Malkin:

Since then, Mr. Sicilia’s grief and fury have resonated with many Mexicans who believe they have become the ignored victims in a battle between organized crime on one side and soldiers and the police on the other.

What follows is a quote from Sicilia asking for the resignation of the chief architect of Mexico’s (U.S. funded) military action against the drug gangs. No “many Mexicans” offer opinions about the clearly delineated fight (Malkin’s inference, not mine) between army and organized crime.

Regarding organized crime — law enforcement individuals, if not the system, tend to be involved in the organizations. Have we not followed news for the last 50 years / watched movies??

In his book Murder City, which covers the Ciudad Juarez killing season of 2008 (which only began the much longer and still running killing years), author Charles Bowden shows that the armed commandos responsible for numerous extrajudicial executions aren’t drug warriors but federal police or the army. Bowden thinks it obvious that with such great sums of money available in the drug trade and the supposed instruments of justice on their side police officers, military commandos, and more likely whole law enforcement departments would want a little piece of the coke-laced money pie.

Malkin ever-so-slightly touches this:

Authorities have failed to check the killings because of a what even the government admits is a combination of corruption, fear and inefficiency.

And later:

The government has remained on the defensive, presenting the choice as one between either backing down and letting organized crime take hold, or continuing the fight along the same lines.

The phrase “false choice” comes to mind. If anything the piece is woefully short. Malkin quotes only Mr. Sicilia, the principal organizer of the large Mexico City rally today, and a one-sentence statement from the president Felipe Calderon.

Here I must admit that I don’t know the road to justice. Legalizing marijuana is a frequent proposal but how does that affect the trade of cocaine and heroin, or the brutal fight for drug money? It would enable U.S. regulation but we all know how well that’s gone re: oil, finance.

Would like to hear thoughts on this. Bowden’s piece and conversations with a friend who lives in Chihuahua (the state including Juarez) are my only education on the matter as it relates to Mexico. I’ve seen the violence it’s created and sustained in Guatemala, a tiny conduit for drugs on their way up to Mexico or the U.S.

By ELISABETH MALKIN