Mexican President Takes Stock

Reporter Tracy Wilkinson, of the Los Angeles Times writes about the recent Mexican national security summit, "Calderon delivers blunt view of drug cartels' sway in Mexico".

Reporting from Mexico City — Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Wednesday delivered an uncommonly blunt and dispiriting assessment of the broad sway held by violent drug traffickers throughout the besieged country.

From the "most modest little towns" to major cities, Calderon said, traffickers attack, intimidate and blackmail Mexican citizens as part of an illegal business that goes far beyond the simple transport of narcotics.

"Their business is no longer just the traffic of drugs. Their business is to dominate everyone else," Calderon said. "This criminal behavior is what has changed and become a defiance to the state, an attempt to replace the state" by exacting war taxes and taking up arms more powerful than those used by outgunned government forces.

This confirms, I believe, what I said the day before.

Coming to a city near you.

And here is President Calderon on drug legalization

Although Mexico last year decriminalized small amounts of some drugs, government officials, partly in response to U.S. pressure, have resisted further liberalization.

But Calderon's office issued a statement late Tuesday saying that while he remained opposed to legalization, he no longer opposed a debate.

"Drugs no longer taboo," headlined an editorial in El Universal newspaper, praising the president's change of heart as "democratic." Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, one of the main U.S. groups favoring legalization, also hailed Calderon's comments as a "big step forward" toward ending the violence and called on President Obama to join the debate.

At the conference, Calderon came under withering criticism from some participants who said the government had failed miserably in keeping the Mexican public informed about strategy and progress in the drug war.

And the US Government was pressuring Mexico to legalize drugs?

Regards  —  Cliff