Drug Trade between Mexico and the United States - Essay Example

Drug trade between Mexico and the United s: An Annotated Bibliography "2 Mexican politicians sought; drug cartel link alleged". CNN News. (July 15, 2009) http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/07/15/mexico.violence/. Retrieved 2010-10-24. This article documents the unprecedented wave of violence has washed over Mexico since Calderon declared war on the drug cartels shortly after coming into office in 2006. Between then and the summer of 2009 more than 10,000 people died, about 1,000 of them police. This article identifies the link between the war on drugs and corruption in the border regions of Mexico. "Briefing: How Mexico is waging war on drug cartels.". The Christian Science Monitor. August 16, 2009. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2009/0819/p10s01-woam.html/(page)/2. Retrieved 2010-10-20. This article provides a useful overview and introduction to the subject. It is composed in a Frequently asked questions style with a series of questions such as who are the major players, “What are the risks of using soldiers in the fight instead of police?” and “What progress has President Calderón made dismantling cartels?” It provides little strictly geographic information but is essential background information for a research paper of this nature. Coleman, M. “U.S. statecraft and the U.S.–Mexico border as security/economy nexus” Political Geography 24: 2 (2005) 185-209. Border scholars have on the whole rejected the claim that the U.S.–Mexico border has been dissolved by late modern crossborder migrations of capital, people, and practices. This article proposes that border policing in the wake of September 11, 2001, surfaces the long-standing relative incoherence of U.S. geopolitical and geoeconomic practice. The author describes the border as a security/economy nexus in U.S. statecraft. Corva, Domenic “Neoliberal globalization and the war on drugs: Transnationalizing illiberal governance in the Americas”. Political Geography 27: 2 (2008) 176-193. This article examines the militarization and transnationalization of the U.S. war on drugs as a liberal technique for identifying populations that must be governed in other ways. It begins by placing its relationship with the rise of the penal state in the context of neoliberalism in the U.S., then examines the geopolitics of its transnationalization in context of neoliberal governance in the Americas, and finishes by examining some of the empirical outcomes of this articulation between neoliberalization and punitive illiberalization in the Americas. It presents political geographical research that links globalization and criminalization and maps out the geographically particular and historically continuous ways in the context of the war on drugs. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). http://www.justice.gov/dea/index.htm. Retrieved 10-27-2010. This is the official website of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). It has accurate information about drug trafficking in each U.S. state. It also provides government press releases and the official view of the U.S. Government on the border situation and the role of drug trafficking and the cartels in its policing. “Drug Trafficking in Mexico”. http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/mexico-drugs.htm. Retrieved 2010-10-20. This website traces the history of the drug trafficking between Mexico and the U. S. from 1998-2009. It also identifies the attempts that both countries are making to stop this war. It provides links to hundreds of other articles on the subject. Ellingwood, Ken; Tracy Wilkinson (). "Drug cartels new weaponry means war". Los Angeles Times. March 15, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-arms-race15-2009mar15,0,7497626,full.story. Retrieved 2010-10-20. This article details the militarization of the drug war and the U.S./Mexico border. It focuses on the increasing firepower of the drug cartels, “more appropriate to an army -- including grenade launchers and antitank rockets.” It also deals with the increasing involvement of the U.S. and Mexican military. Geographically this all raises questions about whether the conflict is domestic (crime or civil war) or international (warfare). “FACTBOX-Facts about Mexicos drug war in Tijuana” January 12, 2010. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1220358620100112 This article focuses on the drug war in the border city of Tiajuana. It was written shortly after Mexican police captured major drug trafficker Teodoro Garcia Simental, known for having the corpses of tortured rivals dissolved in acid, in the northern border city of Tijuana with some facts about the Mexican drug war. It shows the pervasive impact of violence in this border city. "Five myths about Mexicos drug war". The Washington Post. March 28, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032602226.html. Retrieved 2010-10-29. This article can be seen as an antidote to some of the most hysterical coverage of the drug-related violence on the U.S./Mexico border. It addresses misconceptions such as Mexico is descending into civil war by noting that the drug violence is restricted to the border region and drug violence is only a Mexican problem by noting that although the violence may not be spilling over into the United States the costs and consequences are. Lawson, Guy. "The Making of a Narco State". The Rolling Stone. March 4, 2009. Originally famous as a rock and roll music magazine The Rolling Stone has graduated into serious journalism. This article presents a gritty account of the personal face of drug violence in border states in Mexico. It brings home the harshness and savagery of the violence and the fact that although Mexico as a whole may not be descending into civil war the border states have become much like a war zone with heavily armed military units on the street (since the President deemed local police too corrupt to deal with the cartels) and frequent firefights between the military and the cartels. “Mexico Under Siege – The Drug War on Our Doorstep”. The Los Angeles Times. http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/its-a-war. Retrieved 11-10-2010. This is an omnibus website that provides links to all of The Los Angeles Times coverage of “Mexico Under Siege – The Drug War on Our Doorstep”. It includes a counter of fatal casualties – 28,228 as of November 10, 2010, an interactive map, a gallery and links to all of the coverage of the issue by The Los Angeles Times. It is an invaluable source for a project of this nature. “Mexican Drug War". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War. Retrieved 2010-08-29. Wikipedia is known for useful research information and a basic background of a certain topic and this is the link to the “Mexican Drug War” article. It has a lot of information about the wars history, the cartels and the effects of drugs on both the consumers and the producers. Monbiot, George. “Yes, addicts need help. But all you casual cocaine users want locking up”. The Guardian. Monday 29 June, 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/29/drugs-cocaine-environment-fair-trade. Retrieved 10-29-2010. This is a fascinating and important article on the world cocaine trade. The author argues that cocaine users and marijuana smokers share a large burden for the drug wars in Mexico because they provide the demand for illegal drugs that is at the root of the drug wars in Mexico. This casts the net much wider than most analysis of this conflict does. In geographical terms this expands the nature of the problem into the United States and in terms of human geography it adds a new population or demographic into the issue. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. World Drug Report 2010. http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/World_Drug_Report_2010_lo-res.pdf. Retrieved 01-11-2010. Many illicit drug markets have reached global dimensions and require control strategies on a comparable scale. The World Drug Report is a contribution towards that objective. It includes a presentation of statistical trends for all major drug categories including marijuana and cocaine. The latest information on drug production, seizures and consumption is also presented. Finally, there is a discussion on the relationship between drug trafficking and instability. Walsh, James. “Community, surveillance and border control: The case of the minuteman project”. Sociology of Crime Law and Deviance 10 (2008), 11-34. As political interfaces, national borders are subject to extensive surveillance and policing within the interstate system. The Minuteman Project, a grassroots vigilante movement dedicated to directly policing the nations borders, is a social body response to illegal immigration and drug smuggling along the U.S./Mexico border. This paper argues its history, ideology, practices and interactions with authorities demonstrate its members appropriate, enforce and extend many of the principles of governance and statecraft; whether, surveillance, policing, security or territoriality. This is a unique human response to the situation along the U.S. Mexico border. Read More