Good Point

Leo Zuckermann is characteristically sharp in the opening to today's column:

One thing that the nation's attorney general and the federal secretary of public security agree on: the war against organized crime will be won the day that the society places itself on the side of the State. That's what happened in Colombia. Although the country has worse indices than Mexico in terms of insecurity, the idea that the corner has been turned on the problem is widely held. The question is: why? The answer has to do with the general attitude of the Colombian society that, sick of what was going on, began to support the State in its fight against organized crime. Social tolerance [of crime] ended. Not to mention the explicit support. That's what President Álvaro Uribe achieved: aligning the society with the State.