The growing disaster of Whack-a-mole: Central America's woes: The drug war hits Central America | The Economist

Another excellent look, by the Brits, at the expanding drug war in Central America. It places responsibility squarely on the United States. 

Central America's woes: The drug war hits Central America | The Economist: "Now violence is escalating once more in Central America, for a new reason. Two decades ago the United States Coast Guard shut down the Caribbean cocaine route, so the trade shifted to Mexico. Mexico has started to fight back; and its continuing offensive against the drugs mafias has pushed them down into Central America.

Whatever the weaknesses of the Mexican state, it is a Leviathan compared with the likes of Guatemala or Honduras. Large areas of Guatemala—including some of its prisons—are out of the government’s control; and, despite the efforts of its president, the government is infiltrated by the mafia.

The countries of Central America’s northern triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) are now among the most violent places on earth, deadlier even than most conventional war zones (see article). So weak are their judicial systems that in Guatemala, for example, only one murder in 20 is punished.

A collapse in social order, however bloody, is normally an internal matter. Yet it would be wrong to leave Central America to its own unhappy devices. Although the new violence thrives on the weakness of the state in those countries, its origins lie elsewhere. Demand for cocaine in the United States (which, unlike that in Europe, is fed through Central America), combined with the ultimately futile war on drugs, has led to the upsurge in violence. It is American consumers who are financing the drug gangs and, to a large extent, American gun merchants who are arming them. So failing American policies help beget failed states in the neighbourhood."(AMB emphasis)