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Amexica: War Along The Borderline (2010)

by Ed Vulliamy(Favorite Author)

3.8 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0374104417 (ISBN13: 9780374104412)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

review 1: A well-informed piece of travelogue/reportage of the literally torturous history of the US – Mexico border in the era of the War on Drugs. It captures well the way in which the simple stories of opposition between nefarious drug lords and virtuous Mexican government is blatant misrepresentation. On the contrary, there has long been a series of not very cozy condominia between various drug cartels and both local and national factions of the Mexican government. The most important aspect of the book is it's unflinching examination of the symbolic and instrumental use of violence on the part of various factions in Mexico, most obviously including the various kaleidoscope of mutating cartels, but also encompassing the Mexican government's own response. For those who have not ... morefollowed events in Mexico closely, the images will undoubtedly be shocking.As Vulliamy makes clear, the brutalization of the war on drugs is in fact a perverse reflex of the democratization of Mexican politics: so long as the PRI monopolized political power (from 1917 until about 2000) drug dealers knew who they had to pay off and territories were clearly defined, which minimized the violent contestation of the plazas (the staging areas for the transshipment of drugs into the US). With the break up of the PRI's political monopoly, it has become unclear who should be bribed or who has the authority to dictate territorial arrangements. Likewise, the increasing professionalization and fairness of the Mexican judiciary has, ironically, made it much harder to secure convictions for drug-related crimes, including murder — which has increased the impunity with which crimes are committed. Vulliamy also pays attention to the way in which US stances on drugs (and related deviant activities) have created the conditions for the brutalization in Mexico. Not only is the US's insatiable demand for drugs to primary driver of the drug economy, but so is the US effort to crack down on domestic production of drugs. Likewise, Vuillamy emphasizes the role of the "iron river" of guns flowing from the United States into Mexico in the growing violence in Mexico. Nor does he shy away from the important role of racism in defining not only the US goals in the conflict but also the daily behavior of both policymakers and front-line agents. Moreover, he wisely notes that just as the fragmentation of political authority in Mexico is a precondition for the violence in that country, so is the fragmentation and competitiveness of different US antidrug bureaucracies a key factor in the ineffective US government response to the challenges of drug trade.Vulliamy's narrative focus stays mostly on the front lines of the conflict: the drug dealers, the border agents, the innocent (and not-so-innocent) bystanders. He is less interested in the underlying economics of the narcotics industry. For example, he pays little attention to the central role of money laundering in the war on drugs (other than noting the DEA's disinterest in "following the money" — which is not exactly accurate), nor about the role of the US prison-industrial complex, nor about the bureaucratic incentives in favor of hardening and militarizing the campaign. The result is a fascinating narrative with vivid characters that alas remains somewhat analytically incomplete. In the end, he does not ask the most fundamental question: why does this hopeless war continue decade after decade? Perhaps because of his unrelenting focus on violence, Vulliamy largely affirms the metaphor of war to describe the regulation of the transnational drug economy.
review 2: A literally shocking non-fiction account of the drugs war raging on the Mexican American border, and the breakdown of society that this is in turn promoting. The book starts in a fairly dry way, but soon becomes a gripping dialogue for the dead as the atrocities and breakdown of society are catalogued through accounts from not only the people trying to address the problems, but also from the bereaved, the addicted, the detritus of this burnt out society that still functions despite itself. Soon enough it reads like the worst excesses of a James Ellroy or Don Winslow crime/horror novel, all the more gripping because you know it’s true despite the fact that you have to strain to believe it. Are the drug barons, the police, the army and the judiciary caught up in some sort of demonic campaign to kill women for kicks? The book infers that this is the case. Are the worst of the junkies, alcoholics and mentally ill patients interred in charitable hostels being systematically massacred by death squads in some sort of attempt at social cleansing? Quite possibly, the book states, and takes you to the places that these massacres occurred, the author literally walking through the pools of congealed blood as he traces the killers’ undisguised bootprints on their killing trail through one of these erstwhile sanctuaries. It is shocking stuff. As the book progresses, it becomes more concerned with socio-economic issues such as the exploitation of cheap labour in Mexico by global (American) corporations, which is probably a book in itself. But it's the drug wars that glue both sides of the border together, with the drugs going north and the guns running south. What to do about it though?Part travelogue, part history, part social study and almost always a bit of a horror story, Amexica is an eye-opener, but don't be surprised if you want to close them just as quickly. Maybe they should just legalise the lot of it and see where it takes us. For white, middle class America, this situation woud be utterly unthinkable and intolerable, as intolerable as the lives of the Mexicans living on the borderline already is. less

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