Another Mission Accomplished: 12,000 Mexicans Died in the War on Drugs in 2011

Sigh. Another year has passed and the drug related violence in Mexico just keeps on increasing. Since 2006, about as many Mexicans have been killed in the war on drugs as Americans who were killed during this nation's entire involvement in the Vietnam War. Here is the Raw Story with the gruesome details:

Some 12,000 people died in drug-related violence in 2011 in Mexico and around 50,000 have been killed since the start of President Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on drug gangs in 2006, media reported Monday.

The reports came out as brutal violence continued to rock parts of Mexico amid a military crackdown on organized crime involving tens of thousands of troops.

Reforma daily counted 12,539 drug-related killings in 2011, which it said was a 6.3 percent increase on the previous year.

It said the violence had become more brutal with increases in beheadings — to almost 600 — and more than 1,000 cases of torture.

Daily Milenio recorded 12,284 drug-related deaths in 2011 and underlined major hikes in violence in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero and the Gulf of Mexico state of Veracruz, where 35 bodies were dumped under a busy overpass in one incident alone.

Mexico's total population is around one-third that of the U.S., so this would be the equivalent of 36,000 Americans being killed in the past year and 150,000 slaughtered in the past five. Yet despite the carnage there has been exactly zero indication that the U.S. government is interested in reducing the violence by ending the drug war insanity. Sadly, as long as most of the killings are taking place "over there" most Americans just don't give a damn.

Thwarted Immigration Delegitimizes the Democratic Project

While the George W. Bush era of democracy promotion may be behind us—"sit tight, we'll bring the democracy to you"—global immigration pressure will mount this century as population grows and global inequality increases. People migrate and apply for asylum as much because they are unfree as because they are less free, because they are poor and poorer. Slavoj Zizek captures this friction between immigration, inequality, and globalization in his 2008 book Violence:

A couple of years ago, an ominous decision of the European Union passed almost unnoticed: the plan to establish an all-European border police force to secure the isolation of Union territory and thus to prevent the influx of immigrants. This is the truth of globalisation: the construction of new walls safeguarding prosperous Europe from the immigrant flood. One is tempted to resuscitate here the old Marxist "humanist" opposition of "relations between things" and "relations between persons": in the much-celebrated free circulation opened up by global capitalism, it is "things" (commodities) which freely circulate, while the circulation of "persons" is more and more controlled. We are not dealing now with "globalisation" as an unfinished project but with a true "dialectics of globalisation": the segregation of the people is the reality of economic globalisation. This new racism of the developed is in a way much more brutal than the previous ones: its implicit legitimisation is neither naturalist (the "natural" superiority of the developed West) nor any longer culturalist (we in the West also want to preserve our cultural identity), but unabashed economic egotism. The fundamental divide is one between those included in the sphere of (relative) economic prosperity and those excluded from it.

...

When, at the beginning of October 2005, the Spanish police dealt with the problem of how to stop the influx of desperate African immigrants who tried to penetrate the small Spanish territory of Melilla, on the Rif coast of Africa, they displayed plans to build a wall between the Spanish enclave and Morocco. The images presented—a complex structure replete with electronic equipment—bore an uncanny resemblance to the Berlin Wall, only with the opposite function. This wall was destined to prevent people from coming, not getting out. The cruel irony of the situation is that it is the government of Jose Zapatero, at this moment leader of arguably the most anti-racist and tolerant administration in Europe, that is forced to adopt these measure of segregation. This is a clear sign of the limit of the multiculturalist "tolerant" approach, which preaches open borders and acceptance of others. If one were to open the borders, the first to rebel would be the local working classes. It is thus becoming clear that the solution is not to "tear down the walls and let them all in," the easy empty demand of soft-hearted liberal "radicals." The only true solution is to tear down the true wall, not the Immigration Department one, but the socio-economic one: to change society so that people will no longer desperately try to escape their own world.

