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¿Has conocido a mi encantadora Catrina? [The Mexican Drug War]
The Ender
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.
- Leon Trotsky's Last Will & Testament
Mexico City, 1940
The thread was inspired by today's Extra Credits episode on PATV. The Mexican Drug War (Really, it's a North American affair, but the worst violence - for now - is happening in Mexico) is a pet issue of mine, partly due to my political identity and partly due to friendships I made while working in the eastern hemisphere with Doctors Without Borders. I don't particularly care about another bad video game feeding misinformation to the public about the drug war (there's more than enough chaff throughout different forms of media without getting hung-up on any one particular fiend, in my opinion; nevertheless, it's always nice to see someone having their feet held to the fire for their carelessness), so I'm not going to dwell on Call of Juarez or any other pop culture pseudo-geopolitical piece here (though, of course, feel free to bring it up yourself if you want); I just thought it this seemed like a good opportunity to spread awareness / information about the situation in Mexico & create a space for dialogue / debate.
A Little Bit of History
The Cartels of Today
The Gulf Cartel
The Gulf Cartel is the oldest of the Mexican drug cartels, founded in the 70s by Juan Nepomuceno Guerra - a mythic figure among the poor in Matamoros (something akin to a modern Robin Hood, or at least that's how his legacy is popularly remembered) and a whiskey runner who's organization smuggled most of the alcohol through the Rio Grande during the prohibition era in the United States. By the time prohibition ended, the Gulf Cartel (or it's larval self - it hadn't really matured into a cartel yet) had handed over to Juan Nepomuceno Guerra's nephew, Juan García Abrego, and he adapted to the changing times by switching from whiskey running to cocaine running.
This triggered a dramatic transformation. In order to secure cheap access to a trusted product, Abrego brokered a deal with the Cali Cartel sometime in the early 80s to be one of the primary arteries carrying cocaine up into the U.S. Rather than simply making good on the deal and remaining a runner, however, the Gulf Cartel used the large shipments of cheap cocaine to start it's own distribution, and eventually, growing, operations. The Cali Cartel was too busy with it's own affairs from the mid-80s onward to realize what Abrego was up to, and after the shit hit the fan in '89 in Colombia, the Gulf Cartel was left to grow on it's own.
The organization continued to grow until, for a time, it was the most powerful & dangerous cartel in Mexico. In 1997, the new leader of the Cartel - Osiel Cárdenas Guillén (Abrego was arrested in 1996, and the Cartel's leadership remained rather nebulous over the next few months until Cardenas decisively seized sole control through force) - appealed to members of the Mexican GAFE Special Forces command to become a highly paid mercenary wing for his organization. Arturo Guzmán Decena, a veteran counter-terrorist agent, agreed to the deal and brought 30 of his brothers in arms with him. This mercenary wing would be the crown jewel of the Gulf Cartel until 2008, when ties broke between themselves and their parent, and they formed their own separate cartel...
Los Zetas
Named after the radio callsign of their old leader, Arturo Guzmán Decena, Los Zetas are currently headed by Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano. As you might expect from a group formed by former special forces commandos, they are a military machine without any peers and, at present, the largest & most dangerous of the drug cartels in Mexico. They have a fleet of 'Deuce and a Half' M35 trucks, at least one confirmed T-72 Main Battle Tank (nicknamed "Santa Muerte"), perhaps tens of thousands of carbines (mostly of American manufacture, like the M15, either provided by deserters or scavenged from Guatemala), mortars, Interceptor body armor, modern datalinks... there was even a rumor flying around (probably not true, but worth retelling) that Los Zetas had one of the bids on Admiral Kuznetsov while she was under consideration for decommissioning & sale. The core membership of Los Zetas is part of the Santa Muerte death cult, and they have been engaged in systematic killings of those known to abstain from drug use, those professing Christian faiths, those employed in law enforcement and those who refuse invitations to participate in the drug trade. If you've heard of one of the many sensational murders or mass graves found in Mexico (for example, young girls with their faces skinned to the bone and dressed-up as Catrinas before being put n 'display' at the side of a road or as decor for a nightclub), it was likely Los Zetas perpetrated it.
The Sinaloa Cartel
One of many drug running organizations linked-up with the Medellin Cartel by a man named Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo (sometimes referred to as the Godfather of all Mexican drug cartels), the Sinaloa are a major point of tension between the U.S, and Mexican government; the U.S. authorities consider them to currently be the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world. The Mexican authorities consider them to be a lesser evil and, by and large, an ally of convenience.
