National Security -- Mexico's Drug War Hits Home

March 18, 2009

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, Ryan Powers, and Matt Duss

NATIONAL SECURITY

Mexico's Drug War Hits Home

With the severe economic recession and continuing U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the growing crisis of drug-related violence in Mexico has thus far received less public attention than it should. But Obama administration officials are clearly aware of the problem. On Feb. 25, 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a congressional committee that "Mexico right now has issues of violence that are a different degree and level than we've ever seen before." Turf wars between drug gangs and Mexican authorities led to the deaths of some 6,000 people last year, more than twice the previous record, according to Deputy Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Mark Koumans. In a written statement to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Koumans said that the number of murders in Ciudad Juarez on the U.S.-Mexico border in January 2009 "was three times higher than in January 2008." In response to requests from the governors of Texas and Arizona, President Obama is reportedly considering deploying National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. Yesterday, Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, the head of Northern Command, told a Senate committee that an inter-agency government team could complete work on an integrated plan to address Mexico's escalating drug war as early as this week.

A COUNTRY ON THE BRINK: In an interview with World Politics Review, the head of Colombia's anti-narcotics police, Gen. Alvaro Caro, warned, "It's going to get worse. ... The Mexican cartels are very structured, well armed and organized, and have the power to corrupt." The Los Angeles Times, which has a detailed website collecting its extensive coverage of the issue, recently noted that drug traffickers "have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals." "It's a real war," Tijuana Mayor Jorge Ramos recently told reporters. "We're not faking." Though Napolitano recognized that the Calderon government was taking steps to deal with the violence, she did acknowledge "a possibility, remote as it may be...of [Mexico] becoming a narcostate. But the United States has a direct interest in Mexico." "So having a stable and peaceful neighbor is very, very important, and this drug war is very, very important," Napolitano added.

HOMELAND INSECURITY: A 2008 Justice Department report found that Mexican drug traffickers pose the biggest organized crime threat to the United States. The presence of the Mexican drug cartels in the U.S. has more than quadrupled since 2006. According to a December report by the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center, "Mexican drug-trafficking organizations have established a presence in 230 U.S. cities, including such remote places as Anchorage, Alaska, and Sheboygan, Wisconsin." Cartels have established Atlanta, GA as the principal distribution center for the eastern United States. Phoenix, AZ, is now "the kidnapping capital of the United States, thanks largely to the cartels operating on both sides of the border." But confronting the supply of drugs is only dealing with half of the problem. In naming former Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske as his drug czar, Obama indicated an intention to increase "drug prevention and treatment, which took a funding hit in the Bush years." At his nomination ceremony, Kerlikowske "said success depends largely on reducing demand."

THE MERIDA INITIATIVE: First proposed by President Bush in October 2007, the Merida Initiative is a multi-year partnership "to provide equipment and training to support law enforcement efforts to curb the flow of illegal narcotics" through the U.S., Mexico, and Central America. The initiative was signed into law last June, and appropriates $1.4 billion for the effort (compared to over $850 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.) Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said, "I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past. Some of the old biases against cooperation between our militaries and so on, I think, are being set aside." But the initiative has its critics. Jorge Angel Pescador Osuna, the former Mexican consul general in Los Angeles, said last year that "[Mexican] foreign policy has been subordinated to that of the Americans, the policemen of the world. ... What we need here is to strengthen our democracy, and we will not accomplish that by using the military for civilian law enforcement." Mexican Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino suggested that the conditions established by the U.S. Congress for the provision of assistance represent an infringement of Mexico's sovereignty. Amnesty International, however, called the final bill "an important first step to prevent military and police abuses." Describing current efforts, Secretary Napolitano told the Wall Street Journal that "we already are beginning to increase our operation of looking at guns and cash going southbound, because it's those guns and cash that are fueling the battle against Calderon and...the very, very violent battle in Mexico."

ECONOMY -- FRANK: IT'S 'NONSENSICAL' TO RETAIN AIG EMPLOYEES TO UNDO THE MESS THEY CREATED: Edward Liddy, the CEO of the bailed-out insurance giant AIG, will testify on Capitol Hill this morning, "where he'll reluctantly defend millions of dollars’ worth of bonuses doled out to employees" despite the government bailout. On the front page of the New York Times’ business section yesterday, economic writer Andrew Sorkin argued in favor of paying out the AIG bonuses. He cited "the sanctity of contracts" to warn that "the business community" would panic if the government started "abrogating contracts left and right." Yesterday, The Progress Report sat down with Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. When asked to respond to Sorkin’s claim that only AIG employees can navigate the economy out of the mess they created, Frank dismissed it as "nonsensical." "If they really understood what they did in the first place, seriously, they probably wouldn’t have done much of it. Secondly, when you are trying to undo something, it is often not the case that the people who did it are the ones to put in place," Frank said. Earlier this week, Frank called for the firing of AIG executives who presided over the collapse of their firm. "[M]aybe it’s time to fire some people. We can’t keep them from getting the bonuses, but we can keep some of them from continuing in their jobs," he said.

