The Drug War and the Southern Border Crisis
Politico reports this morning: “The Senate, following suit with the House, has passed a $600 million bill to increase security along the U.S.-Mexico border. The bill will add more than 1,000 National Guard troops, garrison-like bases and at least one unmanned aerial drone.”
This story reminds me that the discussion on the financial crisis and the recession largely ignores the fact the US is fighting hot wars on three fronts: our southern border, Iraq and Afghanistan.
All three are ‘wars of choice’. The current southern border crisis is a product of the two-generation long ‘drug war’. The US is no closer to winning it than when President Nixon proclaimed it.
The costs of the drug war are many times greater, each year, than the $600 million just appropriated. Leave aside its other baneful effects including destabilization of portions of our northern border. The drug war’s cost alone justifies this chant: Legalize! Regulate!! Tax!!!
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Pingback from The Bell » Clarence Darrow on Prohibition: Lessons for Today’s Drug War
Time 2011/04/17 at 16:11
[...] war has stopped being a ‘drug war’ – a fact with frightening implications for the US. As I’ve written, its northern front has crossed the border. Until we Americans cut off the fuel for this war – [...]
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