For the moment, much like their Colombian ancestors prior to '89, the Sinaloa Cartel is interested primarily in making money while staying under the radar. They engage in gruesome executions of those that they feel are a threat to their business (most notably, burning people alive in literal vats of acid. Yes, just like cartoon villains do), but do not engage in open gunfights in the street or attempt to exterminate entire demographics of a given town, and in fact have proven willing to provide strategic information about their competitors to authorities without any coercion.
The are responsible for the vast majority of drugs that manage to get from Mexico into the United States, are responsible for a large portion of the human trafficking between Thailand and North America and are firmly embedded in parts of the Mexican government.
The Tijuana Cartel
Another organization linked from Mexico to Colombia by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the Tijuana Cartel is today mostly associated with it's methods of hedonistic appeal to young Mexicans, hosting large parties and offering easy access to participation in the black market. It's heavily decentralized, so while there are plenty of specific instances of given crimes, the organization has no overarching motif or 'claim to fame' - they no doubt engage in human trafficking in order to provide prostitutes for their various parties, but to what extent they actually commit kidnappings themselves is debated.
The Knights Templar
Mostly defunct, but worth mentioning if only for the insanity factor: a cult lead by a (now dead) man named Nazario Moreno González, who felt it was his divine purpose to ritually decapitate people, and who scribbled-up a 'Bible' that he allegedly would randomly scream passages from. He demanded that all of his cultist drug dealers not use drugs themselves, and the drug money itself was supposedly to be socked-away until González has enough to erect a colossi of himself.
Oh, did I mention he was insane?
At any rate, the cult now follows Enrique Plancarte, is diminishing in size & relevance and will hopefully be out of everyone's misery in the not-so-distant future.
Juárez Cartel
This is the cartel most Americans are probably familiar with; they're the proverbial 'doormen' to Mexico. They handle most of the narcotics traffic into Texas and the money traffic into Mexico, bankroll a gang of corrupted Mexican police known as La Línea, and engage in open armed 'disputes' with any of the cartels that try to get goods or money through the border without paying them for the privilege. They shot-up a child's birthday party last year because they thought one of the kids might be an informant; that should tell you more or less everything about them.
How Bad Is It? It Can't Be THAT Bad. I Go Vacationing There!
...But the DEA Says We Are Winning the War!
How Does Drug Traffic Get Into the United States? Aren't Our Border Patrols Doing Their Job?
Okay, So Now This Is Where You Get All Optimistic & Tell Me What Constructive Things I Can Do To Be Part of the Solution
Catrina's smile
so thoughtful
of death to let her keep it
- Leon Trotsky's Last Will & Testament
Mexico City, 1940
The thread was inspired by today's Extra Credits episode on PATV. The Mexican Drug War (Really, it's a North American affair, but the worst violence - for now - is happening in Mexico) is a pet issue of mine, partly due to my political identity and partly due to friendships I made while working in the eastern hemisphere with Doctors Without Borders. I don't particularly care about another bad video game feeding misinformation to the public about the drug war (there's more than enough chaff throughout different forms of media without getting hung-up on any one particular fiend, in my opinion; nevertheless, it's always nice to see someone having their feet held to the fire for their carelessness), so I'm not going to dwell on Call of Juarez or any other pop culture pseudo-geopolitical piece here (though, of course, feel free to bring it up yourself if you want); I just thought it this seemed like a good opportunity to spread awareness / information about the situation in Mexico & create a space for dialogue / debate.
A Little Bit of History
Throughout the 80s and early 90s, in terms of narcotics, Mexico was largely analogous to the modern United States - a country full of consumerswhere the black market held a monopoly that drug trafficking cartels used to fund their operations, most of which were run in Colombia. Pablo Escobar, 'the king of cocaine', ran what was easily the largest & most notorious of the drug militias of the day (the Medellin cartel), while Gilberto & Miguel Rodríguez ran perhaps the largest and most well known human trafficking organization ever seen in the modern day (the Cali cartel) - responsible for the kidnapping of perhaps tens of thousands of young women.
The cartels trained-up drug runners and, essentially, carved-up Mexico into a docile assortment of income streams while the inter-cartel violence & leadership remained to the south.
