January 15, 2009
About that failed nation-state ...
DRJ, one of Patterico's fellow bloggers, draws a connection between two disturbing developments down Mexico way, but reaches a regrettable conclusion about who the real anarchists are.
Earlier this week, the U.S. military Joint Forces Command released a report that Mexico was one of two countries (along with Pakistan) that “bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse” as a failed state:
“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”
The report that Mexico might collapse was based on the increasing number of murders, crime and lawlessness arising primarily from drug violence and corruption. As a result, U.S. Homeland Security has developed plans to bring state and federal law enforcement and troops to border areas to deal with incursions.
Today’s report from Juarez convinces me Mexico may be closer to failing than the Joint Command report suggested:
“A group calling itself the Comando Ciudadano por Juárez, or the Juárez Citizens Command, is claiming it will kill a criminal every 24 hours to bring order to the violent crime-plagued city.
The announcement of the supposed group was the first known case of possible organized vigilantism in Juárez as police and the military have been apparently unable to stop a plague of killings and other crimes.
“Better the death of a bad person than that they continue to contaminating our region,” the news release stated in Spanish.
The supposed group issued a news release via e-mail stating it is nonpartisan and funded by businessmen fed up with crime.
The group, also calling itself the CCJ, said it would issue a manifesto in the coming days and would set up a system where residents can electronically send information about criminals.
“Our mission is to terminate the life of a criminal every 24 hours … The hour has come to stop this disorder in Juárez,” the CCJ stated.”
I assume these are, in fact, generally law-abiding citizens desperate to protect themselves, their families, and their neighborhoods. I sympathize with their motives but there’s only one word for this: Anarchy.
I differ with DRJ, in that I don't consider the formation of the Juarez Citizens Command to be a sign of anarchy; it is, rather, a rational response to a total failure by the state to carry out its most basic duty: protect its law-abiding citizens from criminals.
The concept of a professional police force depends on a social contract with the people, wherein they forgo so-called vigilante justice (I prefer "self help") in return for the more orderly application of force in support of society's laws, via a quasi-military, state-operated professional constabulary. The failure of the Mexican police to effectively combat the drug gangs, as well as root out the corruption in their own ranks, effectively abrogates the social contract between the people and the state.
There's certainly anarchy in Mexico, but the anarchists are the drug cartels and their assassins who are wreaking bloody havoc throughout the nation. Citizen backed groups targeting criminals seems like a rational -- albeit unfortunate -- response to the headless corpses and bullet-riddled bodies that litter Mexican streets.
Posted by Mike Lief at January 15, 2009 10:55 PM
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Comments
"I differ with DRJ, in that I don't consider the formation of the Juarez Citizens Command to be a sign of anarchy; it is, rather, a rational response to a total failure by the state to carry out its most basic duty: protect its law-abiding citizens from criminals."
You're right, Mike.
We'll see how this goes.
You're linked.
Posted by: Jack at February 22, 2009 12:58 PM