Obama and Calderón: Hands Tied

The United States and Mexico share a border of 3,200 kilometers, a common history, mutual interests, and an exchange of merchandise and people. Nevertheless, there have been occasions in which mutual distrust has been unavoidable.

The war against organized crime, in which Mexico is involved from border to border, has as its final objective, prohibiting a business which is produced in part by Americans’ unbridled and increasing consumption of drugs.

Why is Mexico seen as the place where licentiousness is given free rein, while the United States has always been seen as land of freedom? What is prohibited there is a party here.

Because of this, it’s time to move from words to facts. The truth is that the presidents of both countries have little margin for action; they suffer from impossibility, from powerlessness.

Calderón says with reason to his American counterpart: this death is also yours. It is necessary in Mexico’s war that you do your part and not permit the easy transport of weapons into our country. Mexico cannot be a laboratory to test the quality of drugs that your citizens consume illegally.

Meanwhile, horrific figures appear of operations to test medicine on Mexicans as if we were rats. Now there are secondary detective operations sent by the United States, in which, to follow the arms trail, they have provoked a legally armed bloodbath, as if we didn’t already have enough with our own barbarity.

It is saddening the practical difficulties to really change the situation. Neither Calderón nor Obama can do more than look at the sky and express frustration. Calderón complains and says that it is necessary to move from words to action. Obama does not have that possibility, with the internal political situation in which he lives, to make his words a reality.

Of the many clandestine histories shared between the two countries, “fast and furious” is one that erupted in the public opinion and became proof of the general chaos when the United States decided to commit atrocities with weapons, and answering violence with violence was part of the game, attaching itself to the normal operative autonomy of the American agencies and army, accentuated after Sept. 11, 2011.

Now, when Republicans yell because the legally constituted authorities didn’t know about this operation, I ask how many operations the legally constituted governments didn’t know about in this era of bullets and fire.

Can Obama interrupt the golden dream of drug consumption in his socially frustrated country? Surely not. If he wanted to, I don’t even think the political conditions would permit him. The truth is that 9 percent unemployment, combined with the loss of confidence in his leadership, and the radicalization of a presidential candidate who threatens to send troops to help us in our crusade where only we die, Obama can’t even dream of cutting a single cent of the benefits produced in the legal sale of arms to our strongmen.

It’s a shame that good intentions in politics almost never come with the ability to do something beneficial. Despite this, we must take on high levels of efficient policing to interrupt, co-opt and disarm the parallel army that keeps us in check, under a bilateral relationship damaged in its origin, the incessant penetration of drug traffic and American apathy.

If this happens to Obama, with his earnings in the death of the sale of weapons, something comparable would be the case for Calderón, which he would complain or whine about in speeches to the media. What will Calderón do? Interrupt the diplomatic relations with the United States?

When we ask that they do something, what does this mean? More than declare, it might be more advisable to sit and reflect a little and act accordingly.