This status quo was violently upended in 1989 when Pablo Escobar succumbed to his hubris, having Luis Carlos Galán - a Colombian presidential candidate - assassinated and declaring war on the Colombian government. The Medellin guerrillas were poorly trained & equipped, a number of Escobar's lieutenants were looking for a way to slip a knife into his back and the Colombian government received immediate aid from the CIA & Delta Force; the cartel fought and was beaten down for 4 years until, in 1993, the Colombian 'Search Bloc' finally hunted down and murdered Escobar (in the meantime, many of his lieutenants had either deserted to another cartel, fled north, or were killed by mercenaries hired by the Cali cartel, who were happy to take advantage of the situation & had become embedded within the Colombian government).
With the cocaine scene in Colombia collapsing, many of the Mexican drug runners simply went into business for themselves as their former employers either disappeared or were killed. Some of the fleeing drug lords from the south took control of their runner operations in Mexico and simply started their old business models all over again, some runners just grew their operations into new cartels in their own right.
The year in which the drug war's focus really shifted from Colombia to Mexico, for most people, was 1995 - when both Roberto & Miguel Rodríguez were arrested. That closed the book on much of the operations of the Cali cartel, which was (and is) the last of the major cartels that once reigned the rural areas of their country.
The cartels trained-up drug runners and, essentially, carved-up Mexico into a docile assortment of income streams while the inter-cartel violence & leadership remained to the south.
This status quo was violently upended in 1989 when Pablo Escobar succumbed to his hubris, having Luis Carlos Galán - a Colombian presidential candidate - assassinated and declaring war on the Colombian government. The Medellin guerrillas were poorly trained & equipped, a number of Escobar's lieutenants were looking for a way to slip a knife into his back and the Colombian government received immediate aid from the CIA & Delta Force; the cartel fought and was beaten down for 4 years until, in 1993, the Colombian 'Search Bloc' finally hunted down and murdered Escobar (in the meantime, many of his lieutenants had either deserted to another cartel, fled north, or were killed by mercenaries hired by the Cali cartel, who were happy to take advantage of the situation & had become embedded within the Colombian government).
With the cocaine scene in Colombia collapsing, many of the Mexican drug runners simply went into business for themselves as their former employers either disappeared or were killed. Some of the fleeing drug lords from the south took control of their runner operations in Mexico and simply started their old business models all over again, some runners just grew their operations into new cartels in their own right.
The year in which the drug war's focus really shifted from Colombia to Mexico, for most people, was 1995 - when both Roberto & Miguel Rodríguez were arrested. That closed the book on much of the operations of the Cali cartel, which was (and is) the last of the major cartels that once reigned the rural areas of their country.
The Cartels of Today
The Gulf Cartel
The Gulf Cartel is the oldest of the Mexican drug cartels, founded in the 70s by Juan Nepomuceno Guerra - a mythic figure among the poor in Matamoros (something akin to a modern Robin Hood, or at least that's how his legacy is popularly remembered) and a whiskey runner who's organization smuggled most of the alcohol through the Rio Grande during the prohibition era in the United States. By the time prohibition ended, the Gulf Cartel (or it's larval self - it hadn't really matured into a cartel yet) had handed over to Juan Nepomuceno Guerra's nephew, Juan García Abrego, and he adapted to the changing times by switching from whiskey running to cocaine running.
This triggered a dramatic transformation. In order to secure cheap access to a trusted product, Abrego brokered a deal with the Cali Cartel sometime in the early 80s to be one of the primary arteries carrying cocaine up into the U.S. Rather than simply making good on the deal and remaining a runner, however, the Gulf Cartel used the large shipments of cheap cocaine to start it's own distribution, and eventually, growing, operations. The Cali Cartel was too busy with it's own affairs from the mid-80s onward to realize what Abrego was up to, and after the shit hit the fan in '89 in Colombia, the Gulf Cartel was left to grow on it's own.
The organization continued to grow until, for a time, it was the most powerful & dangerous cartel in Mexico. In 1997, the new leader of the Cartel - Osiel Cárdenas Guillén (Abrego was arrested in 1996, and the Cartel's leadership remained rather nebulous over the next few months until Cardenas decisively seized sole control through force) - appealed to members of the Mexican GAFE Special Forces command to become a highly paid mercenary wing for his organization. Arturo Guzmán Decena, a veteran counter-terrorist agent, agreed to the deal and brought 30 of his brothers in arms with him. This mercenary wing would be the crown jewel of the Gulf Cartel until 2008, when ties broke between themselves and their parent, and they formed their own separate cartel...
