What Many Have Been Thinking - Its a Civil War in Mexico

In Spanish - Preocupación por México    La Opinion - Los Angeles

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MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Clinton says Mexico drug wars starting to look like insurgency

By Paul Richter and Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times

September 9, 2010

Her comments reflect a striking shift in public comment by the Obama administration about the violence and come as U.S. officials weigh a large increase in aid to Mexico to help fight the cartels.

Reporting from Washington —

Mexico's violent drug cartels increasingly resemble an insurgency with the power to challenge the government's control of wide swaths of its own soil, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.

Clinton's comments reflected a striking shift in the public comments of the Obama administration about the bloodshed that has cost 28,000 lives in Mexico since December 2006. They come as U.S. officials weigh a large increase in aid to the southern neighbor to help fight the cartels.

Clinton compared the conflict in Mexico to Colombia's recent struggle against a drug-financed leftist insurgency that, at its peak, controlled up to 40% of that country. She said the United States, Mexico and Central American countries need to cooperate on an "equivalent" of Plan Colombia — the multibillion-dollar military and aid program that helped turn back Colombia's insurgents...link