As a corollary to Zizek's point, my fear is that practical patches to immigration law, such as merit-based points systems—"give us your doctors, your entreprenuers"—will in their own unique way erode the motive force of the democratic project: liberty, liberation, emancipation. The risk is that human rights will end up looking more like human resources, with the state as just another service provider among the array of corporate entities that supply our needs—"access to work" in this case. So, the irony is that if developed countries cannot figure out how to be less dictatorial internationally, they will soon find themselves accelerating down the slippery slope of fascism domestically.

The Arizona immigration law is a harbinger of this trend, though it may also galvanize the immigrant rights community, as Mark Engler argues in Dissent. Certainly the cultural politics of immigration become more caustic in periods of economic stress. The musician M.I.A. released a (very graphic and violent) video this week for her song "Born Free." In it an unambiguously American SWAT force descends like la migra to apprehend people in an apartment complex. The captives are then made to run across the desert in a scene reminiscent of Burmese "atrocity demining"—all because they were born... wrong.

PHOTO CREDIT: Bloodied clothes on the barbed wire border fence between Melilla (Spain) and Morocco. By fronterasur (CC).

Security Implications of Climate Change

A couple of years ago at a conference in New York, I tried out a theory I had been developing: What if climate change presents a security threat in terms of a confluence of oil dependence, funding to terrorists, displacement of people, and changing water supplies, arable land, and strategic choke points. Certainly, I thought, the combination of poverty, terrorist groups, and the presence of people with new, powerful grievances are an explosive mix. My co-panelists looked at me in bewilderment.

Now it seems the idea is coming into its own, if it's not too late. At a UN meeting I attended yesterday, I asked a UN official whether member states and her colleagues were focusing on the effects of climate change. Her only answer was that everyone was doing their best to make the Copenhagen meeting a success. There didn't seem to be any thought given on preparing for the inevitable impact of climate change. We all have a responsibility to slow climate change but we also have a responsibility to prepare for its impact.

But there are many who understand the gravity of the problem. This afternoon, the Truman National Security Project and Operation Free hosted a conference call with Senator John Kerry on the security implications of climate change. I recommend everyone take a look at Operation Free's excellent website, which contains a ton of information on the possible threats from climate change. The message of the call was that in the past the United States had led by rank on these issues; now, it must lead by example. One officer said that we cannot wait for 100 percent certainty on what climate change means before we act on the threat. The time for action is now.

Senator Kerry's message was that American soldiers in Afghanistan have already reported on the visible threats related to climate change, including desertification and drought in areas that are vulnerable to extremist groups. General Zinni has said that climate change will involve the military and the loss of human life. Some of the points Senator Kerry mentioned were:

- The growing desert in Sudan against the backdrop of the need for firewood, worsening the desert
- The acute need for water in the Middle East where only 2 percent of the world's water is located
- The melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas that provide water to billions of people; the glaciers may be gone in 20 years.
- The rising oceans and their devestation to island nations
- The destruction of fishing grounds
- The predicted displacement of some 100 million people form climate change
- The anticipated increased migration of Mexicans to the United States
- The increased spread of diseases
- The disappearance of forests in Colorado
- The continued money from oil funding petro-states, autocrats, and extremists
- The dependence on (and shifting) strategic choke points like the Malacca Strait

If these threats were not enough, the arguments to take leadership include: the positive economic impact of investing in clean energy; the health benefits of reducing pollution; and the ethical responsibility to future generations.

Photo of Sudanese desert by tomallen.

Ian Bremmer's Top Ten Political Risks for 2009

Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer just released the firm's top ten political risks for 2009. We will feature a panel discussing the ethical implications of these risks with Ian Bremmer, Michele Wucker, and Art Kleiner next week, on Jan. 13, at the Carnegie Council. Sign up for the event at gpievents@cceia.org.

Here is how Ian summarizes the top risks for the year:

First, we’ll see more state intervention in the global economy. Second, that intervention will be both reactive and uncoordinated by a series of local, regional, and national political actors who have decidedly non-global (and in many cases non-market) views of the cost/benefit equations that attend their policy decisions. In short, politics will drive the global economy more directly, and more inefficiently, in the coming year than at any point since World War II.