Los Zetas
Named after the radio callsign of their old leader, Arturo Guzmán Decena, Los Zetas are currently headed by Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano. As you might expect from a group formed by former special forces commandos, they are a military machine without any peers and, at present, the largest & most dangerous of the drug cartels in Mexico. They have a fleet of 'Deuce and a Half' M35 trucks, at least one confirmed T-72 Main Battle Tank (nicknamed "Santa Muerte"), perhaps tens of thousands of carbines (mostly of American manufacture, like the M15, either provided by deserters or scavenged from Guatemala), mortars, Interceptor body armor, modern datalinks... there was even a rumor flying around (probably not true, but worth retelling) that Los Zetas had one of the bids on Admiral Kuznetsov while she was under consideration for decommissioning & sale. The core membership of Los Zetas is part of the Santa Muerte death cult, and they have been engaged in systematic killings of those known to abstain from drug use, those professing Christian faiths, those employed in law enforcement and those who refuse invitations to participate in the drug trade. If you've heard of one of the many sensational murders or mass graves found in Mexico (for example, young girls with their faces skinned to the bone and dressed-up as Catrinas before being put n 'display' at the side of a road or as decor for a nightclub), it was likely Los Zetas perpetrated it.
The Sinaloa Cartel
One of many drug running organizations linked-up with the Medellin Cartel by a man named Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo (sometimes referred to as the Godfather of all Mexican drug cartels), the Sinaloa are a major point of tension between the U.S, and Mexican government; the U.S. authorities consider them to currently be the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world. The Mexican authorities consider them to be a lesser evil and, by and large, an ally of convenience.
For the moment, much like their Colombian ancestors prior to '89, the Sinaloa Cartel is interested primarily in making money while staying under the radar. They engage in gruesome executions of those that they feel are a threat to their business (most notably, burning people alive in literal vats of acid. Yes, just like cartoon villains do), but do not engage in open gunfights in the street or attempt to exterminate entire demographics of a given town, and in fact have proven willing to provide strategic information about their competitors to authorities without any coercion.
The are responsible for the vast majority of drugs that manage to get from Mexico into the United States, are responsible for a large portion of the human trafficking between Thailand and North America and are firmly embedded in parts of the Mexican government.
The Tijuana Cartel
Another organization linked from Mexico to Colombia by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the Tijuana Cartel is today mostly associated with it's methods of hedonistic appeal to young Mexicans, hosting large parties and offering easy access to participation in the black market. It's heavily decentralized, so while there are plenty of specific instances of given crimes, the organization has no overarching motif or 'claim to fame' - they no doubt engage in human trafficking in order to provide prostitutes for their various parties, but to what extent they actually commit kidnappings themselves is debated.
The Knights Templar
Mostly defunct, but worth mentioning if only for the insanity factor: a cult lead by a (now dead) man named Nazario Moreno González, who felt it was his divine purpose to ritually decapitate people, and who scribbled-up a 'Bible' that he allegedly would randomly scream passages from. He demanded that all of his cultist drug dealers not use drugs themselves, and the drug money itself was supposedly to be socked-away until González has enough to erect a colossi of himself.
Oh, did I mention he was insane?
At any rate, the cult now follows Enrique Plancarte, is diminishing in size & relevance and will hopefully be out of everyone's misery in the not-so-distant future.
Juárez Cartel
This is the cartel most Americans are probably familiar with; they're the proverbial 'doormen' to Mexico. They handle most of the narcotics traffic into Texas and the money traffic into Mexico, bankroll a gang of corrupted Mexican police known as La Línea, and engage in open armed 'disputes' with any of the cartels that try to get goods or money through the border without paying them for the privilege. They shot-up a child's birthday party last year because they thought one of the kids might be an informant; that should tell you more or less everything about them.
How Bad Is It? It Can't Be THAT Bad. I Go Vacationing There!
As a favorite author of mine might put it, some countries make it very easy to deceive yourself into thinking that you're visiting a wealthy & prosperous enterprise. Visiting a resort in Cancun or Cabo San Lucas is like staying at a hotel on the Nile; it doesn't provide an appropriate perspective (or window of time) for appraising the country's circumstances.
