[CannaBandit]

Bush's drug war funding plan draws fire in U.S., Mexico
By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Houston Chronicle Mexico City Bureau
Oct. 24, 2007

MEXICO CITY — President Bush's plan to send $500 million in anti-drug aid to Mexico sparked debate south of the border today.

The proposal — which U.S. officials said would help Mexico fight the cartels that threaten to overwhelm its security forces — stoked traditionally deep suspicions here of Washington's motives, with politicians and journalists voicing concerns about U.S. intervention in Mexican affairs.

"There is worry about what it means to our sovereignty," said Juan-Francisco Rivera, chairman of the Public Security Committee in Mexico lower house of Congress. "We need to first understand what this project is about."

The money, part of a two- to three-year package that would total about $1.4 billion, would be spent to train Mexican security forces, upgrade their equipment, including helicopters and aircraft, and strengthen cooperation with U.S. counterparts, officials in both countries said.

The total U.S. aid package would amount to about 20 percent of the $7 billion that President Felipe Calderon's administration intends to spend on the drug war in the next three years.

Approval by the Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress is far from certain because the aid package is attached to a $45.9 billion supplemental spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although Mexico's Congress has no say on whether the aid money can be accepted, Rivera said it can dictate the way it is spent. But political scientist Benito Nacif, an expert on the Congress, said lawmakers would have no such influence unless the bilateral agreement for the aid would specifically allow it.

The debate appears to be splitting along party lines here. The lawmakers' doubts about the program, and their irritation at not being informed of its details, echoed in Washington.

"Congress was not consulted as the plan was developed," said Rep. Eliot L. Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of a House Foreign Relations subcommittee holding hearings Thursday on the plan. "This is not a good way to kick off such an important effort."

Mexican lawmakers also fumed. "The Mexican Congress isn't participating in this," said Cuauhtemoc Sandoval of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, a ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee in Mexico's lower house. "The plan worries us."

Like other critics, Sandoval expressed concern that the aid program would become a back door for U.S. intervention in Mexican law enforcement and strengthen the militarization of the war on drugs here.

"We all recognize that police forces aren't functioning well," he said. "They are riddled with corruption and penetrated by the cartels. But the army doesn't have a police role under the Mexican constitution. That is what worries us most."

Many Mexican critics cite similarities to Plan Colombia, the controversial program in which Washington has spent more than $5 billion since 2000 to fight drug traffickers, combat guerrillas and improve the economy.

The U.S. has sent troops and security contractors to train Colombian forces, destroy drug crops and gather intelligence. Security has improved, but the program has made little headway in stopping the flow of cocaine and heroin.

The leftist La Jornada of Mexico City declared in an editorial Tuesday that there exists precedents of the U.S. tendency to use such bilateral cooperation as a cover for espionage and diplomatic blackmail.

Hoping to overcome such concerns, U.S. and Mexican officials said the aid package would not send U.S. troops or contractors to Mexico.

Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa told reporters that the aid would be "based on the principals of shared responsibility and full — I repeat, full — respect for the sovereignty of each country."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5239642.html

[sometimes]

how about funding medicine, food, and shelter for poor kids, how about funding for safe bridges, how about etc......or what about this country?

[CannaBandit]

Looks to me like more evidence that we are intending on forming a North American Union. Say good-bye to the Constitution and change your Dollars in for Amero's!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T74VA3xU0EA

http://www.spp.gov/

[hempRules]

The anti-christ will be an American president that will become a dictator in his or hers seventh year in office. They will do this under the guise of martial law, because of all the natural disasters. At that point the country will become politically unstable and a civil war of some kind will most likely follow. Then the torture and subjication of its' own citizens will begin. Bush is only the path maker.

If you believe that were not the resurection of Rome, then visit Washington D.C.. Our monuments are just as great if not greater than Rome, and our power and influence reaches just as far. We are the only nation as of now that could trully subjigate the world to our will. As for the rapture I believe that is a by-product of mans' vanity, for expectation of reward as payment for good works. When in the Christian faith it's suppose to be God's grace that saves us, not our works.

Why is ther so much money being spend on something that is going to continue forever and will never stop and the US wont ever have the power to overcome the Wonderfull CARTELS in MEXICO each Cartel is like an us army with FIRE arms boms any one ready for war Bush should start spending that money on people who's homes were burned pour kids the US ARMY ect THIS IS REALITY