Texas Gov. Rick Perry said today that the United States needs to include a military option in our relations with Mexico. This broaches a topic I have been pondering. Mexico is in a de facto state of civil war, pitting the federal government and various state and local law enforcement against various border-city drug gangs. Despite ramping up violence, it seems, to all intents and purposes, that the drug cartels are winning.
The United States is currently obsessed with a small band of loosely affiliated organizations in far away countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines, all the while our neighbor to the south poses an increasing threat to our homes, and our lives. This is not to suggest that we need to invade Mexico. It is to suggest, rather, that we need to start thinking clearly about what constitutes the most vital and immediate threats to our interests.
American relations with Mexico have not been pleasant for our southern neighbor. Waging aggressive war against them in the late-1840's, we annexed roughly half their territory after defeating them. During and after the 1911 Revolution, bands of guerrillas, led by Emilio Zapata, were causing enough of a fuss to induce then-Pres. Woodrow Wilson to send troops south of the border. They were only removed once American involvement in the First World War was looming and Wilson determined that the Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Mexico, Gen. John Pershing, would lead the American Expeditionary Force in Europe.
We are the consumer of Mexico's bumper crop of drugs. We are their market. Yet, we do comparatively little to break the cycle of drug dependence. Punitive approaches to drug possession and use are a dismal failure.
Then, of course, there is NAFTA. We should be discussing setting aside provisions that allow for the free flow fo goods and material across the border in order to assist in slowing the free-flow of drugs from Mexico. At the same time, we need to start talking about "immigration reform" within the context of Mexico's on-going war. Rather than seeing the flow of human beings north simply as economic refugees, we need to consider them within the context of humanitarian need, refugees from a country torn by war, a war for which we bare a large measure of responsibility. Justice and compassion should dictate our policy, rather than economic and ethnic and cultural fears.
Again, I am far from suggesting we militarize the border, or consider sending troops to Mexico, even if such help is requested, which I do not foresee happening. Rather, we need to reconsider our national priorities, be cognizant of those threats that are more immediate and pressing, and start talking about everything from trade to immigration policy within the new reality that is Mexico, once again proving its own adage correct: So far from God, so close to the United States.
