Calling It Like It Is on Drugs War

Drugs are bad for society, and should not be tolerated. If you disagree, read on or leave, but I won't hear your comments.

What exactly is the "War on Drugs" accomplishing? Not much, apparently. Read this article for a rough update on how it goes in North America. Have I mentioned how much I like BBC News? They don't seem to have the same agenda as American news, so I can get information there that will never be reported here in America, even when the subject is purely American.

A recap of the article: Mexican drug gangs are spreading their operations in the US, and their profits are increasing, despite this "War on Drugs" that has been underway since I was in Junior-High (maybe before then). The amount of drugs crossing the border into the US is at an all time high, and so are drug-related deaths. My personal experience: it seems like half the people in my apartment-complex are pot-heads. According to the article, Mexican gangs are taking $40 billion back to Mexico every year, while the American government in 2007 pledged $1.4 billion over 3 years to fight the cartels.

Its now 2010: 3 yrs is up. And that pitiful $1.4 bil could never have competed against $40 bil a year. Essentially, the US government is spending 1/85.7th of the revenues of the drug cartels to fight those drug cartels. Actually, less than that, since much of that money is going to fight drugs in different regions of the world. Its pitiful. The gangs are winning.

Now for the part that really bothers me: The Mexican government blames the US government for not sending money and equipment fast enough. This is so revealing. Think about it from their perspective -- they are exporting $40 billion a year to the US, and those US dollars are highly coveted. So the government can say "give us more money to fight the drugs," while probably never intending to take any real/meaningful/decisive action against the cartels -- doing so would end 2 huge sources of money for the country. To put it in perspective, Mexico's top export to the US was oil, at $30 billion, in 2007, and in total they exported $198 billion to the US (link). If you consider drugs, then drugs are actually Mexico's top export, and it accounts for 20% of Mexico's exports to the US. Compared with GDP, Mexico's drug exports account for roughly 4% of its GDP. Enlightening, right? Does anyone still think that Mexico actually wants to put an end to the flow of drugs across the border?

I say its time for the US to assume more direct control of the fight against drugs, at least in North America. Assist the Mexican government with fire-bombing their poppy fields, and don't give them a choice. Here in America, I want to hear news that the FBI has rounded up all of the gangsters and dealers at once. There are thousands of them, maybe millions if you count all the college dealers. Our society cannot afford this dead-weight any longer, and we definitely should not tolerate other governments using the drugs issue to hoodwink us.

----An afterthought, but I wanted to find out about North Korea's connection to the drugs trade, and I found this wonderful article (I will also make a side-link to it): http://www.heritage.org/Research/Testimony/North-Koreas-Connection-to-International-Trade-in-Drugs-Counterfeiting-and-Arms

The Pieces are Falling into Place

Excellent. It looks like someone out there has the same ideas as me, and that is very good for the world. Yes, I did just stroke my ego - apologies!

You see, when nations cannot come voluntarily into an agreement, such as the EU block, then the only thing left is to maintain a balance of power. I don't think the balance of power strategy is very stable, but its better than imbalance, which is explicitly and inherently unstable.

I have long thought that the key to maintaining peace in Asia is... India. Sorry India, I know you don't want this kind of attention -- India is "neutral." But the fact is, there are two emerging superpowers in Asia, and one is India. The other, obviously, is China. But where China is an international bully, India is not. China persecutes, exterminates, and cracks down on non-Han Chinese within its borders ; India is the ultimate plural society, with more personal freedoms than even Western nations, and has shown no signs of seeking global power. Who would I ally with? The one who is not liable to violate my nation's sovereignty or that of my nation's allies.

Its great that America is nurturing a good relationship with China, but that unfortunately leaves the balance of power unaddressed. China grows powerful almost exclusively because of the goodwill of America, while other countries in Asia start to feel squeezed as China applies ever-increasing pressure. With regard to India, it appears China is pursuing a strategy of "encirclement." China moved with phenomenal speed to build close ties with Sri Lanka and build up Sri Lanka's infrastructure. Here's an article about that. As usual, China seems to be rewarding bad behavior, as just a month ago the Sri Lankan "president" dissolved parliament and arrested his opposition. Another example is China's close ties with Nepal, after decades of backing a Maoist movement -- which was really terrorism -- and yet another example is China's backing the PAD in Thailand (People's Alliance for Democracy), which, ironically, seeks to abolish universal suffrage in Thailand. How very Chinese... Other examples include various countries in the Middle East (naturally; China wants oil) and of course China's illegal military bases in the Philippines.

So two questions arise: What is China's motivation, and are they really trying to "encircle" India or is it just a general push for influence in the region? I can't answer the second question, but its moot anyways, since either way, India is the key to balancing power in Asia. To the first question, I can see two possible answers. One, that maybe China seeks to put pressure on India because India is the home of the Dalai Lama. Perhaps if the Dalai Lama were to fall out of grace with India, then China would ease up the pressure? The Dalai Lama is the focal point of the nation of Tibet; as such, the Dalai Lama is an obstacle to China's indisputable mastery of Tibet. The other possible motivation for China's encircling India is that they seek to keep India from interfering with China's goal of Asian hegemony. China has explicitly said that they do not seek hegemony, which means very clearly that they DO seek hegemony - remember two things: its China, and its diplomacy. China glorifies a certain time in its past where it had forced all other Asian nations to pay tribute to China. This is the basis for much of China's territorial claims; if they paid tribute, then they belonged to us. China now seeks a modern form of the old tribute system -- China provides the loans for construction, and countries pay back the loans for the next century. And they are still trying to expand their borders. The only obstacle to China's goal is India -- India may be able to compete with China for providing those loans.

Now throw in the fact that both China and India are getting their first aircraft carriers this year, and you start to see a picture of competition that may not be so friendly. Luckily, as I said in the beginning of the blog, other people can see this picture just as easily as me, and now this article shows that Russia seeks to build closer ties with India. Russia is helping India build nuclear power plants. Russia has a lot to lose if China's power is not checked. China's population: more than a billion ; Russia: 140 million. China could snap up all of Siberia and Russia could do nothing about it. Therefore, Russia needs friends. Russia needs to orchestrate a balance of power so that China doesn't go berserk.

Now if only we could get South Korea and Japan to cooperate more...

Sweden Jails China Spy

A really interesting article; check it out, here.

To say the least, Sweden impresses me yet again! I had previously wondered if Sweden was yet another country that bows down to China, but now it doesn't appear so.

Wake up world! Will you let China become unstoppable? Stand up to them now, don't let them get away with it!