justice. The reality is, of course, far more humbling. Mexico is now, at best, a failed state wherein large swaths of territory are controlled by different armed groups, similar to Afghan or Libyan warlords. There is no writ of the Mexican state or the Mexican army or police, and no law and order in these regions.
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https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/08/why-drug-legalization-and-hugs-for-terrorists-wont-solve-the-border-crisis/