Posted on 01/04/2007 4:18:46 PM PST by Kitten Festival
Sounding increasingly like a war president in his second month in office, President Calderón rallied federal troops Wednesday, urging them "not to lose heart" in what he said could be a drawn-out offensive against organized drug traffickers.
As the president spoke in the Michoacán town of Apatzingán Wednesday morning, more than 3,200 Army, Navy and federal police personnel prepared to open a second front in the offensive that appears to be defining Calderón´s early presidency.
"Operation Tijuana" will deploy mainly Army troops - using 21 planes, nine helicopters and 247 military vehicles - to crack down on the Tijuana cartel that has turned the border city into one of Mexico´s most dangerous.
Soldiers went into at least two Tijuana police stations and checked the documents and weapons of hundreds of officers.
Federal investigators allege there is a corrupt network of police in the city supporting traffickers who smuggle tons of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana over the busy border crossing into the United States. There were no immediate reports of arrests by the soldiers, the Associated Press reported.
Calderón indicated that the states of Michoacán and Baja California may be only the first of many theaters in his new drug war.
"We have been carrying out this joint operation in Michoacán and as of yesterday a similar one in the city of Tijuana," the president said Wednesday. "But we also need to attend to the needs of many other of the nation´s cities and regions that are threatened by crime and violence."
Wearing an olive-green cap with a five-starred insignia indicating his rank as the supreme commander of the military, Calderón used the language of national defense as he praised his troops for their effort so far in the so-called Michoacán Joint Operation that began Dec. 11.
(Excerpt) Read more at mexiconews.com.mx ...
Get out the popcorn -- he is adrift in a sea of crime and corruption.
I hope you're right but my guess is that this will go on for a few weeks and they'll get a couple of well publicized captures and then it will business as usual.
I think Mexico is too far gone for any one man to ever be able to step in and make a significant difference.
Possibly. But let's wait and see. Sometimes people surprise us and Calderon is rightwing. It raises the odds.
Damn! I wish Calderon was MY president!
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