TO WIN WAR ON DRUGS, GOVERNMENTS MUST IGNORE BORDERS

If one looked at the Western Hemisphere from outer space, one would
not see the borders that separate nations. At best we would see two
large land masses -- North and South American -- united by a "thin
bridge" between the two -- Central America.

On land, our political leaders and governments see it differently. We
have three nations of North America; seven tiny republics that make up
Central America, and a score of nations in South America. They
carefully monitor boundaries as a most important task.

Leaders of the drug cartels, including those who grow the coca leafs
in Peru and Bolivia, who process it in Colombia and traffic it through
Central America and Mexico do not recognize these borders, however.

They are just as comfortable operating as a "mara," or street gang in
Atlanta or Los Angeles, as they are in northern Mexico, where the drugs
cartels rule the border, or in Central America, where drug gangs and the
Mexican cartels are rapidly extending their reach, or to the high
mountains of Peru and Bolivia, or the jungles of Colombia.

To drug dealers, it makes no difference where they operate. They abide
by no boundaries. Their law is the one they impose by force.

For years, the United States and nations in the hemisphere have waged
an uneven war on drugs. The U.S. government invested more than $1.1
billion in Plan Colombia to help restore a semblance of governance in
that South American nation.

Mexico has received several hundred million dollars for its Plan
Merida to fight the drug cartels. But Mexico is losing the war against
the better armed drug cartels.

Last week, Central American leaders met with high officials of the
United States and the United Nations to try to create a joint Central
American effort to stop the Mexican drug cartels and the local gangs
from doing to the region what they have already done to northern
Mexico. El Salvador and Honduras are studying Guatemala's UN-sponsored
International Commission Against Impunity. With Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton promising another $300 million, and international
institutions and other developed nations another $700 million, it is a
start.

It is not enough. No country is blameless. Some produce the drugs;
others traffic in it; and still others consume it.

The whole region must come together and recognize that the fight will
not be fair -- much less won -- as long as one side ignores borders
while governments insist on protecting them. This is not
pie-in-the-sky. True, it has never been done before. That does not
mean it cannot be done, and it must be done.

The war on drugs has no national boundaries.