Mexico changes course on drug war

A bit of history about GOP and drug war imperialism: In the '90s - after the War on Drugs was already a known failure in the U.S. - a right-wing Congress attempted to blacklist Mexico, because it felt Mexico wasn't doing enough to fight the failed war. Around the same time, some of the same right-wing hacks who had been behind the 1994 electoral disaster in the U.S. were employed to help run Mexican elections. This too was a debacle: Many voters in Mexico were denied the right to vote because polling places ran out of ballots.

The big picture is that in BushWorld, countries besides the United States are browbeaten into doing the Republicans' bidding. It brings a whole new meaning to "resistance is futile."

Mexico complied with the GOP's demands by passing a law to completely ban cold and allergy medicine that contains pseudoephedrine - a goal of the U.S. drug warriors. The ban was supposed to take effect next year.

But now our friends south of the border have soured on the War on Drugs - now that they've finally gotten to see up close how ineffective it is.

The U.S.-backed drug war has caused about 3,500 murders in Mexico this year alone. Many of the victims are soldiers, police officers, politicians, judges, media figures, and their family members. Some of the killings were particularly graphic, as the severed heads of victims have been placed atop fenceposts.

The War on Drugs is a price support for violent cartels - many of which are peopled by corrupt former drug cops who received training from the U.S. It also props up the CIA and the Republican political machine in the U.S.

The drug war is such a failure that Mexican President Felipe Calderon now wants to decriminalize possession of small amounts of certain drugs. Several years ago, then-President Vicente Fox also backed limited decriminalization - but the Bush regime and the U.S. drug czar office forced him to back down.

Bush is the world's #1 exporter of right-wing tyranny (much as his daddy was its #1 importer, with his calls to adopt the policies of totalitarian overseas regimes). Much as eastern Europe used to live under the Soviet Union's thumb, the world now lives under the Republicans'. Hopefully, Calderon won't back down under pressure from an overbearing dictator like Bush.

(Source: http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/102857/as_the_violence_soars,_mexico_signals_it's_had_enough_of_america's_stupid_war_on_drugs)