Posted on 03/06/2009 6:27:54 AM PST by kellynla
yep, it’s a very sad situation and it’s only going to get worse over the next four years...God help us!
Heeding the advice of Gen. David Petraeus, Barack Obama has committed 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan and will keep 50,000 in Iraq after U.S. combat operations end in August 2010. But are U.S. vital interests more threatened by what happens in Anbar or Helmand than in the war raging along our southern border? Prediction: After all U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea have come home, there will be a U.S. army on the Mexican border. For this is where the fate of our republic will be decided, as the fate of Europe will be decided by the millions streaming north from the Maghreb and Middle East, sub-Sahara and South Asia. Last year, 6,000 Mexicans died in drug-related killings in a war where the tactics are massacre, murder, kidnapping and beheading. President Felipe Calderon has ordered another 5,000 troops and 1,000 police to the border. Primary target: Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso.
Some 2,500 federal troops are already in Juarez, where in 2008 there were 1,600 drug-related murders.
Nationally, 45,000 army troops and police are committed to this war that Mexico is not winning. For, according to the March 3 Washington Times, the Pentagon now estimates the cartels field more than 100,000 foot soldiers... The chief of police of Juarez just resigned after a cartel threatened to kill an officer every 48 hours if he did not. To prove its seriousness, the cartel murdered four cops, including the chief's deputy. Last year, 50 police officers in Juarez were murdered.
In January, his predecessor's head was found in an ice cooler outside a police station.
The mayor keeps his family in El Paso, as they have been threatened with decapitation.
Friday, the State Department declared, "Corruption throughout Mexico's public institutions remains a key impediment to curtailing the power of the drug cartels."
Calderon retorts that, while the murders may be committed in Mexico, the cash and guns come from the United States.
With oil revenue down since the price dropped $100 a barrel, and remittances down from Mexican workers in the United States as the U.S. economy tanks, tourism, too, has begun to die. Beheadings in and around Acapulco have not helped. Warnings have been issued to U.S. college kids to avoid Mexico on spring break, as kidnappings for ransom are rampant.
Restaurants and bars in Juarez that catered to folks from El Paso and soldiers from Fort Bliss are shutting down.
In February, in the resort town of Cancun, a retired army general sent to create an elite anti-crime unit was kidnapped, tortured and shot. Mexican troops raided Cancun's police headquarters and arrested the chief and dozens of his officers in connection with the murder. Add a collapsing global economy to a losing war with drug cartels, and Mexico is at grave risk of becoming a failed state, a narco-state, with a 2,000-mile border with the United States.
How does one win a drug war when millions of Americans who use recreational drugs are financing the cartels bribing, murdering and beheading to win the war and keep self-indulgent Americans supplied with drugs? ...Mao Zedong's communists killed users and suppliers alike, as social parasites. Milton Friedman's way is to decriminalize drugs and call off the war. When Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs in 1972, Milton, writing in Newsweek, objected on ethical grounds...
"Am I my brother's keeper?'" asked Milton, answering, "No."
Once, a Christian America outlawed and punished homosexuality, abortion, alcohol, loan-sharking and gambling, all as criminal vice. Now, homosexuality and abortion are constitutional rights. Gambling and booze are a rich source of government revenue. And loan-sharking is done by credit-card companies, and not just the Corleones.
Will we raise the white flag in the drug war, as well? Which is the greater evil? Legalized narcotics for America's young or a failed state of 110,000 million on our southern border? Some choice. Some country we've become.
Sometimes it seems there’s a democrat party, actually running the Republican party.
_______________________________
There is. It’s the Libertarians who want to surrender in the WOD and legalize and tax the stuff.
You sure do.
And if libs get their way....
You will legalize pot just so’s you can tax it.
And thereby solve all your financial problems. (Ha!)
I oppose this solution with every fiber of my being. But in some perverse way - I’d like to see California do it. And then when the entire state falls apart financially, morally, emotionally, etc. etc....
Then maybe then - The Libertarians will STFU.
“And then when the entire state falls apart financially, morally, emotionally, etc. etc....”
Well, thanks for your “well wishes”
shezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Bull! They're coming from China and elsewhere. Cartels don't waste time with the types of guns available in the US. They want, fully-automatic heavy artillery!
