Drug violence spins Mexico toward 'civil war'

[OhioChick]

Source: CNN.com

updated 22 minutes ago

(CNN) -- A shootout in a border city that leaves five alleged drug traffickers sprawled dead on the street and seven police wounded. A police chief and his bodyguards gunned down outside his house in another border city. Four bridges into the United States shut down by protesters who want the military out of their towns and who officials say are backed by narcotraffickers.

That was Mexico on Tuesday.

What is most remarkable is that it was not much different from Monday or Sunday or any day in the past few years.

Mexico, a country with a nearly 2,000-mile border with the United States, is undergoing a horrifying wave of violence that some are likening to a civil war. Drug traffickers battle fiercely with each other and Mexican authorities. The homicide rate reached a record level in 2008 and indications are that the carnage could be exceeded this year.

Every day, newspapers and the airwaves are filled with stories and images of beheadings and other gruesome killings. Wednesday's front page on Mexico City's La Prensa carried a large banner headline that simply said "Hysteria!" The entire page was devoted to photos of bloody bodies and grim-faced soldiers. One photo shows a man with two young children walking across a street with an army vehicle in the background, with a soldier standing at a turret machine gun.



Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/02/18/mexico.drug.violence/

[tekisui]

1. From bad to worse. What a frightening prospect.

[donco6]

2. I go to Mexico all the time and never see any of this.

Not to any border towns though. This makes it sound like all Mexico is aflame, and that's not the case, in my experience.

[Warpy]

3. Mexico is a big and complicated country

and all parts aren't alike.

I understand Sinhaloa is one of the hot spots, as are Tijuana and Juarez.

Former governors and the mayor of Juarez have all begged for an end to the stupid drug war.

I wish we could get our government to listen.

[alexandria]

4. Lets end the stupid drug war..

The world will be a better place if everyone is on drugs..

[Warpy]

9. False choice

Shame on you.

[alexandria]

17. Sorry i should have put a sarcasm tag on..

[donco6]

12. Anyone who wants drugs can get them now.

Ending the drug war will have no effect either way.

[trthnd4jstc]

15. Where?

[sofa king]

19. Watch TV for ninety seconds, then ask your doctor about the first one offered.

Edit: Assuming you have a doctor, which I don't. So I usually talk to drug dealers.

[donco6]

5. I agree.

For all this supposed effort, you can get anything you want, anywhere, anytime.

[Oldenuff]

8. I agree as well...

but you know how our government is.We can't have adults going around deciding for themselves,now can we?:sarcasm:

[John Q. Citizen]

23. You may have noticed. there are Mexican and Columbian drug lords but no American drug lords. What's

with that?

Like who receives the shipments and does the distribution once it crosses the border? Cheech and Chong?

There are hot spots all over Mexico, but most are located on main land routes north. There are also tourist destinations that are separate from some of the hot spots.

There are often more deaths in Mexico's drug war than in Afghanistan's drug war. We certainly get a lot more heroin originating or trans-shipped through Mexico than we do from Afghanistan. Most of that goes to Europe, Russia, and the far East.

It's like our own government forgets that bush 1, rummy and the Contras all ran tons of shit into the country during the 80s.

the state of Sinaloa, and the city of Tijuana in Baja California, are along that Western land routes with access to the Pacific, and Sinaloa has a long history of producing pot and poppies in the rugged coastal mountains of the Sierra Madre.

Juarez and Brownsville Matamoros and Laredo are smack on the other main routes and the Eastern Cartel also have the Gulf of Mexico . So the wars are between the cartels themselves as well as some of the government. And of course some of the government is working for the cartels.

And who are our unknown and unspoken about American drug lords supporting? I couldn't say. My guess is it isn't the drug fighting portion of the Mexican government.

[geek tragedy]

24. Oy, it's becoming like Colombia.

Fodder for the Pat Buchanan, border fence crowd.

[Warpy]

30. There are plenty of American drug lords

and I actually met a couple of cocaine kings in New England in the 80s (and then ran like hell). Heroin by then was mainly handled by Asian gangs, the mob having gone more or less legit and started buying politicians to get contracts for shoddy construction work.

