As the debate in #Mexico and the US regarding both Trump's assertion that Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) in Mexico be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) continues to rage on this week, I’m re-upping some important points. Designating one -or ...1/9
..several- criminal organizations in #Mexico as an FTO is unlikely to be effective in addressing the problem of violent crime there. Regardless of how brutal and brazen they have become there, it's the wrong instrument, and it's the wrong toolbox. If your only instrument is ..2/9
..a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. You need a much wider range of tools in order to confront the root causes of crime, strengthen the rule of law, end endemic impunity and corruption, rebuild -or build- law-enforcement and judicial institutions, and mend a ..3/9
..torn social contract. In fact, given that it is illegal to provide an FTO with material support and resources, one could even argue that if Washington does go ahead with the designation, US consumers -who provide the revenue for TCOs- and US gunshops -that provide them ..4/9
..with their firepower- should then also be designated as accomplices to and facilitators of terrorist organizations. Moreover, the potential collateral effects of designating them as FTOs -beyond the challenge of a US president who wishes to continue using #Mexico as a ...5/9
..a political piñata and a bogeyman for US national security on the road to 2020- would also seriously harm economic and trade relations (remember, #Mexico is now the US’ #1 trading partner) and bilateral security, intelligence and military-to-military cooperation that we ...6/9
..so painstakingly built since 9/11. If Washington is serious about lessons learnt since 9/11 as to how to confront terrorist groups, there has to be a crackdown on the guns illicitly purchased in the US and heading south into #Mexico, and more importantly, a whole-of- ...7/9
..-government approach to detecting and disrupting the finances of TCOs and seizing their money, as the US has so effectively done all these years in confronting international terrorism. Few things will move the needle more quickly in the fight against violent ...8/9
..transnational organized crime than going after their resources and their money and moving away from the failed kingpin strategy or the broken supply/demand paradigm that for decades has dominated how we confront drug trafficking organizations. 9/9
