MEXICAN POLICE: U.S. TRAINING QUESTIONABLE

So, should some of the $1.4 billion in funding from the Merida
Initiative go toward training those being fingered as the enemy to
the well-being of Mexico?

We teach them, and we teach them well.

But in Mexico, the feared Zetas are Mexican army deserters who are
said to be behind many of the ongoing brutal killings. Some are
believed to have been trained by the United States at the former
military School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga.

There is some local opining on this situation:

"I think both the U.S. and Mexican governments are starting to see
the limitations of military-police solutions to the problems of drug
trafficking and related crime and violence," said University of Texas
at El Paso Professor Howard Campbell, who specializes in Mexican
cartel research.

"You can train someone, but that still doesn't affect their morals,"
former El Paso customs agent Richard Newton said. "I don't care how
good the training is. The problem is that these people can be bribed
and they may go to work for the cartels."

And recall recent testimony in an El Paso courtroom where a witness
said police in Juarez know that if they don't take orders from the
cartel, they will be killed.

That school in Fort Benning trained more than 61,000 Latin American
soldiers and policemen between 1984-99, according to the U.S.
Department of State.

Some trainees, of course, have gone on to have positive effects in
their country. Others, such as U.S.-trained Manuel Noriega, have gone
on to be drug lords. He became a dictator and drug kingpin in Panama.

In 1999, Congress stopped funding the School of the Americas. Now,
however, part of the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative money approved by
Congress in 2008 is still going to such training. It's time to step
back and take a longer and harder look at how our money is being
spent in Mexico's fight against drug cartels.