It is very, very bad. There is no country in the world right now where it is less safe to be a reporter, aside from perhaps North Korea or Iran (but those countries aren't likely to even let you in to try reporting in the first place). About 150,000 (that's the figure given by the totally delusional ATF, so it's probably low-balled by at least 30-40 percent) soldiers deserted from the Mexican army between 2003 and 2009, with a significant percentage of those joining ranks with Los Zetas; the Mexican army's current strength is about 50,000.
U.S. officials, who are always reluctant to talk about the sophistication of their opponents, have said that they have never before encountered an enemy so sophisticated as the militarized arms of the drug cartels in Mexico.
Whole towns have been left without any police force after the entire department was either murdered or simply vanished in terror (perhaps you heard the somewhat inspiring story of Marisol Valles García - the girl who was the sole applicant for replacing the town sheriff in Guadalupe after the sheriff disappeared? Unfortunately, Garcia has been missing since March of this year. Her family is seeking asylum in America). Juarez is the world's capital for female homicide victims.
No serious person in american politics thinks that the Mexican government, as things stand, will last more than a quarter of a century. Felipe Calderón smiles and does whatever dumb, demonstrably stupid thing the DEA tells him to do, because he knows that's the only thing that will buy him more time via policing aid & arms supply.
T.V.stations are attacked & bombed. Bloggers are tracked down and executed. Los Zetas posts big billboards along major roads offering recruitment opportunities & 'forgiveness' to anyone who defects from the police or army to join the death cult / cartel.
Overwhelmingly, children are the targets of choice for violence, for recruitment & for drug sales.
This is a war in every sense of that word, and the bad guys are winning. In fact, they are winning decisively.
It is very, very bad. There is no country in the world right now where it is less safe to be a reporter, aside from perhaps North Korea or Iran (but those countries aren't likely to even let you in to try reporting in the first place). About 150,000 (that's the figure given by the totally delusional ATF, so it's probably low-balled by at least 30-40 percent) soldiers deserted from the Mexican army between 2003 and 2009, with a significant percentage of those joining ranks with Los Zetas; the Mexican army's current strength is about 50,000.
U.S. officials, who are always reluctant to talk about the sophistication of their opponents, have said that they have never before encountered an enemy so sophisticated as the militarized arms of the drug cartels in Mexico.
Whole towns have been left without any police force after the entire department was either murdered or simply vanished in terror (perhaps you heard the somewhat inspiring story of Marisol Valles García - the girl who was the sole applicant for replacing the town sheriff in Guadalupe after the sheriff disappeared? Unfortunately, Garcia has been missing since March of this year. Her family is seeking asylum in America). Juarez is the world's capital for female homicide victims.
No serious person in american politics thinks that the Mexican government, as things stand, will last more than a quarter of a century. Felipe Calderón smiles and does whatever dumb, demonstrably stupid thing the DEA tells him to do, because he knows that's the only thing that will buy him more time via policing aid & arms supply.
T.V.stations are attacked & bombed. Bloggers are tracked down and executed. Los Zetas posts big billboards along major roads offering recruitment opportunities & 'forgiveness' to anyone who defects from the police or army to join the death cult / cartel.
Overwhelmingly, children are the targets of choice for violence, for recruitment & for drug sales.
This is a war in every sense of that word, and the bad guys are winning. In fact, they are winning decisively.
...But the DEA Says We Are Winning the War!
The DEA, by and large, uses data from ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), which is known to be extremely poorly collected & analyzed (see: the 'Gunwalker' program), and are in the trap of believing that the situation in Mexico will mirror the one in Colombia (where the outburst of violence and declaration of war by the largest cartel eventually lead to it's downfall, albeit at tremendous costs in human life & property damage). But it clearly does not and is not mirroring the generally limited guerrilla combat seen in Colombia - the cartels are gaining ground over time, not losing it, casualties over the past seven years measure up to perhaps 40,000 people, some of the paramilitary group have access to armored vehicles & actually outgun the local military units & police, and perhaps most tellingly, the cartels have actually succeeded - unlike in Colombia - in completely shutting down arms of both the government & media in large parts of Mexico.
The U.S. government has essentially passed a point of no return on it's 'war on drugs' and drug prohibitions policies; it can't go back, no matter how retarded the policies are shown to be or how impossible the 'war' is to win, because Washington has convinced itself that if they give up this fight, the barbarians will come crashing through the gates just like how they hopped from Colombia to Mexico. Anything that is presented by them will treat the war as a given, and will assume an eventual victory (because otherwise, they believe, their way of life will be annihilated).
