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UPDATE 9.4.24: In a recent episode of Off Leash with Erik Prince, Prince discusses El Salvador’s war on gangs. The situation could be educational for how Mexico and the United States approach the cross-border drug trade and the cartels perpetuating it.
Originally posted March 8, 2023.
Americans are suffering from an epidemic of drug abuse and overdoses. The prime culprit for bringing drugs into the United States are cartels operating along the border between the United States and Mexico. In the past, the United States government has hired contractors to help train Mexican military and police forces to fight the cartels, so there is a precedent for simply hiring someone like Erik Prince, founder and former head of Blackwater, to deal with the problem. In 2009, Reuters reported on U.S. security firms working to help Mexico in its war against the drug cartels, writing:
MEXICO CITY, July 16 (Reuters) – As Mexico battles to keep a lid on raging drug war violence, U.S. companies are fighting over millions of dollars in contracts for military equipment and training under a long-promised U.S aid package.
Private U.S. security firms will get the bulk of a $1.4 billion package pledged by the United States in 2007 to help its southern neighbor crush rampant drug gang carnage. Only a fraction of the aid has been delivered so far.
Almost all of an initial $400 million tranche approved by the U.S. Congress in 2008 and being released bit by bit to buy helicopters and inspection gear and train Mexican police will be doled out to 30 or 40 U.S. companies, said a U.S. embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The state-of-the art equipment, promised by former President George W. Bush at a meeting with President Felipe Calderon in the colonial city of Merida, is badly needed in Mexico as the death toll from a 2 1/2-year drug war tops 12,800.
Why couldn’t the U.S. and Mexico hire firms like Blackwater (renamed to Xe Services, then purchased and renamed again to Academi, then merged with Triple Canopy, becoming part of Constellis Holdings)?
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