Phase 2 of the Drug War http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6718

Someone should have put the nails in the coffin of this ill-begotten Bush plan before congressional hawks and defense company lobbyists could resurrect it. President Obama should have remembered his own words at the April 2009 Summit of the Americas, when he underlined the importance "… in our interactions not just here in the hemisphere but around the world, that we recognize that our military power is just one arm of our power, and that we have to use our diplomatic and development aid in more intelligent ways so that people can see very practical, concrete improvements in the lives of ordinary persons as a consequence of U.S. foreign policy.

" As the lives of Mexicans are placed at risk due to a drug war backed by the U.S. government that is anything but intelligent, he should have announced a new aid package to Mexico based on building strong communities and rule of law.But, alas, the opposite happened. Even before the Merida Initiative ended, Sec. of State Clinton was eagerly announcing its indefinite extension, with no exit strategy or—one could plausibly argue in light of the results—any effective strategy at all.Now the administration has gone back to Congress with a request for $310 million dollars to pour mostly into outsourced defense, private security, and IT contracts.The "Merida 2" initiative discussed at the March meeting looks suspiciously like Bush's Merida 1, repackaged.