Tuesday, January 27, 2009

"Failed States"

Did you see the news item the other day noting that Mexico and Pakistan are each on the brink of becoming "failed states," because of each government's inability to control violence? Severed heads are turning up with regularity everywhere in Mexico. Drug cartels there "earn" more than $25 billion a year, and "repatriate" more than $10 billion a year in bulk cash into Mexico from the U.S.

Mexico produces 8 metric tons (a metric ton is 2204.6 pounds) of heroin a year, and 10,000 metric tons of marijuana a year. According to former U.S. drug czar General Barry McCaffrey, "90% of all U.S. cocaine comes in through Mexico," and "the dominant source of methamphetamine production for the U.S. is Mexico."

As Mary Anastasia O'Grady summarizes in her Wall Street Journal column yesterday, "if Mexico is at risk of becoming a failed state, look no further than the large premium the cartels get for peddling prohibited substances to Americans."

3 comments:

Terri Wagner said...

It has always been a mystery to me why we would dish out so much money to Europe and ignore our neighbors literally. It can't just be drugs.

shoprat said...

It seems that the whole world will soon be a failed state.

gopwire said...

Its not a surprise that mexico and pakistan are at risk of failing. As the article said, the amount of drugs in mexico is unbelievable and the amount of money they are gettong for them is even more ridiculous. We must stand strong on protecting our border, the last thing we need is "more" drugs flowing over here from mexico.
-Dominic