Laura Carlsen
Director, Americas Program, Center For International Policy Posted: May 20, 2009 11:48 PM
Congress Sends Drug War South, Taxpayer Money to Defense Firms
Just when the Obama administration showed signs of rethinking the disastrous "war on drugs" at home, Congress decided to export it big-time to Mexico. On foreign land, this monument to wrong-headed policy takes a particularly bloody and bellicose form.
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.
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The course mapped for one of the United States' most important allies reduces Mexico and its people to the gangster duels being played out in its streets. Worse yet, it casts any real effort to build long-term security for the region under the cold shadow of expensive surveillance planes and fighter helicopters.
The State Department seems to have taken a backseat to the defense interests in both government and the private sector that plan to steer the new security-driven bilateral relationship.
Moving in the Wrong Direction
Many voices have warned against this "uni-dimensional" approach. Mexican human rights organizations called for halt to military funding in light of a sixfold increase in human rights violations by the Mexican military. The decision, just days later, to beef up military-to-military support made a mockery of their concerns.
Washington human rights organizations that tried to temper the original Merida Initiative aid package by supporting unfulfilled human rights conditions have also been steamrollered by the stealthy new funding measure. The current appropriations bill not only supplies more military support, it completely eliminates human rights conditions in the name of the war on drugs.
In a blatant contradiction, just days before the megadose of drug war money to Mexico, Obama's drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told the Wall Street Journal that it was time to end the war on drugs.
"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."
Although Kerlikowske said he hadn't focused yet on the U.S. -funded drug war abroad, in Mexico the "war on the people" aspect of the strategy has resulted in 1,230 complaints against the military to the Human Rights Commission, including executions, rapes and torture last year alone. As violence between rival drug cartels and between the cartels and the security forces increases, Mexican citizens often get trapped in the crossfire.
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The story of the helicopters provides important clues as to why military aid to Mexico's drug war keeps growing, despite scarce funds and negative results.
The original Bush three-year Merida Initiative called for eight Bell BH-412 helicopters for the Mexican Army and Navy. Funding for five BH-412s was included in the 2008 Merida Initiative spending plan.
But since then the Mexican government has complained bitterly that the helicopters have been held up by Washington infighting on who gets the juicy contracts. A Washington Post article cited U.S. officials who attributed the delays to "cumbersome U.S. government contracting requirements, negotiations over exactly what equipment is needed, and the challenges of creating an infrastructure to deliver an aid package that spans four dozen programs and several U.S. agencies." At last report, the helicopters still have not been delivered.
Then on her visit to Mexico on Mar, 25 Sec. of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. government would be providing $80 million for "urgently needed" Black Hawk helicopters. First it was unclear whether this would be a Bells-for-Black Hawks switcheroo already funded in the Merida Initiative or would require new appropriations. When it became clear that fresh financing would be proposed to Congress, it was unclear why the U.S. government was adding the Sikorsky Black Hawks when it still hadn't been able to deliver the Bells.
Bell Helicopter is headquartered in former president Bush's home state of Texas. Black Hawks are made by Sikorsky, in turn owned by United Technologies Corporation (UTC), a giant defense conglomerate. UTC is located in Hartford, Connecticut. Connecticut is the state of Senator Joe Lieberman, Chair of the Homeland Security Committee and senior member of the Armed Services Committee and a prominent hawk in Congress, and Sen. Christopher Dodd who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee.
Another possible reason for the choice of the Bell is that it is technically listed as a commercial rather than a military aircraft. The Black Hawks on the other hand can be and usually are armed. The HH-60 Pave Hawk of the Sikorsky group that is included in the Plan Mexico Plus appropriations has been used in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations (see video). As Narco News reports, similar aircraft have been used in attacks on villages in Colombia.
It's a safe bet that Sikorsky was not happy about being left out of what industry experts are beginning to identify as the latest emerging market for U.S. military equipment and services. It wouldn't be the first time that the rivalry between the two companies has delayed delivery of equipment and sparked internal debates in Washington either.
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The $470 million included for Plan Mexico may seem like a drop in the bucket in a spending bill of over eighty billion. But more than the money, the bill makes a statement that the U.S. government has little concern for human rights in Mexico and that in the Bush security doctrine and defense interests continue to control much of its foreign policy--even with an allied neighbor.