The Second Mexican War

What history will call the Second Mexican War had been going on for over a year before the President decided this week to enter the fray.

Republicans can whine all they want about the President's policy being "insufficient" but the fact is we're on both sides in this one.  It's our drug market being used to buy our guns which are smuggled across our border to kill Mexicans. Increasingly, that trade is taking American lives, as American addicts seek the money for the drugs and the Mexican gangs fight for American territory.

What is insufficient, frankly, is the Secretary of State's statement that we bear "co-responsibility" for the violence. What has Mexico done wrong? They not only ban the same drugs, and seek to enforce that law with the full weight of their military might. But they also ban the guns being used to kill their people.

And where do those guns come from? From Georgia, from Texas, from everywhere in the USA where the NRA holds sway.

If Mexico a failed state? If it is, it's because the United States destroyed it. If it is, then the only way to "win" is to do to Mexico what we did to Iraq. Oh, and to do to the United States what we did to Iraq. If you don't have the appetite for that then you have to find another way.

There is another way, of course. Although no Republican and no one in the Media (and no Democrat) will allow the solution to be broached. Anyone who dares state the solution to this war, the way to gain "peace with honor," will be called a traitor, a scumbag, or worse.

The solution is to treat drugs as a problem of public health, and not a police matter.

Success in the "drug war" has been misdefined from the start, deliberately, in order to keep the war going. Success is not defined by heroin at $100 a gram or $200 a gram. Success is defined by heroin at 5 cents a pound that nobody wants.

I don't want heroin. You want heroin? Does your kid really want heroin? The only people who want heroin are those who are either addicted already or are seduced by how illicit it is. Anyone who has used heroin for any length of time will call it by its true name, shit. It's a liar. Just as cocaine is a liar. They're bigger highs than alcohol, but they're also bigger lies.

Everybody knows that. But our policy is based on the idea that, somehow, if heroin were cheap, everyone would be doing it. They wouldn't. You'd have the same market you have now. The difference would be the value of that market — not enough to pay for its trafficking.

There's another way out, of course.

Republicans could stop treating guns the way I just described treating heroin. Substitute the word "heroin" in the paragraphs above with the word "guns" and you have the NRA's position, the American position, on the so-called Second Amendment.

According to the NRA we all have a "right" to all the "guns" we want, all the AKs and the rest of it. That's the real drug problem. Guns are as addictive as crack, they are even more deadly, and every member of the NRA is an addict. It's like NORML were the most powerful lobby in Washington — it's a laugh. (Apologies to marijuana advocates — I couldn't think of a pro-heroin lobby.)

Instead, we're doing just what we did in Vietnam. We're ratcheting up, one step at a time, as Mexico ratcheted up, one step at a time. We really are bringing the war back home this time, baby.

And this time we're going to lose. Because as Mexico has proven the only way to "win" is to destroy everything this country stands for, to militarize it, to make the United States a total, lock-down, police state. Victory means losing, and surrender is the only possible victory.

You can give us the drugs. You can get rid of the guns. Or you can destroy the United States of America. Your choice.

Hey, I think Mexico might win this time!