You are not winning the war (either the real war in Mexico or the imaginary vs a human impulse), and the drug war in Mexico will only end when either the status quo in Washington changes or the Mexican government falls (violence will continue afterward, of course, but at that point it would be inaccurate to keep calling it, 'the Mexican drug war').
The U.S. government has essentially passed a point of no return on it's 'war on drugs' and drug prohibitions policies; it can't go back, no matter how retarded the policies are shown to be or how impossible the 'war' is to win, because Washington has convinced itself that if they give up this fight, the barbarians will come crashing through the gates just like how they hopped from Colombia to Mexico. Anything that is presented by them will treat the war as a given, and will assume an eventual victory (because otherwise, they believe, their way of life will be annihilated).
You are not winning the war (either the real war in Mexico or the imaginary vs a human impulse), and the drug war in Mexico will only end when either the status quo in Washington changes or the Mexican government falls (violence will continue afterward, of course, but at that point it would be inaccurate to keep calling it, 'the Mexican drug war').
How Does Drug Traffic Get Into the United States? Aren't Our Border Patrols Doing Their Job?
The Mexican / U.S. border is a 3,200 kilometer strip of land that includes heavily forested areas, rivers, deserts, etc. No agency could reasonably expect to monitor it or act as an effective filtration tool against smugglers. Compounding this is the fact that the Border Patrol is understaffed, underfunded and suffers from high rates of employee churn; for the most part, it's a team of rookie law enforcement agents with limited resources vs seasoned criminals with the best equipment money can buy.
Aside from that, drugs can be shipped very easily via snail mail or private courier service (Puralator, etc), or can be put into freight containers to be picked-up at a port, bypassing Border Patrol entirely.
There's also the issue that there are a lot of customers who want the product, and actively help the smugglers to ensure they get it.
Aside from that, drugs can be shipped very easily via snail mail or private courier service (Puralator, etc), or can be put into freight containers to be picked-up at a port, bypassing Border Patrol entirely.
There's also the issue that there are a lot of customers who want the product, and actively help the smugglers to ensure they get it.
Okay, So Now This Is Where You Get All Optimistic & Tell Me What Constructive Things I Can Do To Be Part of the Solution
There is no constructive solution to the drug war in Mexico. To paraphrase a haunting quote I heard being delivered by a survivor at the Holocaust museum: some things are just broken; a dish you accidentally dropped on your way to the table. You can't put it back together, you can't undo what happened. You can only think about what happened, express your regrets, and try not to drop another dish tomorrow.
I would encourage anyone to be very unpleasant when interacting with 'Anti-Drug' movements, no matter how many good intentions they claim to have. I would encourage anyone to read about how the narcotic prohibition laws started, and look at what they reaped. I would encourage anyone to learn how to offer a strong apology in Spanish.
There is nothing you can do about the bloodbath ongoing in Mexico, and there is no realistic chance that drug prohibitions laws will ever be repealed in the lifetime of anyone who can read this. Hopefully we do better for each other in the future, because as the folks at Extra Credits said, this is fucking disgraceful.
I would encourage anyone to be very unpleasant when interacting with 'Anti-Drug' movements, no matter how many good intentions they claim to have. I would encourage anyone to read about how the narcotic prohibition laws started, and look at what they reaped. I would encourage anyone to learn how to offer a strong apology in Spanish.
There is nothing you can do about the bloodbath ongoing in Mexico, and there is no realistic chance that drug prohibitions laws will ever be repealed in the lifetime of anyone who can read this. Hopefully we do better for each other in the future, because as the folks at Extra Credits said, this is fucking disgraceful.
Catrina's smile
so thoughtful
of death to let her keep it
With Love and Courage
The Ender on
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Come Overwatch with meeeee
Do we hope it gets bad enough that the US invades (after pulling out of the other 2 wars)? Given the massive cost in lives that staying out or going in would involve, we're picking from a limited number of bad choices here.
Edit: and what RedTide said. That wasn't the thread to start the morning with. >.<
If we ever engaged in large scale military action, it'd better be after we had set up refugee processing centers and fortified our border. Otherwise we can look forward to a literal flood of people and guerrilla warfare in our southern states.
Oh and I'm sure in the process of either we'll violate the civil rights of a ton of legitimate, law abiding citizens.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Are they going to overthrow the Mexican government?
