Classically Liberal Stance

Well, as you may or may not know, my topic throughout the summer has been the Merida Initiative. Shortly after I chose this topic, President Bush signed into law a bill that provided funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to which the funding of the Merida Initiative was attached. This was an interesting occurrence because I was at first unsure as to whether or not that destroyed the controversial nature of the topic. I mean, once a thing has been decided, what's the point of arguing about it anymore, right? I was able to get by in the first two units because the aim was to outline and analyze other peoples arguments on the topic and there were plenty of those left over. Now for this unit, I am again facing my original concern. With this in mind, I began thinking of how the initiative is still a relevant topic of discussion. One thing that I could think of was the future of the U.S./ Mexican relationship in the way that it deals with illegal border traffic of humans and goods.
The amount of funding that the initiative supplies is, admittedly, not significant. Many if not all of my sources pointed this out. Why, then, are we spending our governments brain and political power on something that many are not expecting to be all that significant in its impact on the drug trade. I would not like to sound like someone who believes in conspiracy theories, but I would like to look at this question logically and see if something is there. My initial suspicion is that a small cooperative effort will pave the way for more significant and large scale cooperative efforts in the future. At some point in the future, our attention will focus back on the Drug War in a big way. The War on Terror will go quiet eventually and the War in Iraq had better start packing its bags after Obama takes the oath in January. Drug Wars are wars that Democrats like to fight. They are acceptable wars. I would rather the U.S. not be armed with better relations with Mexico once the Drug War becomes mainstream again.
Qualifier: I do not smoke pot.
So, let me try to cram this into a nutshell; my "original" argument is... the U.S. should not claim any successes relating to the Merida Initiative because it would warrant future cooperative efforts with Mexico of unknowable scale that could increase and continue the disastrous effects on the people of the United States resulting directly from the War on Drugs. My audience would preferably be a few of my friends on my back porch, but to take that and make it more appropriate, I would say that my target audience would be semi-well informed, open minded and economically literate 20-40 yr olds. With a topic such as the Drug War at hand, I may have to use lots of appeals to the sense of justice in the readers. I think I can make some reasonable economic arguments as well.
Let me know if my nutshell is far to big or far too small for a 4-6 page paper.

The U.S. helping Mexico to help itself?

I came across this article in the economist and it intrigued me. George Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon met in March 2007 where...

Felipe Calderón took an unusual step for a Mexican president: he asked the United States to help him fight the criminal mafias based in his country that supply much of his neighbour's drug habit. Under the “Mérida initiative”, the Bush administration promised $1.4 billion over three years in hardware (transport and surveillance planes, helicopters and communications systems) and training, with another $100m for Central America.

Of course, with the administration and congress having trouble seeing eye-to-eye ever since the democrats took over again, this promise has had a hard time finding it's legs. This was also a problem for many in Mexico.

Under pressure from nationalists at home, officials had stipulated that they would neither accept American troops operating on their soil nor political conditions.

It's funny to me to see a battle of nationalists on either side refusing to up the ante on the U.S. Mexican drug war when many of these same people are generally all too willing to take up arms against each other as brave drug warriors. Clearly though, everyone involved in the issue agrees that the "drug gangs" are the evil that we should abolish... right? Doesn't it make sooo much sense suffocate drug gangs with money and *poof* problem solved? But wait,

Some people in both countries argue that drug prohibition is bound to fail. Many more students of the drug problem have concluded that money spent on demand reduction has a much bigger impact than attempts to curb supply.

Oh that's right. Prohibition doesn't usually work does it.

Well, barring some catastrophic neo-political enlightenment, this is a controversy to be examined as people will not likely look to reason to solve problems anytime soon. Is it really worth $1.4Bn for such a weak signal? That question is real, I'm not trying to make a point. It could possible be that it is indeed worth the money to signal teamwork between these two nations at their border. What are the alternatives? Do the mexican nationalists have a point about their governments involvement with the U.S.? Can the neo-cons do anything else... at all... ever??

samo-bloggorific

This blog will be used for a rhetoric class, so if there's some posts that you're all like "whaaa?" that is what is the deal

Neo Bloggo-riffic

I have a blog for class that you guys could read if you want to... I cant imagine why you would want to.

dawn of a new era

I am publishing this post from my new iphone. Awesome

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Red Wine...WITD?

Why is red wine traditionally served in stemmed glasses? It seems to me that the stem serves the purpose of keeping your cold-beverage-altering body heat away from cold beverages. Red wine? Cold? WITD?