Posted on 12/19/2008 11:02:08 AM PST by AuntB
Mexico has a serious drug problem these days. So serious that over 5,000 people have died this year due to drug-related violence. More than 5,000 dead. And that number keeps growing every day.
How do you begin to understand that so many people are dying in Mexico? More than 5,000 casualties because of "narcotrafficking." That’s more than all of the American troops that have died fighting an actual war in Iraq. It is hard to keep a tally, but Mexico´s El Universal newspaper does a good job of keeping score.
Mexican drug cartels, dominated by the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels, have long been fighting each other for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes into the United States, a business worth over $10 billion dollars a year. And while drugs from Latin America make their way to feed the ferocious hunger for drugs in the United States, about 2,000 American weapons enter Mexico illegally every day, according to a Mexican government report. (Read more about the role of American weapons in Mexico´s drug war.)
It is the excessive amount of money from the illicit trade in cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines and weapons that not only seduces and corrupts, but is getting so many people killed here every day, and often in a gruesome, blood-curdling way with bodies being dumped outside schools to intimidate society as a whole.
The turning point in the escalating level of violence was when an armed gang rolled five decapitated heads into a packed night club in Uruapan, Michoacán. This was back in September 2006.
Two months later, on Dec. 1, 2006 President Felipe Calderón took office and vowed to crack down on cartels by sending 7,000 troops to his home state of Michoacan. As Calderón asked Congress for more spending on security and less on culture and education, it was clear that Mexican authorities were facing their own head-chopping Taliban. Mexico’s war on drugs was officially declared.
But how do you declare a war on drugs when it is not just the "narcos" and the big capos who control the drug-trade? When waging a war on drugs implies so much more than burning poppy fields here and there. How about all the middle-men and women who, for whatever reason, find themselves linked to the flow of money from the drug-trade? Let’s hear that figure again: more than $10 billion in cash trickling, in some shape or form, into the Mexican economy.
In a bold move, President Calderon sent a further 10,000 soldiers to join the federal police force, hoping that the Mexican army and the police would work well together in fighting the cartels. Mexican media often report on the lack of trust, intelligence and coordination between these two forces.
"The real problem is the lack of intelligence and not knowing which governor of which state is the real capo," Paco Ignacio Taibo II, a journalist and crime author told W Radio this morning.
Corruption and collusion in the Mexican government is nothing new. Just last month, Noé Ramirez, who headed Mexico's anti-narcotics efforts, was detained for alleged links to drug-trafficking and for accepting a $450,000 bribe to leak information to a drug cartel (the Wall Street Journal has more on this story). The goings on of Mexican officials make Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich look like a softy.
But back to the 5,000-plus people getting killed in Mexico. Who are these 5,000 dead? "The drug-traffickers and the army are just killing each other," is something you often hear in Mexico these days. Not so, according to Mexico´s Human Rights Commission who this week reports that up to 2 percent of all drug war-related deaths are children.
"Collateral damage" is a phrase we are hearing more often in Mexico – damage that on Nov. 28 included eight people shot to death at a seafood restaurant in Ciudad Juarez, just across from El Paso, Texas.
CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker took an exclusive look at how Mexico's problem is crossing the border - a growing danger for innocent citizens and even American tourists journeying south.
But it is not just drug-traffickers, soldiers and innocent bystanders who are losing their lives. Policemen and journalists have long been targeted by drug cartels for simply doing their jobs. According to several press freedom organizations, Mexico is now the most dangerous country for journalists after Iraq. Many journalists here have simply stopped covering drug-trafficking and organized crime for fear of being gunned down.
And then there are the kidnappings. Mexico is the kidnapping capital of the world, with more abductions per capita than any other nation on the planet. Just last week, in a satirical twist of fate, a U.S. anti-kidnapping expert, Felix Batista, was kidnapped in Saltillo, northern Mexico, after giving talks on security to Mexican businessmen. Batista was abducted by an armed gang as he took a cell phone call outside a restaurant. His whereabouts are still unknown.
Two other high profile kidnappings and murders – that of 14-year old Fernando Marti and 18-year old Silvia Vargas shocked Mexico this year because of the lack of police professionalism in the investigation and for the implications which alleged that police authorities were linked to Fernado Marti´s abduction and murder.
There are so many reports of so many deaths all the time, that people here are beginning to get "death fatigue." Four policemen killed in Juarez just yesterday. That’s not even headlines here anymore.
