Blog Carnival: Mexico – The United States and Violence in Mexico · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

This post is part of our special coverage Mexico's Drug War.
In this fourth installment of the summary for our Blog Carnival: Mexico – Citizenry, Violence and Blogs we present the participants who wrote about the relationship between the United States (U.S.) and Mexico on issues of violence.
The U.S sets a worldwide standard and its actions affect people all over the world. On the issue of violence, many associate the events of September 11, 2001, with a change in the way countries fight against drug trafficking and deal with matters of public security. Although confronting the perpetrators of violence was always a priority, after September 11 the discussion and the actions around persecuting these individuals became more frequent.
Regarding the relationship between Mexico and the U.S, it is also worth remembering that they share a border and that only one other country besides Mexico is as geographically close to the American way of life.
Migrants are also fed up; by Flickr user Brenmorado (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
The United States and violence in Mexico
Just as there is much talk about Mexican migrants who go to the U.S. in search of opportunities and to escape violence, the U.S. also goes to Mexico, but to make war. This is what Jeanne M Dorado of  Lapuff analyzes and questions:
No. I’m intrigued at how since the death of OBL the US has now turned  its beady eye to their neighbors south of the Rio Grande. What really  needs to stop is this senseless Mexican violence that is now an everyday  occurrence thanks to the latest war in vogue, Drugs. As global Gestapo,  concerned with protecting the virtues of gentle folk, how does the US  plan on stopping this frenemy? […] The “War on Drugs” has a nice ring to it and feels like a morally  correct battle to wage. It also jives with all of the other “wars” the  US is currently occupied with, so the pill is easier to swallow. But who is it exactly that we’re fighting against?  And why are all these random Mexicans dying?
The presence of the U.S in Mexico it no only physical. Katitza Rodríguez from the Electronic Frontier Foundation analyzes the U.S. government's plans to permanently monitor public data on the Internet, plans that were unveiled by Mexican newspaper El Milenio:
The document, obtained by El Milenio through a U.S. Freedom of  Information Act request, discloses how OPC’s National Operations Center  (NOC) plans to initiate systematic monitoring of publicly available  online data including “information posted by individual account users”  on social media. […] The NOC report […] reveals that NOC’s  team of data miners are gathering, storing, analyzing, and sharing  “de-identified” online information. The sources of information are  “members of the public…first responders, press, volunteers, and  others” who provide online publicly available information. To collect  the information, the NOC monitors search terms such as “United Nations”,  “law enforcement”, “anthrax”, “Mexico”, “Calderon”, “Colombia”,  “marijuana”, “drug war”, “illegal immigrants”, “Yemen”, “pirates”,  “tsunami”, “earthquake”, “airport”, “body scanner”, “hacker”, “DDOS”,  “cybersecurity”, “2600” and “social media”.
Yalí Noriega Curtis, from Reflexiones de una RIta, also blogs about the role of the United States in the so called ‘War on Drugs’. Besides analyzing possible solutions to this conflict and the role citizens could play, she adds:
A final consideration is to remember the interests of the United States  of America, our neighbor to the north. The USA is one of the largest  markets for Mexican and other South American drug dealers, which of  course promotes the production and transportation of drugs across this  country. This is compounded with the trade in firearms flowing from the  USA into Mexico, supplying the drug cartels with all the weapons they  need to continue the fight against the federal government as well as  with each other. No long term solution to the conflict currently  unfolding in Mexico will be complete without addressing these two  issues. Unfortunately, they do not seem to be a priority at all in the  American cabinet.
This post is part of our special coverage Mexico's Drug War.