Mexico

Clinton: Drug Cartels Like 'Insurgency'

Increasing threat to government control.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that violent drug cartels threaten the Mexican government’s ability to control huge chunks of its territory, a major shift in the Obama administration’s view of the drug war there. "We face an increasing threat from a well-organized network, drug-trafficking threat that is, in some cases, morphing into, or making common cause with, what we would consider an insurgency," Clinton said Wednesday. The U.S. is considering sending a big increase in aid to Mexico, as 28,000 people have died in the drug violence. Clinton compared Mexico’s fight to that of Colombia, a country that was 40 percent controlled by cartels at one point. Clinton said the drug-trafficking threat is in some cases, “making common cause” an insurgency. Only last week, a State department official said Mexico’s cartel violence should not be described as an insurgency. American officials also expressed frustration that the Mexican government doesn’t always act on drug intelligence offered by the U.S.