CONGRESS -- REPUBLICANS WHO BLOCKED SALARY CAPS NOW OUTRAGED OVER AIG BONUSES: As outrage mounts over the $165 million in executive bonuses paid to AIG staffers, many Republicans are trying to tap into the wellspring of public anger. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) condemned the "outrageous situation" and boasted that he had been "complaining about the way AIG had been doing its business" since October. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) agreed: "A lot of these people should be fired, not awarded bonuses. This is horrible. It’s outrageous." However, when Congress debated capping the salaries and bonuses for Wall Street executives whose firms accepted federal TARP funds, these same Republican leaders balked. "I really don't want the government to take over these businesses and start telling them everything about what they can do," McConnell said. "It should be up to the board of directors of a private corporation to set the compensation of an executive; it shouldn’t be Congress's role," Shelby agreed. McConnell's past opposition to capping Wall St. compensation didn't stop him from going on CNN and suggesting that he had favored such caps all along. When CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked whether Congress should "have passed salary caps on these bailed out companies," McConnell replied, "We certainly had a chance with the amendment by Senator Snowe to prevent this kind of bonuses from being paid."

CIVIL RIGHTS -- OBAMA TO SIGN U.N. GAY RIGHTS DECLARATION: Last December, President Bush refused to support an unprecedented U.N. declaration calling for a worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. Sixty-six countries -- including all 27 European Union members, Japan, Australia, and Mexico -- signed the declaration "to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests, or detention." The United States joined China, Russia, the Vatican, and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in opposition. At the time, human rights advocates slammed Bush for "trying to come up with Christmas presents for the religious right." But in a sharp reversal from Bush, the Obama administration has "notified the declaration's French sponsors that the [U.S.] wants to be added as a supporter." "In the words of the United States Supreme Court, the right to be free from criminalization on the basis of sexual orientation 'has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom,' " an official said yesterday. This marks the second time that President Obama has signaled his outright rejection of Bush-era attitudes toward gay rights. Last month, the United States supported a separate proposal to condemn "all forms of discrimination and all other human rights violations based on sexual orientation" at the U.N.'s Durban Review Conference on racism and xenophobia in Geneva.

According to the office of the New York Attorney General, AIG awarded bonuses to 418 employees last week "and included $33.6 million for 52 people who have left the failed insurance conglomerate." AIG paid the bonuses, "including more than $1 million each to 73 people, to almost all of the employees...responsible for creating the exotic derivatives that caused AIG’s near collapse."

A group of eight centrist Senate Democrats "is quietly maneuvering to keep open the option of vetoing two of President Barack Obama’s most ambitious agenda items this year -- climate change and health care reform." The group, which includes Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AK), are seeking to kill efforts to pass climate and health care legislation through a budget reconciliation, which requires only 51 votes.

"The Pentagon said it received 2,923 reports of sexual assault across the military in the 12 months that ended Sept. 30," a 9 percent increase over the totals reported the year earlier. However, only "10 percent to 20 percent of sexual assaults among members of the active duty military are reported."

"Three powerful House committee chairmen have agreed to work together on legislation to overhaul the health care system, starting with the view that most employers should help finance coverage and that the government should offer a public health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurance." Reps. George Miller (D-CA), Henry Waxman (D-CA), and Charlie Rangel (D-NY) will "try and work as one committee" in crafting a health care bill.

President Obama is "considering expanding the American covert war in Pakistan far beyond the unruly tribal areas to strike at a different center of Taliban power in Baluchistan, where top Taliban leaders are orchestrating attacks into southern Afghanistan." Further, Obama’s advisers are "recommending preserving the option to conduct cross-border ground actions, using C.I.A. and Special Operations commandos, as was done in September."

"The ACLU called on Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. yesterday to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture at CIA secret prisons," following the leak last weekend of a secret Red Cross report. "The report of these incidents certainly warrants a criminal investigation," the ACLU said in a letter.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) offered his support for veteran diplomat Christopher Hill to become the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq, "even as other GOP senators bluntly urged President Barack Obama to withdraw the nomination." Lugar’s support "is considered crucial to Hill's nomination because it would provide other moderate GOP senators political cover to vote for him."

Reacting to Sudan president Omar Hassan al-Bashir's expulsion of all aid workers from Darfur, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Bashir's government must "understand that they will be held responsible for every single death that occurs in those camps." President Obama will tap Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, a Swahili-speaking retired Air Force officer who grew up in Africa, as special envoy to Sudan.

And finally: Mrs. Kucinich dances with the stars. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) may have nixed his wife, Cindy’s, appearance on Dancing With The Stars, but Rep. Dennis Kucinich seems to be "a more supportive spouse." His wife, Elizabeth Kucinich, is now appearing as a contestant on "Cleveland's Dancing with the Stars."

President Obama is expected to designate a special envoy to Sudan, Air Force General Scott Gration, "in the midst of a worsening humanitarian crisis in its Darfur region."

THINK PROGRESS: Conservatives suggest torture tactics for AIG executives: "Exemplary hanging," guillotine party, "boiling in oil."

WONK ROOM: Former President Bush's first AIDS czar: "Abstinence only education simply has no meaning for certain populations."

YGLESIAS: Denmark is a land of good policy.

TAPPED: Hoover Institution's Shelby Steele argues that passing landmark civil rights legislation like the Voting Rights Act was a sign of America's weakness.

NEW JERSEY: The State of New Jersey sued former executives of Lehman Brothers, "contending that fraud and misrepresentation had caused the state's public pension fund to lose $118 million."

CALIFORNIA: State revenues predicted to be $8 billion lower than expected next fiscal year.

LABOR: "The battle over a bill that would ease union organizing is zeroing in on lawmakers in three states -- Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Colorado."

"Joining us tonight is a man who has been against the AIG bailout since the very begin, Senator John McCain."
-- Fox News's Sean Hannity, 3/17/09

VERSUS

"I didn't want to do that. ... But there are literally millions of people whose retirement, whose investment, whose insurance were at risk here."
-- McCain, 9/17/08, defending the AIG bailout

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