Congress Sends Drug War South, Taxpayer Money to Defense Firms

A little-known measure buried in the U.S. 2009 Supplemental Bill would provide millions of dollars to corrupt Mexican security forces engaged in an unwinnable drug war. Disguised as a way of "helping" our beleaguered neighbor, the measure goes beyond even what the Bush administration planned. The aid package will push Mexico closer to a Colombia scenario and create a new quagmire to suck up scarce U.S. public resources.

The House version of the supplemental delivers an extra $470 million to Mexican security forces. Of that, $310 million goes directly to the Mexican armed forces. This comes on top of $700 million already provided for in the Merida Initiative, or Plan Mexico, to fund Mexican military, police, intelligence agencies and judicial reform in 2008 and 2009.

What is incomprehensible is that Congress has inserted this pork barrel at a time when the U.S. economy is reeling and its top priority for scarce resources is supposedly to stimulate a flagging U.S. economy that is spitting out workers at a record rate.

And the proposal ignores a pressure pot of problems in Mexico related to multiple crises in the economy, growing poverty, healthcare, governance and employment.

This crisis should be more than obvious to legislators. The swine flu epidemic shaved off an additional 0.3% to 1% of Mexico's projected GDP for 2009. The Mexican central bank now estimates that the economy will shrink around 5%, with some private estimates running much higher.

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