Heh heh! And when CA shows that legalized pot does NOT cause all these terrible things, then Drug Warriors lose even more credibilty - if that's possible.
Then maybe then - The Libertarians will STFU.
Such language from someone concerned about declining morals. Not nice!
I HATE drugs.
But the War on Drugs has failed, brought us tyranny, and destabilized several coutries south of the border.
We need to legalize marijuana and tax it.
How’s that NAFTA working out?
Very well said.
The only hope I see for Mexico is that of the Christian Mexicans here who are determined to evangelize their fellow countrymen with a heart and life changing Gospel. There are many many churches in SoCal, both Hispanic and non-Hispanic, which are involved in this endeavor.
A redeemed culture, as was done in the crumbling Roman Empire by those little bands of Christians, is the only hope for Mexico.
P.S.That applies here as well.
The problem is that the gangs in Mexico aren’t really gangs any more, they are acting as governments. This isn’t a crime problem per say, it is a war between two power structures.
I'd like to see it get legalized in California too, and maybe in some other countries. Of course I don't think the sky is going to fall in when it is legalized. We'll probably have a few more pot smokers, but that's a small price to pay. I'd like to see it happen in California and maybe some other countries because I don't think it will cause all the problems you think it will cause. If production and sales are legalized I think we'll see a lot better result than they have had in the Netherlands where the coffeeshops buy their product from the black market, and their results haven't been so bad. Twice the percentage of Americans try marijuana compared to the Dutch. I don't think legalization would make use go down, but we already have very high percentage of our people smoking pot compared to the rest of the world and I think that's because most everyone here who wants to smoke pot is already smoking it. I doubt use goes up that much.
Marijuana only has limited appeal. Most people who try it don't care for it that much, and more than half of all adults under sixty in this country have already tried it according to the government surveys. When we legalize it use will go up some but not much. The black market for illegal drugs will shrink to a small fraction of its current size. Mexican drug cartels will kill each other fighting over what remains of the illegal drug trade and end up being a lot smaller and less powerful and less of a threat in Mexico and here. Pot smokers will buy their pot from pot stores and therefore will have far less exposure to drugs like cocaine, meth and heroin that cause us so many problems. We will bring in tax revenues that will far exceed the cost of regulating the marijuana industry and the cost of the fight against the rest of the illegal drugs. There will be far fewer Americans that have a beef with the police, fewer that get used to breaking laws. There will be less corruption from illegal drug money. It's not going to make all of our problems go away but it will make things better for us.
So yeah, let's see California legalize it. Let's see some other states legalize it. That will just hasten the inevitable, which is that the feds are going to open the door for all the states to regulate the production and sales of marijuana. I say the sooner we do it the better.
Ping!
I agree that legalizing marijuana would defang the cartels while removing most of their profit incentive. It worked for the alcohol prohibition mistake and it would work now.
Or we can stay on our high horse and have ourselves a nice outright shooting war on the border. The way the cartels have been ramping up a shooting war is inevitable. Since everyone knows our “president” is a socialist with a silver tongue perhaps he could put it to good use in this case for the saving of American lives.
Or he can continue the chump policy we’ve had since Nixon/Carter that saw us into this mess. We must stand up one way or the other.
bttt
That's only a temporary fix though. We won't stop the flow of drugs and we won't stop competing organized crime groups from running the show. We've got to take the money out, or at least a big part of it, so these organizations will be smaller and less powerful, less of a threat. Legalizing marijuana would do just that. That would deprive them of most of their income so they'd have a lot less money to hire private armies, have so many in law enforcement and government on their payroll. They'll kill each other fighting over what's left of the illegal drug trade but that will sort itself out and the groups that remain will be smaller and much less of a threat to Mexico and us.
There are two sure ways to end this war swiftly: Milton's way and Mao's way. Mao Zedong's communists killed users and suppliers alike, as social parasites. Milton Friedman's way is to decriminalize drugs and call off the war.
-snip-
Americans are never going to adopt the Maoist solution. For the users of drugs are all too often classmates, colleagues, friends, even family.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=30966
Libertarians are running the Republican party?
Are you on crack?
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