Back to the halls of Montezuma? No way!

By Weekly Archive On Mar 31, 2009

Looking
for one of the most serious foreign policy crises facing the nation?
You don’t have to go as far as the Middle East. Just consider what’s
going on right next door.

Drug-related
violence, especially along the U.S. border, has brought the Mexican
government to its knees. Some 6,200 people died last year in Mexico
as a result of the drug war, and more than 1,000 were killed in the
first eight weeks of 2009. Some states are entirely controlled by
drug lords and the Mexican government has proven totally ineffective
in stopping the violence.

Which
raises two questions: Who’s responsible? And what’s the solution?

On
her visit to Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the
first U.S. government official ever to acknowledge that Americans
share in the blame, both by buying drugs and exporting guns. "Our
insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," she
said upon her arrival in Mexico City. "Our inability to prevent
weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these
criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and
civilians."

Indeed,
Mexican authorities report that 90 percent of weapons seized from
Mexican organized crime came from the United States.

As
partly responsible for the violence in Mexico, we also have a
responsibility to help end it. Surely, sending American troops to the
border is not the answer. But, God forbid, that seems to be the way
we’re heading.

For
her part, Secretary Clinton pledged $80 million to equip Mexico with
three Black Hawk helicopters to chase drug runners along the border.
And Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that the
administration was open to, and indeed actively considering, a
request from the governors of Texas and Arizona to deploy National
Guard or Army forces along the border.

What
a big mistake. For starters, you can’t patrol the border without
crossing the border. Haven’t we had enough military invasions of
Latin American: from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Cuba,
Nicaragua, Panama, Guatemala and Grenada? By sending American troops
into Mexico, even with the blessing of the Mexican government,
President Obama would be begging for his own Bay of Pigs.

By
deploying troops to the border, we would also be repeating in the
"war on drugs" the same mistake we’ve made in the so-called
"war on terror": thinking there’s a simple military
solution to a multi-layered problem. We can no more stop people at
gunpoint from using drugs than we can stop would-be terrorists from
hating the United States. And, besides, if military force alone could
end the drug violence, why hasn’t it worked for the Mexican
government?

There
is, lest we forget, one other obstacle, although one too easily
ignored by any administration: the law. The Posse Comitatus Act,
enacted in June 1878 to limit the presence of troops in the former
Confederate states, prohibits federal military personnel and units of
the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a
law-enforcement capacity within the United States, except where
expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. Only the Coast
Guard is exempt. Absent new legislation passed by Congress and signed
by the president, sending troops to the border would be illegal.

In
the end, there are only two things we Americans can do to help reduce
the drug-related violence in Mexico. First, as proposed by candidate
Barack Obama during last year’s campaign, is to reimpose the ban on
assault weapons, originally passed by Congress in 1994, which was
allowed to expire by President George W. Bush five years ago. "I
think that will have a positive impact in Mexico at a minimum,"
Attorney General Eric Holder said recently.

The
second part of the solution is finally to get serious about
decriminalizing the use of drugs. After 30 years and billions of
dollars, it’s clear the "war on drugs" is not working. Time
for a whole new approach: Make all but the most dangerous drugs
legal, then regulate them, tax them, and use the revenue for drug
education, prevention and rehabilitation.

But
keep American troops off the border. After a surge in Iraq and a
surge in Afghanistan, the last thing we need is still another surge
— in Texas!

Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "Train
Wreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too
Soon)." You
can hear "The Bill Press Show" at his Web site:
billpressshow.com. His email address is: bill@billpress.com.