Below, we present a truncated excerpt of the ten risks:

1. Congress - Political risks have historically been most important for economic outcomes in emerging markets, but that’s not so this year. The current financial crisis has created an unprecedented space for government interference in economic affairs within developed states, as well. Nowhere is that more true than in Washington.

2. South Asia Security - The security environment in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan will deteriorate significantly over the coming year, and the United States and Europe will find themselves more directly involved in conflicts in all three states, with little benefit to show for it, by the end of 2009.

3. Iran/Israel - The likelihood of the United States launching strikes against Iran has diminished considerably over the past two years, due both to internal policy wrangling between Vice President Dick Cheney and others within the Bush administration and the election of Barack Obama as president. But 2009 is the critical year for conflict (both direct and through proxies) between Iran and Israel.

4. Russia - We enter 2009 with Russia in play in a way we haven’t seen in decades. The relevant comparison isn’t 1998, when the Russians engaged in default and devaluation but remained within the bounds of their existing political and economic system (as Lenin said, two steps forward, one step back). The history to consider is 1989—as key aspects of the Russian system could change for the worse.

5. Iraq - Frankly, Iraq at number five is a good news story. With about 140,000 American troops remaining on the ground and no serious evolution of the Iraqi political model, it’s a testament to the relative improvements of security that Iraq has managed to claw its way away from a risk that keeps the world on edge.

6. Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez has made a habit of miscalculation over the years, but this may be the big one. His plans for a referendum in the coming month to reform the Venezuelan constitution and abolish term limits (which would allow Chavez to run again for the presidency in 2012) show little likelihood of success. Then the Venezuelan president will have a real political fight on his hands.

7. Mexico - While Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe has effectively won his country’s war against the drug cartels, the same can’t be said of Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon. The security situation there has worsened and is almost certain to deteriorate further over the course of 2009. Well armed and well financed narco-criminals have effectively declared war on the state of Mexico—increasingly singling out elected government officials, bureaucrats, and the armed forces and police for their attacks. As the government continues to rely on the military to go after the drug lords, the bloodshed will continue.

8. Ukraine - As I mentioned, Ukraine isn’t likely to spur the kind of direct military conflict we saw last August in Georgia. But it merits a slot in our top risks because of the government’s inability to deal effectively with the severe challenges posed by the current financial crisis and economic downturn—and one certainly not helped by its volatile relationship with Moscow.

9. Turkey - Speaking of internal distractions, Turkey is essentially defining the problem. The country has all sorts of factors in its favor—a diversified economy, strong demographics, an extremely favorable trade route geography, and solid ties with both western countries and its Middle Eastern neighbors. Yet the fight pitting secularists in the judiciary, military, and industry against Islamists in government is becoming a serious obstacle to economic advancement. And the AK party leadership, feeling that it increasingly carries the weight of popular support on its side, is unwilling to compromise—instead, casting out potential dissent from within the party (and losing critical bureaucratic competence as a result). To make matters worse, the AK party has long lost its reformist spirit and has embraced a more nationalist attitude, making it more difficult to find a solution to the thorny Kurdish question.

10. South Africa - Rounding out the top risks for 2009 is South Africa. Upcoming elections will dominate the news, but it’s more political context than electoral results that will cause concern. It’s pretty clear that the African National Congress (ANC) will keep its majority in parliament, though the emergence of a new splinter party will reduce its numbers. In principal, that’s not a bad development; popular concerns over the ANC’s abuse of power should be reduced accordingly. But the transition is going to be hard on the ANC leadership—with South Africa’s legislators having to accept the need to cooperate with political opponents, rather than using political influence to force would-be dissidents into line. The initial reaction is likely to be a lack of patience and tolerance, undermining public confidence in South Africa’s political institutions...and providing little comfort to investors.

Notice China instability, the Persian Gulf, and climate change are not on the list. Ian sees these as either red herrings or, in climate change's case, longer term developments.

