They are just happy to find work.

Seven policemen and a 17-year-old boy were killed during an armed ambush in downtown Ciudad Juarez on Friday, April 23. And though the event is tragic, it is merely just the latest installment of a rampant drug war that is now flooding Mexico with open-air violence, which now blatantly appears as an American-endorsed strategy for military-centric action.

While experts and politicians dispute the origins of such violence, it is impossible for either side of the opposition to deny the 23,000 people who have lost their lives since 2006; or the concrete notion that these poor souls have suffered as a direct result of an impotent military operation, which has been whole-heartedly supported by the Mexican president, Felipe Calderon.

The standard outcome to the military's War on Drugs

It is apparent that this is yet another example of how the militarization of the drug war has only accelerated social disintegration; more specifically, the 1.4 billion dollar Merida initiative, which most recently intensified military action. As the Mexican public demands jobs, security and social programs, their government is only hiring for check-point personnel, crackdown officers, and other cogs meant to facilitate state repression.

It is time to realize (in the global context) that this war on drugs is only a symptom of deep social discordance, rampant political corruption, soaring poverty, widespread unemployment, and the slow disintegration of confidence in public institutions; unfortunately, president Obama is as interested in a one-size-fits all military strategy, which has persuaded the likes of Calderon to continue with his massacre of civilization, without ever stopping to consider, re-consider, or express remorse for his catastrophic errors.