Posted on 09/30/2011 8:39:40 AM PDT by Libloather
I agree. Eventually we will have some sort of “war” with the cartels. That would be bad.
Excellent point.
Destroying the drug cartels is not an impossible task. Two decades ago, Colombia was faced with a similar — and in many ways more daunting — struggle. In the early 1990s, many Colombians, including police officers, judges, presidential candidates, and journalists, were assassinated by the most powerful and fearsome drug-trafficking organizations the world has ever seen: the Cali and Medellín cartels. Yet within a decade, the Colombian government defeated them, with Washington’s help. The United States played a vital role in supporting the Colombian government, and it should do the same for Mexico.
The stakes in Mexico are high. If the cartels win, these criminal enterprises will continue to operate outside the state and the rule of law, undermining Mexico’s democracy. The outcome matters for the United States as well — if the drug cartels succeed, the United States will share a 2,000-mile border with a narcostate controlled by powerful transnational drug cartels that threaten the stability of Central and South America.
THE MEXICAN CONNECTION
Over the last two decades, Mexican drug cartels have acquired unprecedented power to corrupt and intimidate government officials and civilians. Three factors account for their rise: preexisting corruption, the inability of weak law enforcement institutions to counter them, and the demand for illegal drugs in the United States.
Drug trafficking and cross-border smuggling certainly existed in Mexico before the 1980s, but the trade was chiefly confined to marijuana and small quantities of heroin and involved a large number of small trafficking organizations. Almost no cocaine was smuggled through Mexico into the United States before 1984; the vast majority of illegal shipments came through the Bahamas or directly from Colombia to Florida on propeller planes. This changed in the mid-1980s, after the United States shut down the direct flow of cocaine into southern Florida and the Bahamas and made it increasingly difficult to smuggle large amounts of cocaine through the Caribbean. In reaction to Washington’s increasingly successful interdiction strategy, the Colombian cartels forged a connection with major Mexican trafficking organizations. They dispatched a representative to Mexico, Juan Ramón Matta Ballasteros, who came to an agreement with Mexican drug-trafficking organizations in 1984. In exchange for $1,000 per kilogram of cocaine, the Mexican trafficking organizations would smuggle Colombian cocaine into the United States.
Within a few years, 80-90 percent of the cocaine being smuggled into the United States — hundreds of metric tons annually — was moving through Mexico. After the Mexican connection was forged, Colombian propeller planes — with extra fuel tanks and stripped of seats — began landing on remote airstrips in northern Mexico, carrying 600-800 kilos of cocaine per flight. The smuggling business added greatly to the overall revenues of the major Mexican trafficking organizations. As a result, powerful, more consolidated drug cartels began to emerge in Mexico, including the Gulf, Juárez, Sinaloa, and Tijuana cartels.
At first, the Mexican cartels acted primarily as transporters for the Colombian cartels and were paid in cash. But by the early 1990s, the Colombian cartels were paying them in powder cocaine, which led the Mexican trafficking organizations to create their own distribution networks in the United States and within Mexico, eventually eclipsing the Colombians’ influence. Over the last two decades, these organizations have evolved into vertically integrated, multinational criminal groups. They are headquartered in Mexico, but they have distribution arms in over 200 cities throughout the United States — from Sacramento to Charlotte — and have established a presence in Guatemala and other Central American nations. Their major markets for cocaine are not just in the United States but also in Mexico itself and as far away as Europe. Although their primary business is cocaine and, more recently, methamphetamine, these groups also engage in other criminal activities, including human trafficking, kidnapping, and extortion.
Concerning your second point - Mexico has done that in some areas with great success, on a local basis. Some regional military commanders have allowed the construction of local militia, sometimes even going out of their way to help. Probably the best example of this would be the Mexican Mormons. The Mormons founded several colonies in Mexico, and several have survived to this day. They tend to be rather insular communities in the north-western states of Mexico. In at least one of these states, when the local regional military commander was asked by the predominately Mormon communities for greater protection from the cartels, he said that he lacked the troops needed to patrol their towns in addition to the other areas under his responsibility. However, he also said that he’d be willing to turn a blind eye towards their forming a militia, and even went so far as to help provide them with weapons.
