Openly attacking the cartels just made the violence worse. But it's not clear that institution-building has accomplished much, either.
Investigators gather evidence from the road near Mexico City where two CIA officers were shot by Mexican federal police. (Henry Romero/Reuters)
On August 24, plainclothes Mexican federal police opened fire on an SUV that was carrying two CIA agents and their Mexican interpreter, who were likely on their way to a site where U.S. personnel train Mexican security forces. The car, which had diplomatic plates, was riddled with 150 bullets, suggesting that this was something more than a case of mistaken identity, or a friendly-fire incident.
The shooting remains every bit as mysterious more than a month later. It might have been a straightforward case of incompetence -- the Mexican agents might have simply been incapable of distinguishing between a car belonging to a criminal organization and one belonging to a foreign government, even on a road where official vehicles were apparently common. Just as troubling is the possibility that Mexican agents working at the behest of a drug cartel were attempting to undermine U.S.-Mexican security cooperation. It is possible, according to Diana Negroponte of the Brookings Institute, that the shooting resulted from a rivalry between the U.S.-trained Mexican military and segments of the federal police that are still under the sway of one of the country's numerous armed drug-trafficking organizations. "Trust is still so weak that the federal police cannot trust members of the Mexican armed forces being trained by [U.S.] elements," she says. If this is the case, then U.S. agents were caught in the middle of a drug-fueled rivalry between different sections of the Mexican security services -- the same agencies that the U.S. and Mexican governments have been trying to train and reform, thanks to a recent shift in U.S. policy.