CNN reports that the president is giving Mexican law enforcement agencies $700 million in addition to “a three-year $1.4 billion package aimed at helping Mexico fight the drug cartels with law enforcement training, military equipment and improved intelligence cooperation.” Homeland Security analysts are being increased and “At the same time, more agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives will be deployed to the border region. The agents will be given updated equipment and surveillance technology to help track the movement of cash, drugs and weapons.” Mexican president Calderon, meanwhile, has said “the United States also must take responsibility because much of the demand for drugs and most of the weapons used by narcotraffickers come from the United States.” A senior U.S. administration official said “we are looking at what U.S. law enforcement agencies can do to respond to the Mexican concerns.”

One couldn’t make up a story this warped. The government of the U.S. is going to throw money and resources at a problem by first funding Mexican law enforcement, who have been unable to solve the problem on their side of the border. The problem is “our” fault because people in the U.S. buy drugs, just as they have done for years despite the U.S. spending billions on the ‘War on Drugs.’ Does appear rather obvious that nobody is solving anything, but since the problem is increasing, might as well throw more money at it.

And Calderon’s statement that most of the weapons used by the bad guys come from the United States? Bullshit. The south of the border bad guys are using hand grenades and fully automatic weapons. Any idea where that kind of ordnance is in the U.S.? Only at government facilities. Seems like the U.S. government would easily find where their guns and grenades are being stolen from and go get them back. We lowly civilians do not have access to those types of weapons, despite what the news media may report. Yes, if you have enough money – meaning in the thousands of dollars – and if you can pass multiple background checks, you can buy a fully automatic weapon. That’s if you can find one. They are not exactly sitting around in gun shops. Yet, the media and attorney general Holder would attempt to make people believe that machine guns and hand grenades are pouring over the border from the U.S. If there are so many here, why don’t a lot of us living here have them?

I think the problem is that politicians are trying to solve the problem. When did a politician ever solve anything? The Mexican authorities have been unable to do anything except remain at war with drug dealers. If it’s war, and it’s threatening us, then we should send our military in and kill the drug dealers. That would really create a shortage of drugs for the addicts in the U.S. – if we don’t want them inconvenienced, maybe our military should buy the drugs in Mexico and distribute them for free to all those addicts. We’d never do that, not after the years of our War on Drugs. And, wouldn’t want to reverse positions by just letting the drugs in and taxing them. The government taxes everything else anyway, but the drugs are bad, so we have to fight them. As an aside – here’s an illegal substance that kills its user. If only it were that simple.