What's missing so far in this country is significant penetration into the military, police and government along family lines, although I'm sure the drug warriors in Congress are being well rewarded for their efforts in keeping profits high. However, it's only a matter of time before some of that occurs as it's been a predictable progression whenever any substance has been prohibited by moralists.

You're right about the geographic location of the hot spots along the trade routes. However, even in Mérida, out of the way on the Yucatan and not a port, there have been decapitated bodies found in groups, presumably the result of a drug squabble.

I'm actually surprised Mexico hasn't acted to legalize the whole mess since they're running out of oil and will need another source of revenue while trying to keep the country functioning as a whole instead of splitting into drug bailiwicks.

[a la izquierda]

7. The police presence in non-border towns...

has been upped over the past couple of months. I'm in Tepic, Nayarit right now. You can't go outside without tripping over three types of cops: Federal, State and Local. It's insane. I usually stay in Guadalajara. Cops everywhere, even in the nice neighborhoods. When I was there in 2007, not so much. When I can down last summer for my 5 month stay, you could tell something was really not right. This became particularly noticeable after the 16 September bombing in Morelia, Michoacan. That was a very tense few days around Guadalajara, and the highway between the two cities.

I'm not sure where you're staying. True, things are not violent everywhere, but they're surely not normal either.

[donco6]

10. Usually PV and Playa del Carmen.

We have places there. Honestly, I haven't noticed anything different. Perhaps too far from both borders?

[a la izquierda]

13. Hmm.

Well, Cancun is becoming quite the little hell-hole lately (the police chief was just removed, and placed on 45 day house arrest for plotting the murder of the "drug czar" and his body guard and driver). http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100619355
12 or 13 decapitated bodies found near Merida pretty recently...so no, I don't think it's geography necessarily.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/08/29/mexico.decapitated.men/index.html

And PV..I don't know. I'm just as far south as you are, and I do notice a distinct weirdness around here. So I'm not really sure what it is.

[donco6]

16. You would definitely know better.

I'll keep my eyes open better next time I'm down there. :scared:

[a la izquierda]

20. Just be...vigilant.

I can really stand out (a few large tattoos, no-no's on Mexican women), so I'm a bit more cautious than your average joe. I was scared to death in Mexico City.
But I'm not too nervous anywhere else. I'm leaving for the desert on Sunday for a few days. I'm always a little more nervous outside of big cities, because in the cities I definitely blend in a little better...

[Wizard777]

6. So what if the drug cartel wins the civil war?

[salguine]

11. Yeah, I WANT drug cartels running the entire country on my southern border. Great. You know,

I grant that the War on Drugs is wrong headed and stupid as it's currently being handled.

But it is possible to go too far to the other extreme, as well.

It's one thing to have an open mind. It's another thing to have a mind that's so open that the wind whistles through it.

[ProudDad]

14. De-criminalize in USAmerica and this ends! (n/t)

[sofa king]

18. I just talked to a pal in El Paso.

He says on particularly bad days in Juarez, he can see the smoke from tire fires, just like in Mogadishu.

[raccoon]

27. Elucidate, my dear Watson. "tire fires?" nt

[roody]

21. Easy, simple solution, like Prouddad said. Decriminalize.

[glinda]

22. Mexican Government and wealthy to blame for the disparity that has long been

an issue there. It has now come to this.
US security is dependent upon helping resolve this issue. It will spread faster than it does already here in the US. I gave up subsidizing the people who profit from this a long time ago. For those who do not like to subsidize wars, it might be something to think about.

[friendly_iconoclast]

25. Decriminalizing now won't stop it, it will just make the crooks desperate

Should have done it during the Carter administration. Now it's too late.

Lots of heavily armed, broke, gangsters? Central government control shaky in some areas?
Not at all promising.

It will get far worse before it gets better, folks.

[Uncle Joe]

29. I would rather have the crooks desperate than the government or the people.

Furthermore if the gangsters are broke, they will eventually, become less heavily armed and less able to buy allegiance from some in the general populace or corrupt so many in the government.

