By Carlin Whitehouse

We are fed a continuous stream of news that justifiably fuels concern about the instability and rising violence in far-distant lands such as Gaza, Iraq, and Syria. Yet, even as our media sounds the incessant alarm of Islamic Fundamentalism, daily atrocities and large-scale acts of organized extremism are being perpetrated right here in North America that have nothing to do with religion. One needs only to travel south to find a land teeming with terrorists: Mexico.

Citizens throughout our neighboring country are becoming almost accustomed to discoveries of decapitated bodies by the roadside, public hangings, and the stench of human remains smoldering in mass graves; all of this with little to no accountability to justice and the rule of law. It should be no wonder at all why our border is flooded with so many looking to escape. Since 2006, the conflict in Mexico has resulted in over 50,000 deaths. That’s roughly equivalent to fifteen 9/11s.
Just last month, students enrolled at a small, southern teaching college took part in a spirited protest against proposed cuts to the school budget. That story sounds eerily familiar, no? But the plot takes a gruesome twist: 43 of them disappeared, and the evidence points to at least 17 of them being forced to march into the hills to face a submachine gun firing squad followed by an unceremonious funeral pyre – all organized by the local police. Perhaps even more disturbing: anyone with information knows that going to the authorities means they likely join the dead or “missing.”

Think about this for a moment in relation to Greater Portland: what might the brutal inside-job murder of three or four dozen USM students mean for our community/state/nation? How would we hope to bring justice to those who had robbed so many young people of their hope and promise?

How might we then react when realizing that our very own habits of consumption were partly to blame for these events?
It is easy to see the folly in much of the policies of “The War on Drugs.” Americans point a collective finger at elected officials and blame them for all that has gone wrong. On the one hand, we have a coalition of governments exerting massive amounts of effort and resources trying to crack down on the “bad guys.” This has only served to accelerate the growth and development of highly sophisticated criminal organizations vying for the estimated $20-40 billion in profit from trafficking cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine into the United States. Our decades-long mission to stop the flow of narcotics has also lead to a “beautiful friendship” between the military, politicians, and police forces. In Mexico, these parties carry out many of the crimes themselves, or look the other way when the gangsters do. The same weapons, equipment and cash that the U.S delivers are being used to further galvanize the power structure of the drug cartels.

Yet, underneath it all, Americans’ appetites for putting all manner of “recreational” stuff in their noses, veins and lungs have created this monster. Gram by gram a foundation is laid, upon which the cartels are able to carry out their kidnapping, sex slavery and murder.

Former President Porfirio Diaz once lamented, “Poor Mexico, so far from God, and so close to the United States.” His words ring just as true today. If America truly abhors terrorism, it must hold itself accountable for propagating it – in all its forms.