I don't see why they would bother.
Governing is difficult and requires effort, and would attract a lot more international attention.
Flinging shit from the sidelines while sitting on a fairly lofty/cushy job/position is pretty sweet.
In other words, perhaps the cartels are just following the Republican/pundit system.
Edit: Forar said it better.
Why not?
They simply replace the government as warlords, divvy up Mexico amongst themselves (and periodically shoot each other) - and fund it all with the insatiable American (and world) demand for illegal drugs. It worked for the Taliban. It's working for the warlords who replaced the Taliban. It's what's going on in Somalia.
There is literally no reason to think it won't happen (and the death cult stuff is fucking terrifying). The US is going to end up having to do something dramatic, since having Somalia on your Southern Border ends badly for everyone.
EDIT: To put it in context, I'm not sure you can find any non-strongly ideological retiring criminal lawyer or judge who doesn't think the drug war is a stupid idea (i.e. who doesn't relate it back to some religious BS). Cut off their funding and for fuck's sake police your damn arms sales, and maybe that problem would go away (it would get worse before it got better though).
Much better for the cartels would be to make the government merely impotent.
This assumes rational actors though. They're rational to an extent, but they're engaged in mass murder and slavery as well. Someone's hubris will lead to bringing down the Mexican government, whether by an intentional move or misunderstanding.
The drug cartels are trying to become Mexico's Wall Street - the money men behind the curtains. It's the reason that no one is fucking with the resort/tourist trade beyond a little bit of internal extortion. They want to be the middle men profiting, while the government provides the happy face for the international community.
It's not an unusual setup for the Third World. Los Zetas, in practice, aren't that much nastier than De Beers.
De Beers may be a shitty company, but I'm not sure you're reading about the same Los Zetas I am.
De Beers has been behind ethnic cleansing, mass murder, death squads, child soldiers and systemic elimination of activists. And it has not always done so at a step removed.
They've got a few decades on the Zetas, but our favorite diamond cartel makes them look like amateurs in the cackling evil contest.
What can the rest of the world do? Fences (or double fences, as Bachmann has thought up) do not stop problems.
Money and power. We are not dealing with politicians, but with nihilistic business men.
Besides, De Beers is run by legitimate businessmen.
Would the US be able to manage Somalia and Mexico better than whoever is currently acting like they're the boss? Not without a multi-trillion surge of military encampments every 20 miles across the whole country. Guerillas are impossible to root out.
Aren't they always?
Los Zetas needs to kill a LOT of people to catch up with De Beers.
I would love to find a reliable news source, in english, but for now I can only say that there are leftists and conspiracy theorists that state that it is the current Federal Administration's intention to have the US occupy Mexico, based on how the Federal Government reacted to what Rick Perry said a couple of days ago (Instead of stating a solid "No" they said "We haven't discussed that *yet*"; keep in mind that USg personnel have been in activity inside México for years.)
I have been trying to find a subtitled version of this video for you to see, but I couldn't, but Edgardo Buscaglia, and UN Advisor made a great presentation of the current situation in Mx. (It's in spanish).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg20OkOA8Nc
According to the Mexican Government, "there are no paramilitary groups"; but the UN declared some time ago that there are close to 140-150 paramilitary groups.
Then we have the issue that the Mexican Cartels don't just dedicate themselves to drugs anymore, but to more than 20 types of crimes that give them profits; so even if we had the possibility of regulating drug use in Mx (We have internal issues, we don't have a good enough healthcare system and external issues, "We need to ask permission to the USg") that wouldn't save us from the current situation.
The Cartels have presence in over 50 Countries, their money is safe in Europe, it is interesting that while they get their funds by illegal means, they go to countries known for their trusted legal system to keep it safe.
According to him, we haven't seen the worse yet; and the only way we might see any changes is when the Cartels start messing around with the higher classes and the political classes; those who can really push the current Government to take "real action".
Then again, we can do as former president Fox say and just "declare a cease fire, regulate drugs and amnesty for the cartels" (Why didn't he do that when he was president, well because "I didn't consider things were SO bad when I was President")
Or we can just wait until 2012, have PRI return to the Federal Government and let them negociate with the Cartels, as they have always done. (Another conspiracy theory is that it's PRI the one behind the current violence, in order to cripple the current PAN government and return to it on 2012).
