Denise Dresser is a pretty reasonable especially when you consider that she is a professor at UNAM. In an op-ed that appeared in LAT Dresser concedes that Calderon had little choice but to act with force. She also notes the role that corruption and the police play in the drug trade:
The government's drug enforcement efforts are undermined by the corrupting influence of the drug trade, yet the drug trade cannot survive without the protection of compromised elements within the government. Cocaine traffickers spend as much as $500 million on bribery, which is more than double the budget of the Mexican attorney general's office. As a result, it frequently becomes difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys.This leads to the military's role in all this. Much like me she concerned about the affect this will have long-term, particularly in corrupting the military (further):
Police regularly play dual roles: They act as drug enforcers and as protectors of the smugglers. Violent conflicts routinely erupt between police operating as law enforcers and police acting as lawbreakers. So it's no wonder that as part of Operation Tijuana — the Calderon crackdown that made headlines this month — local police were forced to relinquish their weapons.
In the face of police corruption, Calderon has turned to the military to take on the anti-drug effort — 3,300 army, navy and federal officers took part in Operation Tijuana. But moving soldiers — who are separate from the federal police — around the country at will is a cause for concern, and not just because of potential human rights violations. As a result of its expanded role, the military is becoming the supreme authority — in some cases the only authority — in parts of some states. And greater militarization frequently leads to corruption. When cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped from jail several years ago, it is believed that generals helped him do so. So using the military as a roving cleanup force may solve some short-term image problems, but it also creates other, intractable ones.For the long haul Calderon has a plan but Dresser thinks he needs to do more...and she's right:
Calderon hopes to overcome the corrupting influence of the drug trade by creating a new national police force as well as a special anti-drug division, similar to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He believes that with greater resources and more autonomy, those in charge of combating crime will not end up succumbing to it. But setting up a new agency and extending its reach will not be enough. Calderon needs to deal with Mexico's culture of illegality and pervasive impunity.
Over the last decade, Mexico's transition to democratic rule has cast a glaring light on the country's limited rule of law. Often judges, prosecutors and state officials have been unable to withstand the corrupting influence of the drug trade, a $7-billion-a-year business. And the credibility of public institutions has suffered when those proved guilty have eluded punishment.
So, while Calderon's efforts are to be applauded, they must also be accompanied by comprehensive measures that entail more than soldiers on the streets and photo-ops of the president dressed in olive green. The prospects for a stable, less insecure Mexico will be contingent on Calderon's capacity to enact a major overhaul of the country's judiciary and law enforcement apparatus. In other words, he needs to fight not only drug traffickers but the political networks that protect them.
If Calderon's "surge" is unable to rein in drug-related violence and bring its perpetrators to justice, even after using the army as an instrument of last resort, drug lords and their allies will know that the president's hand is weak — and that his efforts are too little, too late.
