Rice Visits Mexico for a Meeting About Its Drug War

[groovedaddy]

MEXICO CITY — The Bush administration signaled its alarm about Mexico’s vicious drug war by sending the American secretary of state on Wednesday to a two-day meeting on improving cross-border cooperation in the battle against the country’s powerful drug cartels.

The Bush administration increasingly sees the violent clashes in Mexico as a threat to American security, and the lawlessness was high on the agenda when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived on Wednesday in Puerto Vallarta for meetings with her local counterpart, Patricia Espinosa. The Mexicans had sought the high-level visit to press for greater coordination with the United States in their fight against the heavily armed cartels, but the world economic crisis was also discussed.

Ms. Rice’s arrival was the latest in a series of visits this month alone by top-level administration officials. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey met with his counterpart in Mexico City several weeks back. Last week, John P. Walters, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, made the rounds of the Mexican capital.

The visits are indications of the Bush administration’s desire to lend a hand to President Felipe Calderón’s government, which has made fighting the traffickers the centerpiece of its agenda but has nonetheless seen security around the country deteriorate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/world/americas/23rice.html?th&emc=th

[ananda]

1. Is this their last salute to the war on narco-terrorism?

Lol

[amdezurik]

2. yep gotta keep the failed drug war going

and "off-shore" it as much as possible