Mexico’s Fast Track Toward a Failed State by Bret Stephens – New York Times
… If Trump’s actions have been damaging, López Obrador’s have been disastrous.
His slogan in the face of cartel violence is “hugs, not bullets.” His strategy has been to increase spending on social programs while urging gangsters to think of their mothers. He has claimed, preposterously, that crime is under control, and still insists he has no intention of rethinking his approach. In the Culiacán fiasco, he praised the decision to release El Chapo’s son while ordering the disclosure of the officer’s name who had ordered the operation, endangering the man’s life. Much of the army officer corps now openly reviles their commander in chief.
A parody of a policy has produced a predictable result: 2019 is on course to become Mexico’s most violent year in decades, with about 17,000 killings between January and June. In sheer numbers, that’s a figure that exceeds the civilian death toll in Iraq at the height of war in 2006…