Militarism in Mexico: Another Unforeseen Result of the Drug War

Daniel RaisbeckIn 2012, during his second failed campaign for president of Mexico, Andr és Manuel López Obrador promised repeatedly that, if elected, he would send the Mexican army back to its barracks within six months of his inauguration. The country’s militarization was a political issue since 2006, when former president Felipe Calder ón, who narrowly defeated López in that year’s election, resorted to the army to combat the increasingly powerful drug cartels.During his third campaign in 2018, when he finally won the presidency, L ópez remained a critic of Mexico ’s militarization, promising to use the warm embrace of criminals instead of ammunition to overcome the country’s persistent security crisis. Since taking power, however, López has not only maintained the army on the streets; he has also increased its power and widened the scope of its activiti es.Under L ópez, Mexican soldiers still fight the drug war, and they still fight in vain if you consider the cartels’ unassailable profit margins. But they are also building infrastructure, most visibly, theTren Mayarailway scheme, L ópez’sgrand projeton the Yucat án Peninsula. Additionally, the army is in charge of customs duties at ports and airports, gasoline and fertilizer distribution, school textbook deliveries, and the provision of hospital materials, among other mundane or strictly logistical tasks that, even in many Latin American countries, fall we ll outside the military sphere.In 2...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs