Notimex is providing a nice service in running articles that detail the specific deliveries under the Mérida Initiative. The agency reported yesterday that in the upcoming months, the US will send close to 200 million dollars in equipment to Mexico, which will be divided into passport readers, protective helmets, armored cars, bullet-proof vests, and other toys.
I think I've made this point some six million times, so at the risk of repeating myself: all the equipment, while it's not a bad thing, isn't going to be of much benefit. Mexico's core problem is corruption, not the fact that government officials are outgunned, or a lack of sophisticated tracking devices. You could outfit every one of Mexico's honest cops like James Bond, but as long as huge percentages of Mexico's police and bureacrats are working for drug gangs, Mexico will have a serious problem with drug gangs. Spending money on stuff like that mentioned above isn't a problem per se, but there's a limit to what it can accomplish.
The first delivery of Mérida Initiative stuff was a much smarter expenditure: money toward building a national database of police officers.
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