LESSONS FROM MEXICO'S DRUG-FUELLED WAR

It's a little unclear what message Attorney General Wally Oppal was
trying to send when he staged a photo-op yesterday with his Mexican
counterpart from Baja California.

They signed a vague statement of intent to think about working toward
collaborating against crime in general. And they'll be discussing
opportunities to potentially share information on justice system reforms.

It was a pretty skimpy basis for a photo-op. Once they started
talking, though, it seemed mostly to be about the drug trade, which is
the prime reason behind both B.C.'s gang violence and Mexico's
full-scale paramilitary war.

Mexico, including Baja, is in the grips of an extraordinary drug war
that has cost more than 8,000 lives in the past two years and has
prompted warnings from U.S. officials that the entire country could
soon begin to fail as a direct result of the violence.

So relying on Mexico to fight the drug lords is a bit like counting on
Poland to defeat the Nazis. They're mounting a valiant, courageous
effort, but the enterprise appears doomed.

It's more likely, as Baja Attorney General Rommel Moreno Manjarrez
suggested, that the help would flow in the opposite direction. He paid
gracious credit to Canada and B.C., and said his own jurisdiction is
open to any offers of aid.

That's obvious to anyone who reads of the showdown underway there. A
new president was elected with a fairly weak mandate. Casting about
for a popular cause, he seized upon the toughened stance on drugs his
predecessor had adopted.

The new government vastly enhanced that effort and has brought the
full force of the Mexican military into play. The various powerful
cartels have responded in kind.

Result? Drug busts and takedowns that look more like military battles
than police-criminal clashes. Thousands of people have been killed,
including about 450 police and soldiers. Severed heads are put on
display at some crime scenes. Police get personal death threats over
their own radio frequencies. A recent Baja bust involved a man who has
allegedly disposed of 300 bodies in vats of lye over the past several
years. More than 1,000 people are listed as missing and the city of
Tijuana listed 843 homicides in 2008 (compared to 376 in Los Angeles).

It's a measure of how risky it is to commit to battle when the war is
fundamentally unwinnable. Mexico, backed increasingly by the U.S., now
has to pour more energy into the war or risk losing. Think of the U.S.
in Vietnam.

One effect of Manjarrez's visit will be to cheer up B.C. authorities
who are preoccupied with our gang violence. It's little more than a
series of pillowfights compared to the horrors routinely taking place
in his home state.

Nonetheless, there are links to be made. Oppal and other authorities
say the open warfare in Mexico has shrunk the market, which has
reduced the supply to B.C., which is one of the big factors in the
wave of gang violence. Only the most perversely obstinate defender of
the "war on drugs" would claim that as a win, though. And none of the
officials around yesterday would go that far. There seems to be an
unspoken assumption that it's just a temporary aberration. The black
market will correct itself and thrive one way or the other, as long as
the appetite is here.

It was striking that the news release churned out for the event didn't
even mention "drugs," preferring to dwell on human and weapon
trafficking, instead of the blindingly obvious drug crisis.

The statement of intent seems to revolve around sharing information.
Oppal said communications technology has made criminals more
sophisticated so "strengthening our relationships with other criminal
justice systems gives the Crown international exposure to other
states' experience in prosecuting organized and gang crimes."

Oppal is even contemplating sending prosecutors to Mexico for hands-on
training. Any volunteers for those missions should read the Los
Angeles Times' two years of coverage of the war before they pack their
bags. He'd be better off offering polite encouragement to Mexican
officials and signing non-committal statements of intent than he would
be putting B.C. prosecutors in the line of fire.