Noam Chomsky: Drug Cartels and the Growing Border War

[Jefferson23]

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Luis Fernando Cárdenas

Guernica, August 15, 2011

Guernica: Journalists in Mexico live in constant danger. A photojournalist from the newspaper El Diario was recently murdered in Juárez. The newspaper responded by printing an op-ed piece addressed to the cartels titled, "What do you want from us?" Can you speculate who is responsible for these attacks against the media and why?

Noam Chomsky: While I was in Mexico this year and the year before, I met with journalists and editors from La Jornada, who I think are extremely good. They gave me off the record information that they had dug up about the drug cartels and about the U.S. tolerance of them, but they said they couldn't publish it because that's a death sentence. The cartels have the power to kill anyone they want, so the media are intimidated. It's obvious why the criminal gangs don't want it published. I think El Diario knows exactly what the cartels want; they didn't need the editorial. want to stop publishing information about them. They still do publish some. La Jornada had an article reporting the inquiries of a professor at one of the universities, a specialist on drugs, who works for the United Nations's drug enforcement agency, and it was quite an interesting article. It goes further into why you can't report ; he said that about 80% of the businesses in Mexico are involved in one manner or another with the drug racket. Now once you start publishing things like that and looking into it, you're getting to the power centers of Mexican society, and they're simply not going to want to be exposed. If they can use the drug assassins to stop it, they will.

Guernica: Things are so bad that I wonder: Do you think it's a good idea for the Mexican government to suspend certain guaranteed constitutional rights in Juárez or elsewhere in Mexico until order is restored?

Noam Chomsky: You first have to ask what the Mexican government is trying to do, and that's a little opaque. It looks to some extent as if they're supporting one of the cartels against the other. If that's what they are trying to do, then there is no justification. If they want to stop the drugs, the drug rackets, I think they know how to proceed, and it's not with military action. You have to get to the heart of the matter. Part of the answer was given by the declaration of the three ex-presidents, Zedillo, Cardoso, and Gaviria. They came out with a study about two years ago in which they simply said that criminalizing drugs is just creating the problem, and that in some fashion the drugs should be legalized, like alcohol, and regulated. Then you wouldn't get criminal syndicates. That's part of the issue, but a deeper part is right here in the United States. The drug problem is in the United States, not in Mexico. It's a demand problem and that is to be dealt with here, and it is not being dealt with. It's been shown over and over that prevention and treatment are far more cost effective than police action, out-of-country action, border control, and so on. But the money goes in the other direction and never has an impact. When leaders carry out policies for decades that have no consequences for the stated goal and are very costly, you have to ask whether they are telling you the truth or whether the policies are for a different goal, because they are not reducing drug use. In fact, they are not even raising drug prices.


remainder: http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20110815.htm

[raccoon]

1. "The drug problem is in the United States, not in Mexico. It's a demand problem and that is to be

dealt with here, and it is not being dealt with."

Amen to that!

K&R