Jorge Castañeda uses Mexico as Iraq and Calderón as Bush as his hook, a comparison that I find extremely frustrating. The differences are obvious: Iraq was a foreign country to Americans, while Mexico is home to Mexicans; if Americans hadn't invaded, there would have been no Iraq war, while Mexican drug violence had been rising for years when Calderón came to office; the American decision on Iraq was predicated on the false belief that there were WMD, while Calderón's deployment of the army was predicated on the very correct belief that drug gangs had overwhelmed the state in certain regions; and finally, the US army can withdraw from Iraq, but Mexico can't pull out of Mexico. Comparing Iraq to Mexico doesn't make the situation or the solution in either nation any clearer. More here.
Andrés Martínez's eminently sensible article about the misunderstandings that characterize the relationship includes the following passage, which hits the nail on the head:
It is both remarkable and typical that neither the president nor anyone in his top tier of advisers, including his secretary of state, have shown much interest in our southern neighbor and its more than 100 million people or have much knowledge of them. A presidential trip to Burkina Faso would be only slightly more exotic to this crew.
On the Mexican side, of course, there is plenty of misunderstanding as well, but one borne not from neglect but from excessive rumination about the northern colossus. Mexican elites think they know the United States inside and out, but they invariably hold onto irreconcilable, overreaching stereotypes: As individuals, Americans are innocent, humorless, and bumbling, but in the aggregate, Americans somehow manage to form a ruthless, omnipotent hegemon.
Lastly, Susana Seijas says that Mexico is lucky that the drug gangs aren't more devoted to PR, because then it would really be in trouble. This strikes me as an odd argument, a bit like saying that Steelers fans are lucky that Lebron James doesn't play for the Browns. Of course Chapo, the Zetas, et al aren't good at public relations, they're drug runners! The drug gangs probably do a little more philanthropy than the author gives them credit for, but it doesn't much affect their image among the population at large, because as drug runners, they leave dead bodies everywhere.
Seijas compares the Mexican kingpins to Pablo Escobar and Marcos as evidence of what Mexico would be in for if the big-time capos tossed more money around to the public. Well, Marcos was the leader of an insurgent army with a broad base of citizen support in the jungles of Chiapas, which is fundamentally a different activity from running drugs. And as far as Escobar, I've not read a lot about his relationship with the Colombian people, but I very much doubt that, once he began blowing up planes and assassinating presidential candidates, Escobar was much more beloved by Colombians who weren't direct recipients of his largesse than Chapo and the rest are by Mexicans today. Tellingly, Seijas offers no support of the assertion, but rather counts on the reader to assume she is correct.
Seijas closes her case with the following anecdote:
Apparently, had I visited two days earlier, I would have been one of hundreds of diners to drop their forks and gape as El Chapo and a phalanx of bodyguards swept into the restaurant. The diners were allegedly ordered to hand over their cell phones and refused permission to leave while El Chapo feasted on a leisurely lunch.
When El Chapo departed, the bodyguards were said to have returned the phones to the bewildered patrons, who then discovered that their bills had been paid. The Mexican government is lucky the drug lords haven't thought of giving out more free lunches; it would be a great PR move.
Actually, given the frequency with which some version of this story appears in the media, it would seem that Mexican gangsters do give out a whole lot of free lunches. I've either heard or read it at least a dozen times, including in the American media. I actually know someone who (sort of) witnessed a moment an episode like this: an old roommate was going to meet a girl at a bar late at night. When he got there, people were partying inside, but the door was locked and no one would open it for him. The next day, the girl told him that a team of gunmen entered the place, locked the doors, collected the cell phones (they never forget to do that in these stories), and treated everyone to free drinks until 7 in the morning. From his account of it, it was not a good PR move. Everyone there was terrified, because, once again, they were presumed to be murderous drug runners, not PR agents handing out goodies.
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