Holder Vows 'Cartels Will Be Destroyed'

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

Attorney General Eric Holder issued a blunt warning today to Mexican drug cartels that he said pose a national security threat: "These cartels will be destroyed."

The warning came as the attorney general and acting Drug Enforcement Administration chief Michele Leonhart announced the completion of the final phase of DEA's "Operation Xcellerator," which targeted the Sinaloa cartel, a major western Mexico drug operation that has been expanding its reach into the United States.

The officials said that as a result of the operation, more than 750 suspected Mexican drug cartel members had been arrested and more than 23 tons of narcotics had been seized during the past 21 months.

The Sinaloa cartel is one of several believed to responsible for kidnappings and murders within the United States in addition to extraordinary carnage in Mexico.

As part of the operation, authorities made arrests in Chicago, Minneapolis, Boise, Atlanta, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, San Antonio and Miami.




Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/FedCrimes/story?id=6957287&page=1

[avaistheone1]

1. Please destroy the US bankster cartels and the health insurance industry cartels here at home too.

[Laelth]

21. Hear, hear! n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[FiveGoodMen]

2. Legalize and the problem of drug cartels will go away

[ohio2007]

5. legalized over the counter cocaine? lmao

Which kind doctors are going to prescribe coke for medicinal reasons :rofl:
Witch doctors ?

[leftstreet]

7. um...well

[ohio2007]

14. 1885 ? Thats when they put coke in coke .... Who decided it was to stimulating to the senses?

FDA?

oh wait,
no rules back then.

[Posteritatis]

45. Medicine ads from then are fascinating in an "oh good holy lord wtf" way

Saw one in a local paper from about 1900 that claimed to cure "errors of youth." I'm torn between wondering just what that is and how it's cured, and preferring ignorance and the associated bliss.

[Igel]

41. Yeah, and 7-Up used to have lithium in it. n/t

[Posteritatis]

44. 'cause medicine in 1885 was the pinnacle of brilliance... (nt)

[FiveGoodMen]

8. Legalize, decriminalize, whatever

The violence isn't about drugs, it's about money.

The money is there because people want the drugs and they're very hard to get.

Stop arresting people for drugs and there won't be enough money in it to fight over.

:rofl: See? I can laugh at you, too. Doesn't that make me smart?

[Name removed]

12. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Wizard777]

15. You mean AGAIN? Why do think they call it COKE-a-cola?

They eventually replaced the cocaine with caffeine. No doctor was needed. You could buy LSD over the counter and morphine with an injection kit from the Sears catalog.

[Posteritatis]

46. I call BS on the LSD claim at least (nt)

[jmowreader]

16. It has medical uses

It is a fine topical anesthetic, which is occasionally used for that purpose even today.

[Xithras]

42. Not so true anymore. The top cartels have diversified.

Modern drug cartels are more like the old Italian mafia than the drug cartels of the 1980's. They still make a lot of money from drugs, but they also make a small fortune from protection rackets, kidnappings (a HUGE problem in Mexico that is already spilling into the US), and the establishment of criminal sub-rings to expedite everything from street level drug dealing to car theft. They run drugs, they are into human trafficking, and are growing arms traders.

The leaders aren't just druglords anymore, they're mafia don's overseeing criminal empires. They are also openly challenging the government in Mexico and are starting to act more like warlords and dictators. Some of the biggest have full-blown militias under their command.

Legalizing drugs will just cut their cash flow a bit and piss them off. They'll probably start shooting store clerks to scare stores away from "competing" with them.

[jody]

3. Why doesn't he destroy the various US based organized criminal organizations? The US has been trying

for a century and they are still alive and thriving.

IMO Holder's statement "These cartels will be destroyed" is pure BS.

[KoKo]

22. Allen Stanford and Bernie Madoff? Would he go after their connections?

I'll wait for hell to freeze over...I think.

[ohio2007]

4. So where is the Eric Holder death pool ?

I'm going out on a limb with the odds on favorite, May 5th

[vanboggie]

6. I'd prefer he prosecute the Bush/Cheney/Rove Cartel n/t

[avaistheone1]

9. I think Holder is trying to take the focus off that little project,

but I would happy to be proven wrong.

[Matariki]

23. Perhaps the sinaloa cartel and the bush cartel are one in the same.

It's possible. Texas, Florida...hmmm.

[vanboggie]

27. Good point!

Prosecution for Poppy, * AND Jebbie - probably Marvin & Neil too. With any luck, the next generation will go down with them. I like this scenario.

[leftstreet]

10. Cutting in on the competition are they?

"Mexican drug cartels are engaged in an increasingly violent conflict -- both among themselves and with Mexican security services -- for control of narcotics trafficking routes along the U.S.-Mexico border," the current alert says.

[JackRiddler]

11. So does this mean he's legalizing it?

Because if it doesn't involve legalization, this kind of big talk only means he's going to help them raise their profit margins, like every other new declaration in the brainless eternal war on (some) drugs.

I'm such a sucker! I actually clicked on this thinking cartels meant, like, the fucking multideath corporations. The banks. The oil companies. Something.

[bemildred]

13. And then new cartels will rise up like mushrooms, as long as there is giant wads of money in it.

It's funny how the free-enterprise, private-profit types always get amnesia when drug prohibition is being discussed.

[jody]

24. Agree, as long as money can be made from illegal activities, crime will flourish. n/t

[bemildred]

38. Well, it's the great big wads of money.

There is a problem with people smuggling cigarettes to avoid tobacco taxes, but it's nothing like what you can make with illegal drugs. And we all know that the profit motives rules. Illegal drugs like pot, opium, and coca, which are fundamentally cheap and easy to grow plant products, offer the best returns on investment, that's why these drug cartels are so well "endowed" and belligerent.