Maquilapolis, the City of Factories

What is the human price of industrialization? What is the price of globalization? Maquilapolis, the city of factories, highlights two problems at the ground level: those related to when capital comes into a town and those related to when capital leaves a town. The genius of this film is that it tells the story from the perspective of the women working in Tijuana’s factories in collaboration with the filmmakers.

It is understandable that the film and many of the people in the film conflate globalization with industrialization. If this (pollution, poverty, and joblessness) is globalization, I don’t want it, was the sentiment in the film. But the horrible problems that have occurred in Mexico, such as pollution causing babies to be born without fingernails or brains, aren’t unique to globalization per se. It is probably more accurate to say that these things are the awful pains that occur when a country goes through the wrenching social, economic, and environmental changes that correspond with an Industrial Revolution. Just ask America at the turn of the century or China at present.

While I was watching the film, I kept thinking: If these factories moved from Mexico to Asia, I wonder how bad conditions are in a place like China that doesn’t have the civil society mechanisms that are profiled in Maquilapolis and eventually brought about justice. The industrial dump that was contaminating the Tijuana neighborhood with lead and other chemicals was finally cleaned up, thanks to the women advocates.

The horrors of industrialization are nevertheless very real and very serious. One of the main characters, Carmen, spends all night working at a television factory only to come home to a shack built with discarded garage doors and a dirt floor. She suffers from kidney damage from the chemicals in her factory and only makes 6 dollars a day with which she must support her self and her three children. A young girl and a dog were electrocuted from electrical wires frayed in puddles. Raw sewage runs everywhere. After running through the rest of her harrowing schedule of taking care of her house, her children, and the factory job, she gets about one or two hours of sleep a day. In the end of the film, Carmen wins enough severance pay to cover the costs of paving her home’s floor.

The second problem in the film is more about globalization: When cheap labor became available in East Asia—after China’s accession into the WTO—many of these factories exited Mexico, leaving many Mexicans jobless and hopeless. The problem of capital flight in Mexico was analyzed in depth during our recent book talk with Kevin Gallagher. He spoke about Mexico’s enclave economy and the need to complement foreign direct investment with strategic domestic policies. From Gallagher’s essay, The Enclave Effect:

New research shows that although Mexico was initially successful in attracting multinational corporations, foreign investments waned in the absence of active government support and as China became increasingly competitive. Moreover, the foreign investment created an "enclave economy" the benefits of which were confined to an international sector not connected to the wider Mexican economy. In fact, foreign investment put many local electronics firms out of business and transferred only limited amounts of technology.

This evidence doesn't suggest that foreign investment or trade agreements are bad things. They suggest that the costs of lifting performance requirements and adopting draconian expropriation rules could very well outweigh the benefits of new treaties with such provisions.

One of the most thought provoking moments in the film is when Tijuana labor leader thinks aloud about the relationship between corporations and the government. With both the government and the companies shirking their responsibility to the communities, Jaime Cota asks, “Who is worse: The one who pays for sin or the one who sins for pay?” For a moment, the viewer thinks about the possible tradeoffs before realizing that this rhetorical question digs deep into the assumptions underlying the marriage of democracy and capitalism.

Like the film Black Gold, Maquilapolis uncovers some of the misery that accompanied the production of everyday goods like TVs or plastic bags. In Black Gold’s case, it is your daily cup of coffee. But the innovation in Maquilapolis was that the subject of the film, the factory women, produced some of the filming (like the documentary about Calcutta’s red light kids Born into Brothels), images, and sounds. The result is honest and profound.

Photo from California Newsreel.

Buy Low, Sell High?

Some giggle-worthy economic news from a highly unusual source.

Page Six, the gossip page of the New York Post, is reporting that the weakening dollar is having an unexpected impact on the price of high-quality marijuana in Manhattan.

"Most of the high-end marijuana sold here comes from Canada," our source in the herbal world reports. "With the Canadian dollar becoming more valuable against the US dollar, the dealers have had to raise prices about 25 percent." The commercial-grade weed comes from Mexico, and the peso hasn't moved as much. "But Canada has the real high-quality hydroponic stuff," said our stoner source, who is feeling the pinch.