13 Feb Bill Clinton Apologizes to Mexico for the Drug War
At a speech in Mexico last week, former President Bill Clinton seemingly apologized for the destruction unleashed upon Mexico by the war on drugs.
Addressing a group of business leaders, students, and politicians, Clinton said, “I wish you had no narco-trafficking, but it’s not really your fault.”
He explained that so-called “successes” in the U.S.-led drug war in other countries had not eliminated the drug trade, but rather just pushed it into Mexico and Central America. “I apologize for that,” he said.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the apology the U.S. owes Mexico.
The U.S. gives hundreds of millions of dollars in military and police aid to Mexico each year – the vast majority of which is funneled into the disastrous drug war. The U.S. government has spent roughly $3 billion since 2008 on the drug war in Mexico alone.
The results of this massive drug war escalation have been catastrophic: more than 100,000 people murdered; more than 25,000 people disappeared; hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes; tens of thousands of orphans; incalculable psychological trauma; numerous mass graves in Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua and other states – each with dozens, even hundreds of unidentified bodies; and a dramatic increase in human rights violations committed by Mexican security forces, including thousands of documented cases of torture, disappearances and extrajudicial executions
Source: Drug policy