[jody]

39. After all ATF efforts, moonshine making still survives in the US. n/t

[bemildred]

48. I understand you can make a lot running a bank too.

A lot of people seem to aspire to being basketball players ...

[a la izquierda]

17. This is what Calderon...

has been trying to do. It's not working.

[mackerel]

18. Getting rid of the Cartels will help our local guys to flourish.

Keep the dollars in the U.S.

[a la izquierda]

19. What local guys?

Local drug dealers?

[JackRiddler]

20. c'est ironique

[sendero]

25. Yeah..

.... they're competing with the CIA.

[xchrom]

26. recommend

[tanngrisnir3]

28. So we have yet another fuckwit AG. Nothing new under the sun.

[ConcernedCanuk]

29. Our leaders just don't get it yet - if people WANT something, someone else will supply it,

.
.
.

Take all this bullshit trying to stop people from getting these bad things

and prosecute them if they fuck up on it

like alcohol

Prohibition should have taught us something . . .

apparently not

[defendandprotect]

30. Best way to get rid of drug cartels is to legalize marijuana . . . if we don't . . .

we going to have more kidnappings, murders and frightened politicians ---

Obviously the drug trade anywhere can't go on without the assistance of corrupt

government and corrupt police enforcement.

[quiet.american]

31. Thank you, AG Holder. Bush did nothing but invite Vincente Fox to "the ranch." nt

[bertman]

32. Another Front for the War on Everything. If you bring the troops home from Iraq you

got to have somewhere else to send them.

Does anybody remember after the Berlin Wall went down and the Soviet Union disintegrated and we almost didn't HAVE to have the hugest, meanest military in the world anymore? Well, that's when they started coming up with other Fronts and other wars. This is just a new one. Why else would we be required to keep pouring money and resources into our military?

Our creative President needs to get some serious re-thinking going on in Eric Holder's head. He's already heading down the wrong track.

[girl gone mad]

33. wtf?

waste of time, energy, money. not going to happen.

[ladym55]

34. I'd like to focus on the 1800 people murdered in 2008 for a minute

My daughter lives in El Paso and works in Juarez. It's damned scary. She MUST carpool with the attitude "safety in numbers." They have to vary routes, vary times of departure because it's that dangerous. It's a MESS, and as my daughter says, "At least I get to go home to El Paso at night. The people who work with me who live in Juarez live with fear all the time." They have to worry about getting an offer they can't refuse from the cartels.

What is the answer? I think it's far more complicated than legalization, although that could help. What about all the wonderful weapons that are coming from the US to Mexico that are being used to slaughter Mexican citizens? The Mexican government is in total disarray ... their police force has no power to control the cartels.

One other thought ... much of the heroin addiction here in the US began as abuse of prescription painkillers, like OxyContin ... OxyContin becomes TOO expensive to buy, and the user turns to heroin. How do we work with substance abuse and addiction?

The situation in Northern Mexico is deteriorating rapidly, and it is one more place that needs attention because innocent people are suffering.

[Posteritatis]

43. You misspelled "6000" - it's *nasty* down there now (nt)

[Suji to Seoul]

35. Hey, Holder. . .how about legalizing them, taxing the shit out of them and holding them responsible?

WHEN WILL THIS WAR ON THE CONSTITUTION, I mean drugs, EVER END????

[riverdeep]

36. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

This declaration is spurred by the arrests today of 750 suspects in a Mexican cartel where million of dollars of drugs were seized. They really think they're going to stop it. They really believe that if they just try harder, this time it will work. The fools. The damn fools.

We will all pay for this ignorance, especially the average working people of Mexico who are caught between a corrupt and useless government that can't even provide the basics of safety, and the cartels which have really become the defacto ruling force in many parts of Mexico.

[ProudDad]

37. Aw, Shit!

Decriminalize and this all STOPS!!!!

End the phony fucking "war" on drugs!!!

[No Elephants]

40. The term "war on drugs" was first used in the U.S. in 1971, by Richard Nixon, probably

imitating Johnson's war on poverty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs

However, battling drugs is at least 14 centuries old. http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=226601&version=1&template_id=47&parent_id=27

[depakid]

47. Grandstanding aside- it looks more and more like the cartels are strengthening

Mexico to send more troops to besieged city

Mexico is sending up to 5,000 new troops and federal police to the country's most violent city, where law and order is on the brink of collapse in a war between gangs supplying drugs to the United States. The army said on Thursday the deployment could take the number of soldiers and federal police to over 7,000 in Ciudad Juarez, which is across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas.

This month alone, drug hitmen killed 250 people in Juarez, where a meeting of cabinet members on Wednesday was rattled by three bomb scares, forcing soldiers to briefly shut the city's international airport. "In yesterday's meeting (government officials) talked about sending 5,000 troops and police to Ciudad Juarez," said army spokesman Enrique Torres. "They are expected to arrive in the next few weeks."

At the heavily guarded meeting on Wednesday, Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont had said the troop reinforcements would be "notable" but declined to give more details. Torres said there were 2,020 troops and 425 federal police in Ciudad Juarez, a city of around 1.6 million people.

Drug trade analysts say Mexico's most-wanted fugitive, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, who leads a cartel from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, wants control of Ciudad Juarez, currently in the hands of local drug lord Vicente Carrillo Fuentes.

Law and order in Ciudad Juarez is close to collapse as Guzman's hitmen seek to destroy the Juarez cartel's entire operation, drug experts say, and kidnappings and extortions of business people are rampant.

More: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN26270458