Failed State Blames Others ... Again

[unixronin]

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has told the BBC the US should do more to reduce the demand for drugs that is fuelling violence in Mexico.

[...]

Meanwhile, President Calderon and other regional leaders have urged Californian voters to reject moves to legalise marijuana in their state.

...Because legalizing drugs might, you know, actually reduce demand for the illegal drug trade that Calderon is complaining about.  And that'd be one less thing he could blame the US for.

[Calderon also] told the HARDtalk programme that more should also be done to stem the flow of illegal weapons from the US.¹

Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass what Calderon says the US should do.  More than 90% of the weapons the Federales have managed to seize from Mexican drug cartels are not coming from the US; they're coming from South and Central America, from Russia, from China, and out of Mexican Army arsenals.

The majority of guns confiscated by Mexico and submitted to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) for tracing do originate in the US.

However, a large number of seized weapons are not sent for tracing.

Exactly.  Starting with all the ones bearing only markings in Russian or Chinese.  They only ask the BATF to trace firearms carrying US-required markings.  It's no big surprise most of those turn out to have passed through the US.  In fact, it would be a bigger surprise if they hadn't.  However, over at least the last three years, those US-marked firearms have accounted for less than 10% of Mexican seizures.  (What's more, it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that a significant number of those are weapons we sold to Mexico for their military.  The Mexican drug cartels get a significant percentage of their "soldiers" from Mexican Army deserters attracted by better pay, and they often take their issue weapons with them.  See the comment above about Mexican Army arsenals...)

President Calderon launched his crackdown on the drug cartels after taking office in December 2006, deploying thousands of troops and police.

Since then more than 28,000 people have died in drug-related violence.

Mr Calderon insisted that the war against the traffickers would be won.

Felipe Calderon can insist whatever he pleases.  But it looks to me like this is a war Mexico is losing, rapidly.

[1]  Yes, I'm quoting out of sequence.  So sue me.