There are many reasons why Congress should end the Merida Initiative and countless other, similar programs. For one, they are not authorized by the Constitution. Second, the results are counterproductive and in this case, extremely deadly.
ALEX NEWMAN
New American
January 19, 2010
The Obama administration has continued the expansion of unconstitutional U.S.-government support for the military-led “War on Drugs” in Mexico under the Merida Initiative. He has provided more resources and personnel than even former President George W. Bush, despite the program’s questionable use of resources and widespread reports of human-rights abuses.
[efoods]“The Obama administration has supported the plan and even requested, and received from Congress, additional funds beyond what the Bush administration requested,” noted expert Laura Carlsen, the director of the Americas Program for the Center for International Policy in Mexico City. “The [Obama] administration has given its full support to the failed drug war.”
Under the Merida Initiative, also known as Plan Mexico, the U.S. government provides hundreds of millions of dollars per year to Mexico and other Latin American nations supposedly for border security and to battle terrorism and, particularly, drugs. Approved in 2007 under George W. Bush, the program was originally supposed to unconstitutionally provide about $1.6 billion of “assistance” over three years.
The Merida plan also continues the integration of North America by furthering the notion of a so-called “common security perimeter” with Mexico. The Council on Foreign Relations’ 2005 report entitled Building a North American Community actually called for the implementation of the common North American security perimeter by 2010. So the project appears to be mostly on track as integration based on NAFTA and the Security and Prosperity Partnership continues to deepen with Merida.
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