Colombia

In an article from September 9, 2010, guardian.co.uk reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has angered Mexico by comparing their current situation to that of Colombia's past. According to the article, a project called The Colombian Plan sent US forces to help with the Colombian security forces in handling their drug problem and also trained and armed Colombian troops. Since the plan's beginning, $7.3 billion has been spent and Colombia's "once-mighty guerrillas are reeling but drug trafficking continues almost unabated. Looking at the recent news of the submarine-like vessel found in Colombia only a few days ago, and the fact that certain rebel groups have innocent hostages, the problem, while it may be better, certainly still exists. Hillary Clinton wants to develop a very similar plan for not only Mexico, but other Central American countries as well.

On the other hand, Mexico claims that while they obviously do have a drug problem, they are not in the same situation that Colombia was in, thus a similar plan wouldn't work as well. The article points out some differences between the two, such as: Mexico hasn't elected a drug lord to Congress, the confrontation of the Mexican army to stop drug cartels, and that the US demand for drugs and the easy gun policy have all contributed. Mexican senators have even stated that they will not accept an equivalent of the Colombian plan, claiming that the dissimilar situations aside, the Colombian Plan itself did not work as well as the US is saying.

Overall, it would seem that the US is looking into a similar plan for Mexico modeled off the Colombian one. Mexico, on the other hand, does not think that such a plan would work because the US is mistaken for thinking Mexico is mirroring Colombia's past. From what I've read on this article, I would have to agree with Mexico with the idea that only putting in US troops and training the Mexican military would solve the problem. The only permanent solution would be to somehow diminish the high demand, which, in my opinion, would mean to legalize certain drugs for private use. A US intervention, however, would do nothing to the high demand of the drugs.

Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/hillary-clinton-mexican-drug-war-insurgency