Makeda Tiye Young
September 10th, 2010
11:45pm
Throughout Mexico in the last two weeks there has been evens that resemble terrorism such as a car bomb explosion outside of a television news station, the assassination of two mayors and a massacre of 72 migrant workers. In the eyes U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this is comparable to a war on terror that Colombia suffered during the 1990's against its government. The war on terror is described as having insurgents just as one would see during terrorist activity. Clinton says "We need more U.S presence" in these Central American countries to fight against the drug trafficking because U.S. consumption of the drugs fuels some of the violence that has occurred. Since Mexico's president Felipe Calderon took office there has been an account of more than 26,000 people who have been murdered from drug trafficking.
After reading this article I had to investigate exactly what events classify as terrorism and these events are just as explained by Clinton. Terrorist activity of trying to get a group to submit by using forms of terror like bombs, mass murders and publicizing these acts to convey a message are exactly what terrorist do. In my critique of her comparison I do believe that the events especially against the government have turned this drug war into a war on terror. I do not agree with the idea of having more U.S. presence in Mexico. Granted our consumption and illegal trade of drugs especially across our border have a major contribution to the violence and the fueling of this war but we cannot give aid to every country with governmental problems. Many countries have to take accountability for themselves. I think that suggestions on planning to stop the drug war would be great but as we have seen in the late 1990's and early 2000's with Plan Colombia, we wasted a lot of our money and time trying to repair a system that not only was not successful but hasn't improved to this day. I just don't believe at a time when we as the United States is trying to put ourselves back together can extend any more resources than we already have on drug wars.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-08/clinton-says-mexico-drug-war-looks-like-insurgency-.html
1 comment:
I agree with you Markeda. I do not believe having our presence in Mexico is the best strategy right now. I love that the U.S. wants to help out other nations as much as we do but issues like this, our government attempting to interfere with other nations to better their citizens, are reasons why we still have soliders in Iraq. I want our government to start thinking selfishly for a little while and figure out how we can help ourselves with all our present issues before we going trying to help out other nations. Can we get it together first.
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