Whack-a-mole: U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation Pillar IV: Building Strong and Resilient Border Communities

The Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center - paid for, in part, by the U.S. government - continues to whistle in the wind while treating current U.S. whack-a-mole drug war policy as a sane option. Note that the joint U.S.-Mexico strategy to address "underlying structural factors" has a glaring omission: drug legalization. 

U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation Pillar IV: Building Strong and Resilient Border Communities: "Underlying structural factors—chronic underemployment, rising drug consumption, and dysfunctional governance—have made some Mexican cities along the border susceptible to organized crime infiltration, fueling the cartel violence that has led to thousands of deaths this decade.

To build resilience against this threat, the U.S. and Mexican governments have designed social programming policies to address root causes, through efforts to prevent youth violence and gangs, engage the private sector to boost jobs, and reactivate local civil society. Grouped under the label Pillar IV, the policies are part of the Beyond Merida security cooperation agenda that includes the dismantling of drug cartels, the reforming of Mexican police and courts, and the modernization of infrastructure and procedures along the U.S.-Mexico border."