As for training? Well, the Mexican Mormons simply sent word across the border to their fellow Mormons in the US. Plenty of combat veterans, fresh from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan streamed across the boarder to help organize these militias. From what I’ve heard through the grapevine from my Grandfather who lives in Coahuila, they’ve done a good job keeping the region free from cartel thuggery.
Still, I have my doubts as to whether the central government will decide to enact such measures on a wide scale. The central government of Mexico has always had problems of legitimacy, and there have been many regional separatist movements in the past. Though only one of these ever succeeded (the rebellion in Texas), the threat of regionalism never left the minds of later governments, and especially after the revolution, Mexico City was careful to make sure that the local and regional governments never gained much power - kept them dependent on the central government for almost everything. This worked well in the past - the last military uprising occurred in 1938, and the last civilian one was easily crushed in 1994. But with the resources of the Federal Police and military stretched to the brink? With entire regions where troops can only move in heavily armed convoys?
This is no longer a conflict over drugs. It might have started that way, but now, it’s something different, a struggle over the legitimacy of the Mexican government. The fact that they cannot defend the people raises questions over this. And allowing more local militias to form, for the people to arm themselves, save themselves, as it were, without Mexico City, would only make things worse. The cure might be as bad as the illness. So I very much doubt that the central government would go that way, not unless all hope is lost.
Who would win in a fight? A coke-head or a pot-head?
‘steel rain’ CBUs on their compounds would be a good start.
Sounds like the crew in deecee are working at odds to the program.
Who owns that bunch up there, anyway?
Ping.
It is well-known that the savage Zetas Gulf cartel---- once a former "special forces unit" of the Mexican Army---- has been in operation for years, and recruits openly in Mexico. The signature Zetas penalty for those who dare finger them is beheading.
Now we know that Perry has been sucking up to mexico for ages.......so that could mean the governor's not looking the other way, for free.
Perhaps Senor Perry's made some solid deals to protect Mexican drug operations, giving them free and easy access to Texas.
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One question---how much of our tax dollars are being used to facilitate all of this?
REFERENCE----WHAT IS THE MERIDA INITIATIVE? The US Congress passed legislation in late June 2008 to provide Mexico with $400 million and Central American countries with $65 million that year alone, for the specific purpose of "fighting drug wars." The initiative was announced 22 Oct 2007 and signed into law June 30, 2008.
THE FACTS ARE THESE: The Third World is calculatedly staging the "war on drugs" and other border violence -- with a hidden agenda--to loot the United States treasury. Using deceit and guile, Mexico has infiltrated the US political system, from domestic to foreign policy, as well as L/E. The Mexican govt is sending millions of Reconquista shock troops from Third Worlds over the border (illegal aliens) coaching them about taking over the US system.
It is WELL known that the Zetas ‘gulf Cartel, a former "special forces unit" of the Mexican Army, has been in operation for years and has recently been recruiting openly in Mexico. In the border city of Reynosa a banner reads, “Former soldiers sought to form armed group; good pay, $500,” “The Zetas operations group wants you, soldier or ex-soldier.”
Mexican authorities said the signs were probably an attempt to "demoralize the soldiers and police," rather than a serious recruiting effort.
(waiting for hysterical laughter to die down)
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Central/South America and Mexico are conning the US -----extorting US tax dollars to support Marxist/terrorist movement via the Merida Initiative----a despicable con game to arm its police and military using US tax dollars to protect terrorists and drug cartels who are moving across the border into the US. (Mexico is also the staging area for Central and South American Third Worlders, and terrorists from all over the globe, to invade the US.)
Clearly, the Mexican govt is fomenting drug violence in order to: (1) get billions of dollars in US assistance, and, (2) to get Third World voting blocs established over the border---pressure groups to badger Congress for more and more giveaways.
THE CON UP CLOSE Mexican border-crossers claim they are "victims" of violence and need "asylum." They know that pleading "Asylum" gets them thousands of dollars monthly from a special section of Social Security.
Illegals are being coached by Third World governments on how to loot the US Treasury. A lot of the monry is wired back home,.......a select few take a cut.
The federales, themselves, are salivating to get their dirty hands on trillions in US foreign aid---and they need voting blocs to manipulate the US govt and loot the US Treasury.
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ACTION NOW---Stop all funding for this con game. Tell your reps to stop funding the Merida Initiative scam now. No more US tax dollars for Third World connivers.
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