And Speaking of Allen Stanford in Mexico's Drug Deals

Mexico, a country with a nearly 2,000-mile border with the United States, is undergoing a horrifying wave of violence that some are likening to a civil war. Drug traffickers battle fiercely with each other and Mexican authorities. The homicide rate reached a record level in 2008 and indications are that the carnage could be exceeded this year.

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"The drug gangs are better equipped than the army," Hakim said.

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Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, calls it "a sickening vertigo into chaos and plunder."

By most accounts, that's not hyperbole.

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The violence along the border is particularly worrisome, analysts say.

"The spillover into the United States is bound to expand and bound to affect U.S. institutions," Birns said.

Pastor and Hakim note that the United States helps fuel the violence, not only by providing a ready market for illegal drugs, but also by supplying the vast majority of weapons used by drug gangs.

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Pervasive corruption among public officials is central to the drug cartels' success.

"There is so much money involved in the drug trade, there is so much fear involved in the drug trade, that no institution can survive unaffected," Birns said.

"This has really revealed just how corrupt Mexican officeholders are," Hakim said.

  CNN

Larry, let me introduce you to the United States Congress and Business Community.

"People are beginning to discuss decriminalization and legalization. ... There's only one thing that can be done: Take the profit out of it."

Pastor calls the problem in Mexico "even worse than Chicago during the Prohibition era" and said a solution similar to what ended that violence is needed now.

"What worked in the U.S. was not Eliot Ness," he said, referring to the federal agent famous for fighting gangsters in 1920s and '30s. "It was the repeal of Prohibition."

That viewpoint has picked up some high-level support in Latin America.

Last week, the former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil called for the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use and a change in strategy on the war on drugs at a meeting in Brazil of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy

So, it is possible to learn from the past after all? But I guess actually ending the drug wars is only desired by the people who aren't making any money off it.

Ecuador has expelled a second American diplomat in just over a week, accusing both officials of interfering in its internal affairs.

Foreign Minister Fander Falconi said Mark Sullivan, the first secretary at the US embassy in Quito, had 48 hours to leave the country.

Both US officials were accused of meddling with police appointments in a US-funded anti-narcotics programme.

Washington has rejected the charges and called the expulsions unjustified.

  BBC

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.