Clinton admits US blame on drugs

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the US must take part of the blame for drug-related violence in Mexico, as the BBC reports here:

Speaking as she arrived in Mexico, she said America's appetite for drugs and its inability to stop arms crossing the border were helping fuel the violence.

Her two-day visit comes a day after the Obama administration announced new measures to boost border security.

Some 8,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico over the past two years.

On Tuesday, the White House unveiled a $700m (£475m) strategy that includes boosting security on the border, moves to stem the flow of illegal guns and drug profits from the US into Mexico, and steps to cut domestic drug consumption.

Speaking to reporters accompanying her to Mexico City, Mrs Clinton said: "Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade.

"Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians.

"I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7963292.stm

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Do you agree with Secretary Clinton's statement? And if so, what is the US to do about it?
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Third World/The United States of Mexico Study Guide

Presidente Fox/President Bush on boarder policy
WTO/NAFTA effects on Mexico
Mexican independence
Constitution of 1917 -- similarities & differences with US Constitution
President and Generals of Mexico till mid-20th century
Mexican legislature -- format and characteristics
Political Parties -- PAN,PRI,PRD place on political spectrum
Sexenio presidency
Federal Election Commission
Political Efficacy in Mexico
Technicos
Politicos
Mestizos
patron-client relations
corruption
corporatist structure
Para-statal sector
PEMEX
Mexico's policy of structural adjustment under Fox/Calderon
Economy/Immigration as a poltical issue
Narco War as a political issue...legitimacy of the state
Mexican trade with U.S./U.S. trade with Mexico
Mexican civil service
Mexican political culture
Mexico by comparitive economic sectors
Camarillas
Political cleavages in Mexico
Judicial Review in Mexico?
Mexicans living in the U.S. and the effects on both countries
Presidente Calderon on private investment of state oil/electricity

Presidential Bracketology

It’s bracket time boys and girls, and here is your opportunity to show your stuff by telling us who you think is the best.

Washington or Cleveland; Roosevelt or Lincoln?

Espn.com is not going to help you predict bracket busters in this contest, but a history book might.

Before you predict that your Final Four is going to resemble Mount Rushmore, remember that Washington and Jefferson are in the same regional and that Mount Rushmore doesn’t include FDR or Reagan.

Link here: 74.220.207.112/~mrreedne/usva/projects/brackets/bracket.htm to Jeffrey Reed's website and follow the directions, dividing the class into four brackets. Each take a bracket, print it and fill it out. We'll go over the Madness on Monday.

The directions:

*Divide your class into four groups. Assign each group one of the four bracket divisions.
*Each group must research the presidents listed inside their division.
A focus should be on the accomplishments and failures of each president.
*For each matchup the group argues which of the two presidents was "greater."
This continues until all four groups have chosen the "greatest" president from their division.
*Each group briefly reviews their decisions to the class as a whole and then announces which president they selected as their winner.
*The entire class then debates the merits of the four division champions and reaches consensus on how the four should be ranked.

Note
*Do not discourage "upsets". Explain to your students that the seeds are in place according to numerous surveys of historians, and that so long as their choices are based on historical information they can proceed as they see fit. Of course, they will be pitting their winner against three others, so they want to come up with the president who in their minds is the strongest.

What's a failed state?

Two articles in the current issue of Foreign Policy present the question: Are Russia and Mexico on the verge of becoming failed states?

Half the class will read the first article:

Reversal of Fortune

"Vladimir Putin’s social contract has been premised on an authoritarian state delivering rising incomes and resurgent power. But the economic crisis is unraveling all that. And what comes next in Russia might be even worse...

"Today’s Russia is not the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is not Joseph Stalin. But just as historians view 1929 as the end of the revolutionary period of Soviet history, scholars will (and already do) define Putin’s rule as a restoration that followed a revolution. Restoration—of lost geopolitical influence, of Soviet symbols, of fear, of even Stalin’s reputation—has been the main narrative of the past decade. But as history shows, periods of restoration do not restore the old order; they create new threats. This is what Russia is today—a new, much more nationalistic and aggressive country that bears as much (or as little) resemblance to the Soviet Union as it does to the free and colorful, though poor and chaotic, Russia of the 1990s...

"Confidence in the rule of a wealthy, heavy-handed Russian state has been shaken, and it is now a real possibility that the global economic crisis, as it persists and even intensifies, could cause Putin’s social contract to unravel. What is not clear, however, is what would take its place—and whether it would be any improvement. The nationalist passions and paranoia that Putin has stirred up have poisoned Russian society in lasting ways. Now, 2009 could be a new “Great Break” [1929] for Russia, but the result might just be a country in upheaval—broken..."
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Half will read the second:

State of War

"Mexico’s hillbilly drug smugglers have morphed into a raging insurgency. Violence claimed more lives there last year alone than all the Americans killed in the war in Iraq. And there’s no end in sight...

"Mexico’s surge in gang violence has been accompanied by a similar spike in kidnapping...

"All of this is taking a toll on Mexicans who had been insulated from the country’s drug violence. Elites are retreating to bunkered lives behind video cameras and security gates. Others are fleeing for places like San Antonio and McAllen, Texas...

"Mexico’s gangs had the means and motive to create upheaval, and in Mexico’s failure to reform into a modern state, especially at local levels, the cartels found their opportunity. Mexico has traditionally starved its cities. They have weak taxing power. Their mayors can’t be reelected. Constant turnover breeds incompetence, improvisation, and corruption. Local cops are poorly paid, trained, and equipped...

"In addition to fighting each other, the cartels are now increasingly fighting the Mexican state as well, and the killing shows no sign of slowing. The Mexican Army is outgunned, even with U.S. support..."

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Get into groups to explain to their classmates what they've read. Defend or contradict the failed state prognosis. Ask them to come to some agreements.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4350