Posted on 06/16/2010 4:18:44 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
MEXICO CITY — Gunmen slaughter 19 men at a rehab clinic. Sixteen bodies are dumped in a northern city. Twelve police officers die in an ambush. Soldiers kill 15 gunmen outside a tourist town.
All this in less than a week, yet President Felipe Calderon believes Mexico is getting a bad rap and wants to hire a public relations firm to improve its image. He might want to start with convincing his own countrymen, who are frustrated by assurances that the drug war is going well.
"No matter how much the authorities want us to believe that they are winning this fight, the reality and the perception is that, on the contrary, it's a lost battle," said Miguel Jimenez, 21, a student in Morelia, the capital of Calderon's drug-plagued home state of Michoacan. "Day after day, it's demonstrated with the increasing violence."
Calderon passionately defended his military-led offensive against cartels this week, pledging not to withdraw the thousands of soldiers and federal police battling gangs across the country.
He acknowledged violence has surged — often claiming innocent lives — but insisted it was a war worth fighting and that things are going as planned.
"The strategy is advancing in the necessary direction that was established from the start," Calderon wrote in a long essay posted on his office's website this week. "Some analysts say that it was a mistake to fight crime, that we should not have 'provoked' them. I think this perspective is mistaken."
Calderon said cartels are infiltrating every walk of Mexican life, from police and politics to businesses cowered by extortion demands. He insisted there is no choice but to fight them. If there is more violence, he said, it is because drug cartels are reeling and splintered. And his government is embarking on long-term solutions, including.....
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Calderon can just blame it on George Bush. The media will pick up the chant. Problem solved.
Calderon defends drug war, surviving Mexicans skeptical
Mexico really has a drug war, and they should fight it like a war. They should send in the Army and shoot first and ask questions later.That is if half the Army wasnt on the other side.
And now my serious comment: This just shows what truly pathetic idiots the Mexicans are. They want their government to surrender to the cartels in the drug war. Do they really think they would be better off with a bunch of narcos running their country, completely in control, fighting their territorial wars? Do they really think they would be more secure with the likes of Arturo Beltrán Leyva running their country, that the murders and massacres and kidnappings and shakedowns would stop? That what few property rights and other civil rights they enjoy now would not disappear? And if their government gives up, there will be an even worse stampede across our southern border. And these idiots are the ones who are “reshaping American politics.”
Very true. Our Nanny is Mexican-American who told me the cops and military barely can feed themselves b/c the tax system is so suspect.
Cartels offer a much more lucrative alternative.
Isn’t Baghdad Bob out of a job?
Oh, ok. Well, I know of one propaganda team that will probably be available in about 5 months. They are friendly to Felipe's message to boot!
Will it just be new slogans for the Mexican tourist industry? TV spots with Calderon doing an impression of that Latin dude in the bar hawking beer with a couple of sultry chiquitas at his side? “Mexico is for lovers, and drug lords.”
Or will it be a new direction? “Come relive the glorious days and nights of Pancho Villa. It’s a revolution in vacation experiences.”
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