President Felipe Calderon´s critics often compare his war on drugs to disturbing a very large hornet's nest. With more civilian deaths every day, the challenges he faces in rooting out drug cartels are mirrored in the number of top officials implicated in the lucrative drug trade.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that Mexican drug trafficking organizations are grossing $13.8 billion a year selling drugs to Americans, $8.6 billion from marijuana alone.
“I have always had a problem with people that will willingly leave their country instead of trying to change things.”
So you have a problem with most of our ancestors who immigrated to this country? I can’t blame people for leaving a war torn country, or a country where they are being persecuted. I could see myself doing the same thing under the right circumstances. If I was a Vietnamese guy back when the Vietnam war was winding down and I had collaborated with the Americans I’d be wanting to get the heck out of Dodge. I wouldn’t stay to try to change things. If I was born in North Korea or Iran or any one of several other rotten countries like that I’d probably be trying to get out, and so would you.
Dittos with no comment....
So you are saying that our ancestors, the guys with the squirel guns, should have layed them down and left? Our original ancestors were sent here as criminals.....shouldn’t be included in your statement. What you can expect from people that come here, and won’t stick up for their own country, is the same thing when things get tough here.
Exactly, their hideouts are well known. Why not some predator action. Also,, a HARD closing of the border reduces both, the value of the trade routes they are fighting over, AND the spillover into the USA.
Watch for one of the answers to be to penalize American shooters by restricting assault rifles because it will be good for Mexico.
Most of the smuggling activity is concentrated in marijuana smuggling because Americans consume more marijuana than all other illegal drugs combined. The ONDCP estimates that Mexican drug trafficking organizations gross $13.8 billion a year selling drugs to Americans, $8.6 billion from marijuana alone. Next in line is cocaine, at about $3.9 billion a year, then meth at about $1 billion a year, and finally heroin at about $400 million a year. If we took marijuana out of the equation, Mexican organized crime would lose about 62% of their gross revenues. It might even be a greater percentage of their net income because they are only the middlemen for cocaine which must be purchased and imported from South America before being smuggled into this country. Taking marijuana out of the picture would take the lion's share of their income from them. They could all try to smuggle in more cocaine and meth and heroin, but there's really a limited market for these drugs. Only a very small percentage of our population want to mess with these other drugs. On top of that, they're going to have a harder time moving these drugs to begin with if we legalize marijuana. The distribution networks for marijuana are huge and spread out everywhere in this country. When Mexican organized crime wants to move some cocaine or meth or heroin, usually they're going to move it through those existing channels. They offer it to mid level pot dealers who in turn offer it to people who are selling pot on the retail level or those who are supplying the retail dealers. All of that is going to fall apart when pot is legalized. They'll be dealing with a lot fewer people who they can tap to move their hard stuff. They'll still have some connections, like gangs they might deal with that sell drugs on street corners or from crack houses, but they're going to lose most all the little part timers selling a little weed to their friends and a lot of the people they buy their supply from. It's going to become harder for them to move the hard stuff. So what I think is more likely to happen is that we'll see a lot of people involved in the business just get out like we saw happen after alcohol Prohibition and those who remain will be killing each other over what's left of the illegal drug business. In the end these drug trafficking organizations will be a lot smaller.
Your ancestors may have been sent here as criminals. Mine weren’t. Are you under the impression that most people who came to this country as immigrants were sent here against their will?
Remember Plymouth Rock?
Try down by the Mexican boarder and see what you get.
Okay, then just say what you mean. You have problem with Mexicans coming over here, not with all “people that will willingly leave their country instead of trying to change things.”
That is a real suprise, you would think all of the liberal nutcases would keep these news down since they need their drugs to come up with new ways to ruin our country.
First, CBS: "Mexico has a serious drug problem these days. So serious that over 5,000 people have died this year due to drug-related violence. More than 5,000 dead. And that number keeps growing every day."
Now, let's clarify: "Mexico has a serious prohibition problem these days. So serious that over 5,000 people have died this year due to prohibition-related violence. More than 5,000 dead. And that number keeps growing every day."
There is nothing inherent in drugs or the production, manufacture and marketing of drugs that leads to violence. The same cannot be said for Prohibitions. Prohibitions always lead to crime, violence, corruption and murder.
With drug prohibition, you can have as much crime and violence as you want, just continue it and just "crack down".
Ping!
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btt
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The tally is approaching tha annual black on black murder rate in Las Estados Unitos del Norte
Bumped
Interesting.
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