Opinion: In today’s pages: The Mexican army and the baseball Hall of Fame
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Is the Mexican army the solution to battling the violent drug cartels, or part of the problem? The Times editorial board considers the question in light of allegations of rape and other abuses leveled against troops deployed by Mexican President Felipe Calderon in the front lines of the drug war:
Calderon was taking a gamble when he sent combat forces to fight the drug war, which involves police and intelligence work among civilians -- a role the Mexican military isn’t fully trained to play. Now, U.S. and Mexican human rights activists say they have documented the murder, rape and torture by soldiers of scores of Mexicans believed to be innocent civilians, and the country’s National Human Rights Commission received 559 complaints against members of the army in the first six months of this year. Although Mexican law calls for the military to prosecute its own criminal abuses, advocacy groups note that there has not been a successful military prosecution of a human rights case in the last decade.
The board also notes that U.S. government actions on behalf of religions might be constitutionally banned if performed in this country, but might be a necessary part of foreign relations in nations with state religion--such as repairing mosques damaged in the Iraq War. Still, the board cautions, the government must not see this as an excuse to fund missionary work or in other ways promote religion abroad.
On the other side of the fold, two trade specialists chide resident President Obama for what they call his ‘de facto protectionism.’ And the author of a newly published biography of baseball legend Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige remembers back to when the Negro League player finally won recognition from the Hall of Fame -- and how racism in baseball did not completely die on that day.:
Six months after they announced his election to the Hall of Fame, Paige was in Cooperstown for the induction. The public had weighed in with outrage at the spectacle of a segregated museum, forcing baseball’s rulers to agree to hang his plaque alongside the rest. He quieted his competing instincts by siding, as he always had, with moderation over militancy. ‘Thank you, commissioner, and my fans and baseball players from all around as far as Honolulu, Mexico, and I don’t know where the rest of ‘em come from. I know they’re my friends, I know that,’ Paige said as he looked out at the mostly white audience.His remarks were touching and funny. He talked about barnstorming across the country in cars so tightly packed that his knees were ‘sticking up in front of me. For five years, I didn’t know where I was going. I couldn’t see.’