Finally if it's "now to late" to alter or change insane policies, it will never get better. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

[riverdeep]

35. Crooks will find other things.

Right now they want millions, they'll have to settle like everyone else.

[MadHound]

26. Gee, and if the drug market was legal in this country,

We wouldn't be having these problems. We wouldn't be faced with a potential civil war/failed state scenario right on our border, with all that violence spilling over the border. Instead we would have another taxable commodity, a reduced prison population, a lowered crime rate, more citizens paying their taxes, and another industry to help us get out of this economic mess.

Instead, we're going to ride this sucker right into the ground, much like Slim Picken's character Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove.

This anti-drug stupidity continues to amaze me.

[slackmaster]

28. Oh teh noes, they're buying BAZOOKAS at US gun stores

...And it's not just handguns. Drug traffickers used a bazooka in Tuesday's shootout with federal police and army soldiers in Reynosa, Mexico, across the border from McAllen, Texas.

:rofl:

[Javaman]

31. This is just the beginning...

when Mexico's other oil fields collapse like their current money maker Catteral, then the poopy will really hit the spinner.

Several things are coming together to create quite a problem for Mexico.

This recent clampdown was brought on by people in Mexico City fed up with the wave of abductions for money. Plus the basic serial killing of the poor along the boarder who refuse to pay protection money to the drug runners.

Pile that on top of the already bad situation with the governments budget. Since the drop in oil prices along with their major oil field collapsing year on year. The governments budget gets squeezed and cut. Big cuts.

And because the oil is nationalized, no money is available for new investment into upgrade and exploration from outside sources without violating the nations constitution.

On top of that, the price of corn has sky rocketed. Since we are all hell bent on still making fuel from corn, our corn exports to Mexico has dropped. 40% of Mexico's corn comes from us.

so corn availability drops, it's cost goes up, they had to raise taxes to meet the budget gap cause by low oil prices and a collapsing field, mix in a rise in drug crimes and you get one seriously fucked up situation.

Given the fact that Mexican governmental officials are notoriously corrupt and retire markedly more well off when leaving office than when they entered, is there any doubt that the Mexican government is basically ineffective in dealing with it's problems?

The officials from the top down to the beat cop, need to stop taking bribes and graff, the police and low level government officials need to be paid a living wage and a basis for real oversight needs to be instituted.

But alas, it's so completely corrupt, it would take something truly epic to change this business as usual situation.

There is so much more to this, but this is just a taste of what is going on at the moment.

[gmpierce]

33. as it was in the beginning...

"The officials from the top down to the beat cop, need to stop taking bribes and graff, the police and low level government officials need to be paid a living wage and a basis for real oversight needs to be instituted."

You might try reading the "jungle novels" of B. Traven. They were written in the early 1900s. Traven was a German anarchist who was expelled from Germany and put on a slave ship without money or papers. He eventually escaped to Mexico where he wrote a series of novels that described the attitudes and practices of the Mexican government and the Church. Traven himself hid out and kept a very low profile, believing that if the powers that be figured out where he was hiding, they would shoot him to finally get rid of him.

It took until something like 1980 before anyone figured out his real name.

His most famous novel was the "Treasure of the Sierra Madre". The jungle novels contain some of the most subtle and sarcastic social commentary ever written. They were not made into movies.

And there, as here, little has changed in the last hundred years.

[Xenotime]

32. Sounds like America's "war on drugs" really paid off.

[gorbal]

34. Of course this only happens in other countries

Reminds me of living in La quite frankly...nobody reports on LA violence anymore, has it gone down or is it just being ignored like it used to be?

Just another horrible thing that only happens in other countries, just like the trafficking of children...

[riverdeep]

36. It's going as I thought it would.

About a month ago I posted on this:

("Terror? Forget Afghanistan or Iraq, think Mexico.")
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4853921

Most Americans have no idea what's going on or how it's about to affect them. The leadership of Mexico is as much at fault as the leadership here. Mexican leadership is corrupt and American leadership is either against decriminalization due to the belief of protecting morals, or they are in on it like the CIA.