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In Mexico, self-defense groups battle a cartel
The Washington Post ^ | September 9, 2013 | Stephanie McCrummen

Posted on 09/10/2013 6:27:20 PM PDT by Plainsman

TEPALCATEPEC, Mexico — An audacious band of citizen militias battling a brutal drug cartel in the hills of central Mexico is becoming increasingly well-armed and coordinated in an attempt to end years of violence, extortion and humiliation.

What began as a few scattered self-defense groups has spread in recent months to dozens of towns across Michoacan, a volatile state gripped by the cultlike Knights Templar, a drug gang known for taxing locals on everything from cows to tortillas and executing those who do not comply.

The army deployed to the area in May, but the soldiers are mostly manning checkpoints. Instead, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is facing the awkward fact that a group of scrappy locals appears to be chasing the gangsters away, something that federal security forces have not managed in a decade.

They include a 63-year-old pot-bellied farmer mindful that he can run only 30 yards; a skinny 23-year-old raised in Oregon who said he had never used a gun before; and a man who wears a metal bowl stuffed with newspaper as a helmet. A 47-year-old bureaucrat, who is sure that she will be killed if the gang retakes her town, said of her decision to join the cause: “I may live one year or 15, but I will live free.”

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: crime; mexico; secondamendment
Amazing story.
1 posted on 09/10/2013 6:27:20 PM PDT by Plainsman
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To: Plainsman

Are the self defense groups being shot at with Eric Holder’s weapons from Fast and Furious? I wouldn’t be surprised.


2 posted on 09/10/2013 6:31:27 PM PDT by Stepan12
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To: Plainsman
"“I may live one year or 15, but I will live free.”"

Coming to a neighborhood near you soon.

3 posted on 09/10/2013 6:36:50 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Stepan12
Are the self defense groups being shot at with Eric Holder’s weapons from Fast and Furious? I wouldn’t be surprised.

That's a reasonable guess, Stepan12, and here's another: the narcotics cartels are also using weapons furnished by the U.S. State Department, ostensibly to the Mexican army.

I have no doubt a great deal of narcotics cartel money is "unexpectedly" or "inexplicably" ending up in Democratic [sic] party coffers.

4 posted on 09/10/2013 6:38:59 PM PDT by Standing Wolf (No tyrant should ever be allowed to die of natural causes.)
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To: Plainsman

“Since then, Mireles said, “we decided not to detain anyone anymore.””


5 posted on 09/10/2013 6:41:09 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Standing Wolf

Why can’t we provide these people with air support. It’s a shorter flight than Syria.


6 posted on 09/10/2013 6:41:42 PM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: Plainsman

These criminals are shameless. How can they liken themselves to a monastic order that risked their lives to recover the Holy Land?


7 posted on 09/10/2013 6:48:31 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: Plainsman
Los Pepes, the Columbian vigilante group, helped defeat Pablo Escobar because they could operate outside the law and commit brutalities that were equal to the cartel's. In a rare bit of insight Hillary Clinton said Mexico could defeat the cartels by using the Columbian model.
8 posted on 09/10/2013 7:11:58 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee
Unfortunately, Los Pepes were largely members of rival drug cartels.
9 posted on 09/10/2013 7:17:58 PM PDT by rdcbn
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To: USNBandit

Why can’t we provide these people with air support. It’s a shorter flight than Syria.


Some of the drugs, especially meth, qualify a chemical weapons


10 posted on 09/10/2013 7:18:54 PM PDT by rdcbn
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To: rdcbn
[Unfortunately, Los Pepes were largely members of rival drug cartels.]

No wonder they were so bloodthirsty.

11 posted on 09/10/2013 8:06:55 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
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