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Oh, I see new posts since I started typing this: No, the cartels wouldn't turn Mexico into warlord divided territories, it doesn't work that way; hell, they have already divided the Country, they actually fighting to set up their borders. You can't consider them as military forces looking for power; they are really powerful organized criminal businesses which use violence to pursue their activities, they already have power.
The Cartels don't really care about overthrowing the Government, they already have control or try to control the people inside the government that they need either with bribes or threats. If anything, what the Cartels would want from the Government is to be left alone (As they were for years).
Keeping the government and current mexican society is even beneficial for the Cartels, because there is a considerable amount of population that is unemployed, angry at the current government, poor and uneducated; which are easy to recruit or convince that the only way of living is becoming a member of a Cartel.
Then you have the small forsaken towns, which have been saved from dissapearing by Cartel Activity money, which work as safe places for the Cartels.
Another thing to consider, is that actually you can't really tell where all the Cartel money is. Financing Political parties, opening Casinos, Industries, Malls, Construction Companies, building roads, everywhere! The Cartels had so much money during so many years that right now there are a lot of legitimate companies that were once started by money laundering. Adding to the former, that there are now several generations of professionals (The sons and daughters of Cartel Leaders) that have received the best education in México and the world and have become businessmen and women (Usually using money laundering).
No, the Cartels don't want to overthrow the Mexican Government, they need it to keep their legitimate businesses; only they need it as it currently is.
We're not likely to invade. And we aren't going to be invited to assist. During Wilson's Presidency we invaded Mexico several times and had more border skirmishes then I care to remember.
Going kind of off-topic, that really wouldn't solve the problem. Switzerland gives a supply of a safe haven for potentially dirty money, to a vast, vast amount of demand. Criminals would just go to Luxembourg or somewhere else.
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I was wondering: would it help if we just stopped going on holidays to Mexico?
Other countries? This is silly goosery; the USA went out against the coke fields of Colombia, and now Bolivia and Peru are the main producers of coke. If the USA went against Bolivia/Peru, the coke business would just move to another country. Same deal with the "legitimate" money laundering business.
An even more serious objection to this idea is that it relies on the dellusions of American grandeur; invade Switzerland, solve the problem, go back home. As this last decade has abundantly proved, this is not the way it works.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
This is true, but if the US stopped the war on drugs, the Cartels would see an incredibly significant sum of money disappear, and nothing hurts criminal enterprises more than a reduction in profits (organized crime as a business model typically only sticks around when profits go up each quarter, as who tells the sacario that he's not getting paid this month?)
While Columbia is a terrible model for Mexico (because it's already worse than it was there), the kind of terrorism we saw from Escobar's cartel took quite some time to appear again. I'm not saying the same thing would happen again, I have no idea, but when Escobar was killed the various cartels kept a much lower profile for a very long time for fear of US reprisal. It did absolutely nothing to impede the drug trafficking itself, but it made other drug kingpins wary about doing things like blowing up highways.
I'm not suggesting that the War on Drugs is a lesser evil or anything, but I'm not convinced that ending it would break the backs of the cartels either.
Ok, go after money-laundering country 2. There's still the 3rd. Say there's 30 money-laundering countries. If they all disappear, country 31 becomes a money-laundering one. It can't be solved.
Both those things are harder to do without the massive amounts of money drugs bring in. Drugs are a brilliant commodity: they're relatively small, high value, easy to transport. They're in constant demand - everyone wants them, all the time.
They also don't have the issues those two other things you mentioned do: drugs are not people. They don't have families, they can't run away and give up the entire operation. They don't really depend on a certain subset clientele existing.
There is a large amount of border smuggling - google Mexican border tunnels, drug mules and the drug smuggling submarines - but the majority of the drug trade comes in on these:
Port security is a joke worldwide. The beefing up of security has largely been about keeping terrorists and random photographers away from the ports, not funding more inspections of what is actually in those containers.
We're talking about a $2 to $5 trillion shadow economy. That money's flowing freely through the legitimate economy, and the world's governments do about as well at policing it as they do the legitimate economy.
I think the demand side of the question should be discussed. If you buy, I dunno, 50g of coke, you just have to stash it up somewhere. Having a enslaved worker isn't, in any way or form, impossible, but it's far more complicated and it implicates some serious logistical questions to the cartels.
Or, if you are in a nation like Dubai or Israel, returned to the brothel by the police, who then collect a fat finder's fee.