It is not the practice of this web site to do book reviews. However, from time to time, a book comes along that is critically important reading for anybody concerned with this nation's border and immigration policies. This is one of those books.
By now, it has become obvious to all that America's immigration crisis and America's drug crisis emanate from the same source -- Mexico. To solve either problem, Americans must finally take a closer look at Mexico's government and its dominant political party -- the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party).
Terrence Poppa's DRUG LORD gives us that opportunity by presenting a vivid portrait of one of Mexico's legendary drug kingpins, Pablo Acosta, the scarfaced Mexican padrino who controlled crime along 250 miles of the Rio Grande.
Poppa is an award-winning investigative journalist whose interviews with Pablo Acosta made him a finalist for the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. His work in exposing the ties between the drug kingpins and Mexico's federal and state police agencies earned him numerous death threats; accusations on government-controlled Mexican television that he was a CIA spy and anti-Mexico agitator.
His work also put a $250,000 price on his head, offered by two notorious drug lords who wanted Poppa kidnapped, brought to Mexico and murdered. Fortunately, the U.S. Customs service informed the Mexican government that the United States would close the border from San Diego to Brownsville if the death threats continued. The next day, the $250,000 contract for Poppa's head was withdrawn, clearly exposing a close relationship between the Mexican government and the drug cartels.
But this book isn't about Terrence Poppa (although his life story would likely make an interesting read). It is about Pablo Acosta and many others just like him, ready and able to take his place in the sprawling drug infrastructure that operates inside Mexico.
While most of our news media like to give a lot of hype and celebrity status to a colorful drug kingpin like Acosta, Poppa does all of us a service by sticking to his facts and revealing that Pablo Acosta is really not very unique, an observation that is both newsworthy and very frightening.
Acosta, like so many other criminals, is the by-product of a country suffering from grinding poverty and total government corruption. When there is nothing to eat; no work; and no hope, thanks to one corrupt political party that rules the country with an iron fist, one has do whatever one can to survive. For many, this means doing whatever the PRI says, legal or illegal.
Poppa also documents that the picture of Latin American drug lords invading Mexico and terrorizing that government is a ridiculous. According to Poppa's years long investigations, it is the Mexican government that manipulates the drug trade for its own benefit and that it protects those drug lords who pay their dues by using its army and police agencies to eliminate any freelance drug smugglers who try to do business in Mexico without paying off the government.
This goes way beyond the political corruption of a few greedy individuals. The depth and degree of criminality of the governmental system of Mexico is so astounding that it is hard to believe.
The government functions as a money-making machine for the people that run it. And so you get a president who then appoints cronies -- all of them eager to get rich from the situation. They in turn appoint likeminded people down the line. What you end up with is a vacuum cleaner that generates tremendous wealth for the people in control.
It is most evident in the federal police (the federales). The comandantes buy their positions from the PGR and pay monthly quotas. At the base, these comandantes (and their equivalents--the garrison generals of the army) rake in a lot of money from the protected criminal groups.
Of course, the Mexican people are the first victims of this, for this system guarantees the poverty of the majority. The money that in normal countries would go into infrastructure development, thus assuring steady and progressive economic growth, is skimmed off in Mexico by one racket or another and goes into private hands.
Americans, and Canadians too, are victimized by this through the drugs that poison tens of thousands of young minds; the crime and illegal migration that go hand in hand with the drugs; and, of course, the financial "bailouts" the American taxpayers are forced to subsidize that never help the country but only enable the criminals running Mexico to put more into their own pockets.
While a lot of this information has been leaking out for years, we are grateful that a journalist of Poppa's stature would risk life and limb to put it all together in one powerful, fact-filled book.
Hopefully, this book will open the eyes of Washington's decision makers who, until now, behave as if they haven't a clue about what is going on in Mexico.
Each year, in March, our President reviews the efforts of drug exporting countries to see if the United States should certify their efforts and continue to trade with them. Each year, a handful of Senators and a few organizations like U.S. Border Control, try to convince the President that it is outrageous to approve Mexico's efforts in helping us fight the so-called "War on Drugs" when, in fact, they are the problem, not the solution.
But each year, our State Department, our Drug Enforcement Agency and the President commend Mexico for its efforts and grant certification to this most corrupt and dangerous government.
If you want to do your part in helping this country win a real War on Drugs, buy a copy of this book for your local library. Until the American people understand the problem and demand action from their elected Representatives, this country will continue to be awash in a sea of deadly narcotics and the criminals who profit from them.
DRUG LORD has been revised and updated. The new edition contains much more evidence linking the government to organized crime. Its appendices contain two secret FBI documents that add strength to the case. Also contained in the appendices is a list of more than 25 journalists murdered in Mexico since 1988 who appear to have been killed for their efforts to expose corruption in the government.
This is a scary book about a corrupt government with whom we share a
2000-mile-long border that we contrinue to ignore at our own peril.