Drug War

Yesterday, President Obama visited Mexico and pledged to continue assisting with the drug war. However, Obama did not commit to renewing the assault weapons ban, which is something that he had pledged to do during his campaign, in his meeting with Mexican President Calderon.

If you’re a born-and-bred Latino New Yorker (like me), you probably think accordion-heavy Mexican music is cornier than tortillas. But have you ever sat down and listened to the lyrics of a corrido, more specifically a narcocorrido? The lyrics are as violent (at times ever more so) than a song by pre-family-movie-millionaire Ice Cube.

It seems that we cannot go more than a few days without hearing more about the drug war being waged in Mexico, and now the American military is starting to pay closer attention to the crisis to avoid having to engage in a third war. Our military is already over-extended in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

In his last hours as commander in chief, President George W. Bush made a bold final step by granting clemency to two Border Patrol agents who shot an unarmed man, who happened to be transporting marijuana. The two border agents, Jose A. Compean and Ignacio Ramos, were convicted and sentenced for assaulting the unarmed drug smuggler and then trying to cover up the crime.

It has been 15 years since the Zapatista uprising in Mexico occurred, highlighting the plight of the indigenous populations in Southern Mexico, who have been mired in abject poverty for generations. The movement’s spokesman, the masked Subcomandante Marcos, said that last year he would stop making appearances because support for his cause had “gone out of style.”