Now That’s the Way to Do It : Secret Mexico-U.S. Drug Chase Was a Confidence-Builder

Officially, the top-secret aerial mission over northern Mexico didn’t happen.

In fact, neither Washington nor Mexico City will confirm that a U.S. radar plane recently pursued a suspicious aircraft from Colombia into Mexican airspace. When the Colombian plane landed on a remote airstrip near Monclova, just south of the border, the U.S. Customs Service alerted Mexican authorities, who nabbed eight smuggling suspects and 1,700 pounds of cocaine.

But it did happen, as Times correspondents Marjorie Miller and Douglas Jehl have reported. The incident shows that two governments that have often been critical of each other, especially on the touchy issue of drug smuggling, can cooperate when they want to--although that is not the main lesson of Monclova. Even before he was elected, Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari was saying publicly that drug trafficking poses as great a threat to his country as it does to the United States. While Mexicans don’t abuse drugs to the extent U.S. citizens do, the corruption that comes with drug trafficking helps undermine whatever trust Mexicans have in their police and, ultimately, their political system. And, sure enough, five suspects taken into custody by a task force of special Mexican federal agents at Monclova were local Mexican officials (the other three were Colombian citizens).

So despite the cynical suspicion by many Americans that the Mexicans won’t cooperate with us because they know that many of their own officials are up to their ears in drug trafficking, the Monclova operation was a success. One likely reason: It was kept quiet until after it happened. That’s a noteworthy contrast to the flap caused recently when Pentagon officials boldly announced they were sending a Navy task force to anchor off Colombia to intercept drug smugglers without bothering to tell the Colombians first. The outcry in Bogota proved that Mexicans are not the only Latin Americans sensitive about heavy-handed gringo interference.

So if Washington has more operations like Monclova in mind--and it should--the odds of success are higher if it avoids making big, public productions out of them. It just takes some sensitivity to Latin Americans’ sensibilities. They know that their people are involved in drug trafficking, and that some of their cops are crooked. But so are some of ours. Instead of shouting about it, let’s offer help quietly, so nobody gets embarrassed. That way only the bad guys wind up angry and frustrated.