Thursday
Mar122009
U.S. helping to pull the trigger for gun and drug war in Mexico
by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service
“Firearms from the United States civilian gun market are fueling violence on both sides of our border with Mexico...The United States, it doesn’t just make trafficking military style weapons to them easy it practically compels that traffic.” said Tom Diaz, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Violence Policy Center and author of “Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America.” at a Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing titled “Money, Guns, and Drugs: Are U.S. Inputs Fueling Violence on the U.S.- Mexico Border?”
Last year an estimated 6,290 drug-related murders occurred in Mexico and the death toll is still rising. Congressman John Mica (R-Fla.) said. “We’ve got to help them regain control with a plan and a policy of that country. It’s totally out of control, it is a slaughter house and its on our borders and it's spilling into our cities.”
“Mexico matters to the United States...not just because Mexico is our neighbor...it is an issue where we are both deeply involved...U.S. drug sales account for as much as $10 to $25 billion each year that is sent back to Mexico to fuel violence and to support the cartels,” said Andrew Selee, the Director at the Woodrow Wilson Center Mexico Institute. Selee offered three recommendations on how to stop the flow of guns and drugs between Mexico and the United States. Selee expressed that the U.S. should reduce the consumption of drugs by investing in drug prevention programs; second, to disrupt the billions of dollars that flow from drug sales in the U.S. and back to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico by developing the intelligence capabilities to detect where the money is being transported from and to where. Third, to limit the flow of high caliber weapons from the United States to Mexico by increasing the number of ATF inspectors at the border and to increase cooperation with other law enforcement agencies.
Jonathon Paton, Arizona State Senator gave his thoughts on how to stop drug and gun trafficking as well and said, “the other thing we could do is to look at comprehensive immigration reform...which will allow us to focus on the real problem at hand which is the smugglers and not the people that are trying to find employment in the United States.”
Other representatives expressed their thoughts on the issue like Congressman Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who said, “I think drugs are the scourge of the Earth, I think that anybody that deals in drugs ought to be put in jail permanently or killed. That’s how bad I think drugs are.”
“Firearms from the United States civilian gun market are fueling violence on both sides of our border with Mexico...The United States, it doesn’t just make trafficking military style weapons to them easy it practically compels that traffic.” said Tom Diaz, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Violence Policy Center and author of “Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America.” at a Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing titled “Money, Guns, and Drugs: Are U.S. Inputs Fueling Violence on the U.S.- Mexico Border?”
Last year an estimated 6,290 drug-related murders occurred in Mexico and the death toll is still rising. Congressman John Mica (R-Fla.) said. “We’ve got to help them regain control with a plan and a policy of that country. It’s totally out of control, it is a slaughter house and its on our borders and it's spilling into our cities.”
“Mexico matters to the United States...not just because Mexico is our neighbor...it is an issue where we are both deeply involved...U.S. drug sales account for as much as $10 to $25 billion each year that is sent back to Mexico to fuel violence and to support the cartels,” said Andrew Selee, the Director at the Woodrow Wilson Center Mexico Institute. Selee offered three recommendations on how to stop the flow of guns and drugs between Mexico and the United States. Selee expressed that the U.S. should reduce the consumption of drugs by investing in drug prevention programs; second, to disrupt the billions of dollars that flow from drug sales in the U.S. and back to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico by developing the intelligence capabilities to detect where the money is being transported from and to where. Third, to limit the flow of high caliber weapons from the United States to Mexico by increasing the number of ATF inspectors at the border and to increase cooperation with other law enforcement agencies.
Jonathon Paton, Arizona State Senator gave his thoughts on how to stop drug and gun trafficking as well and said, “the other thing we could do is to look at comprehensive immigration reform...which will allow us to focus on the real problem at hand which is the smugglers and not the people that are trying to find employment in the United States.”
Other representatives expressed their thoughts on the issue like Congressman Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who said, “I think drugs are the scourge of the Earth, I think that anybody that deals in drugs ought to be put in jail permanently or killed. That’s how bad I think drugs are.”
tagged 
Andrew Selee, Arizona senator, Congressman Dan Burton, Congressman John Mica, Florida, Indiana, Jonathan Paton, Making a Killing:The Business of Guns in America", Mexico border, Tom Diaz, United States, Violence Policy Center, Woodrow Wilson Center, Woodrow Wilson Center Mexican Institute, drug trafficking, drugs, firearms, jail, smugglers, violence, weapon trafficking in Frontpage 3, News/Commentary
Andrew Selee, Arizona senator, Congressman Dan Burton, Congressman John Mica, Florida, Indiana, Jonathan Paton, Making a Killing:The Business of Guns in America", Mexico border, Tom Diaz, United States, Violence Policy Center, Woodrow Wilson Center, Woodrow Wilson Center Mexican Institute, drug trafficking, drugs, firearms, jail, smugglers, violence, weapon trafficking in Frontpage 3, News/Commentary
Experts Warn Against Engaging Iran
A number of foreign policy experts warned the House Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday against engaging Iran.
“We should not be thinking or talking about engagement yet, just as we didn’t want to intervene with Iran’s internal affairs after the election by forcefully coming out in favor of the opposition,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an assoicate from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace . “I think by prematurely engaging before the dust has settled in Tehran we may implicitly endorse these election results, demoralize the opposition and unwittingly tip the balance in favor of the hard-liners,” Sadjadpour said during hearing on U.S. foreign policy options concerning Iranian nuclear development and societal tensions between the Iranian people and the military government regime.
Dr. Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow at The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute, said that the US needs to adjust it’s assumptions about Iran and “[The U.S.] approach to dealing with concerns about Iranian policies.” Maloney also warned that once the US is engaged with Iran, it must be aware that Iranian government
“The US has to deal to deal with an increasingly paranoid and dogmatic Iranian regime, one that is preoccupied with a low-level popular insurgency and a schism among it’s leadership,” Maloney warned.
Congressman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) advocated applying sanctions against the country.
“We are sitting here talking. They are developing a nuclear weapons program...for almost two decades. They haven’t made any allusions about stopping [that nuclear program]...We’re messing around by waiting and not imposing sanctions today. Every day that we wait we are risking a major conflict over there,” said Burton.
Burton also believes that putting pressure on Iran’s government, rather than on the Iranian people, is the best form of foreign policy for this particular issue.
Wednesday’s hearing was held six weeks after the Iranian election results which sparked massive protests in Tehran.