Posted on 08/30/2008 8:46:44 AM PDT by John Jorsett
MEXICO CITY — The sickening discovery this week of 11 headless bodies heaped like broken dolls near the colonial city of Merida underscored a bitter lesson for Mexico: The battle to control the multibillion-dollar drug trade knows no boundaries.
The bodies are piling up nationwide, even in normally tranquil and touristy spots such as Merida, not far from the Maya ruins of Chichen Itza.
During a seven-day period ended Friday, more than 130 people died violently throughout the country. Headless bodies turned up in four states, including Baja California.
The Yucatan peninsula, strategically close to smuggling routes through Central America, tallied 12, after another decapitated body was found a few hours later Thursday about 80 miles east of the carnage near Merida.
Mexico's drug wars used to play out mainly in smuggling battlegrounds along the U.S. border, such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. But a crackdown launched 21 months ago by President Felipe Calderon has exacerbated feuding among drug traffickers for control of smuggling routes.
As a result, the country convulses with daily violence that shows a new and disturbing geographic reach and viciousness.
"The bottom line is you've got a major internecine battle, a kind of civil war among drug cartels," said Bruce Bagley, a security and drug-trafficking expert at the University of Miami. "It has intensified because the stakes are high. There's a great deal of money to be made."
But traffickers are keenly aware of the psychological effect on enemies and ordinary Mexicans when they chop off rivals' heads and leave threatening notes with the remains.
Some analysts say tactics such as beheadings, once unheard of in Mexico's drug underworld, are akin to terrorism because part of the goal is to scare civilians so that they will press the government to back off.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Thanks Muzzies!
a kind of civil war among drug cartels
red ants fighting the black ants. Let them kill each other off.
For a few years now, I have reached the conclusion that Mexico is far closer to full blown civil war than is Iraq. With a much greater threat to the US by far.
Right now, there are something like five different near rebellions in Mexico that if funded by drug money, and perhaps sponsored by one or more hostile foreign powers (think Venezuela and Cuba), could result in chaos and bloodshed even worse than during their protracted and vicious revolution around the start of the 20th Century.
And do not for a moment think that their military and federal police are so strong that it could not happen, because there is a good chance that they could be just as divided as the rest of their nation.
The greatest impact to the US would be millions of Mexicans trying to flee the violence as refugees.
Ironically, without military intervention, there is little the US could do to provide even humanitarian assistance, because neither side would permit it to their hated enemies.
The only option left to us would be to support the creation of enormous refugee cities just South of the border, to which we could funnel humanitarian supplies.
I agree. Unfortunately they have lousy aim and keep picking off innocent bystanders.
(Note to innocent bystanders: be somewhere else.)
Just another one of the 2755 reasons why I’ve never set foot in Mexico....and never will.
Blame the war on drugs for messes like this and for some of the mess in our cities. Prohibition breeds criminal gangs.
No need to, it will be here soon enough.
***The sickening discovery this week of 11 headless bodies heaped like broken dolls near the colonial city of Merida****
Standard offerings for Kukalkan and Chac-Mol.
“The sickening discovery this week of 11 headless bodies heaped like broken dolls near the colonial city of Merida underscored a bitter lesson for Mexico: The battle to control the multibillion-dollar drug trade knows no boundaries.”
Mexico if finally first in something besides exporting its citizens...beheading! They were behind Iraq. It think this puts them on top.
Again, WHO is the enemy?
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