Posted on 07/11/2009 8:14:19 AM PDT by AuntB
For those interested in exploring one of the greatest internal and transnational threats to the United States, there is a new book out this week by Samuel Logan, This is For the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13, America’s Most Violent Gang.
The book traces the history of Brenda Paz, a young Honduran who joins MS-13 and eventually becomes the most effective police witness against the organization, before she was killed. But besides the individual story, the book shows just how powerful and ruthless the MS-13 has become. Given that it now has chapters in thousands of cities across the United States, and maintains its transnational structure through the clan structure in Central America , the gang (or mara in Spanish) presents a significant challenge.
But it is not just a local law enforcement issue. It is truly a transnational threat that can destroy countries. Monday, I heard Carlos Castresana Fernandez, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (Comision Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala-CICIG) discuss the serious problems of the organized criminal networks operating out of Guatemala.
He noted how the already-disturbing situation in Guatemala had gotten dramatically worse in the past three years and Mexican and Colombian cartel operatives, particularly Los Zetas, moved in and took control of local criminal operations.
The cartels were aided and abetted in their takeover efforts by the local gangs, primarily MS-13. On Guatemala’s northern border with Mexico, Castresana Fernandez said, the organized criminal groups and gangs are the only authority, in the face of the complete absence of the state. “Maras plus organized crime has proven deadly,” he said.
That is the reality on the ground in much of Central America. The gangs are increasingly moving from local criminal operations, coordinated with their partner gangs in the United States, to move illicit products like stolen cars, methamphetamine and weapons, into the muscle for the drug cartels.
The consequences, as Castresana Fernandez noted, is that already weak and corrupt police forces and militaries are simply overwhelmed or bought, allowing the gangs to grow in power both in their home countries and in this country. The richer they become the bigger threat they become, both here and south of our border.
The book offers an inside look at how the gangs operate at granular level. For those of us who spent time with the gangs (I did for a Washington Post series in 1998), it is a harrowing and accurate description of the amazing and disturbing world that gang members inhabit. It also places the development of the gangs and the recruitment of gang members in its proper context of displacement, social dislocation and family separation that has helped define the Central American immigrant narrative.
I am not one who worries a great deal about the use of Hezbollah or other terrorist groups of gang-controlled pipelines to enter the United States. With embassies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua etc. all willing to issue valid travel documents to them, it is hard to see why they would bother with the riskier and more vulnerable method of moving over the land border clandestinely.
But it is clear that these gangs and cartels are, in their own right, becoming increasingly strong transnational threats, and that they offer other services to Hezbollah and other groups that would be useful – drug trafficking routes, protection of the pipelines they use, etc. To understand why the gangs are a threat, this book is a good place to start.
You’re welcome. I came across that great website on gangs several years ago.
http://www.gangsorus.com/marasalvatrucha13.html
Are we really that different a people?
Do we really have that different a leader?
Oh my, yes.
We should all quake in fear.
Hey, you go be scared of gangs and I’ll do something else, OK?
Who the hell said anything about being scared? I just provided some background on their history.
I've seen that happen and marveled at the ineptness of the poster that did it.
Now it's me.
If you have friends and family who live in an area where they exist, you'd be an irresponsible moron not to pay attention to them.
Certainly we pay attention to them.
We do not fear them.
They are by nature terrorists.
You fear, you lose.
The Thin Veneer of Civilization.
“Civilization (which is part of the circle of his imaginings) has spread a veneer over the surface of the softshelled animal known as man. It is a very thin veneer; but so wonderfully is man constituted that he squirms on his bit of achievement and believes he is garbed in armor-plate.
Yet man to-day is the same man that drank from his enemy’s skull in the dark German forests, that sacked cities, and stole his women from neighboring clans like any howling aborigine. The flesh-and-blood body of man has not changed in the last several thousand years. Nor has his mind changed. There is no faculty of the mind of man to-day that did not exist in the minds of the men of long ago.”
Agreed.
Thanks AuntB.
Thanks for the ping to ETL’s excellent post. It is my firm belief that the ONLY thing which can turn the tide of drug addiction and the degredation of society it brings is strong family foundations in a society. Are we in Amerika past the stage where we could go back to such a thing? With the controlling political aprty so hell-bent on making government, federal oligarchy, the nanny to US all, I’d say we are past the stage where we may be saved from the slow rot.
You’re welcome, MHGinTN.
Wow, that’s quite a history!
Three more news items out of Mexico (you know, our bestest ally!) from NAFBPO
At least 14 bodies found in Mexico mass grave
Posted on Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 11:15am
Police said Wednesday that they have uncovered a mass grave in central Mexico with the remains of 14 or 15 people believed to have been executed by the Zetas drug gang. The remains found in Guanajuato state were so badly burned that officials were not immediately able to identify the number of victims, and it may be difficult to identify the dead.[snip]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090702/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico
Old ruling party gains in Mexico midterm election
Posted on Monday, July 6, 2009 at 12:12pm
Reviled as a creaky remnant of Mexico’s authoritarian past, the old Institutional Revolutionary Party made a big comeback in midterm elections, once again becoming the largest force in Congress.Still the country’s biggest and most representative party, the PRI now presents itself as an underdog chastened and improving after its loss of the presidency in 2000.[snip]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090706/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_elections
More men victims of human trafficking
Posted on Monday, July 6, 2009 at 1:55pm
The soft-spoken Salvadoran man bears no resemblance to the iconic images of human-trafficking victims, young girls whose faces are plastered on billboards alongside 1-800 numbers to report crimes.His jeans hide a cigarette burn on his thigh, and a jagged scar that runs up his shin. It is a reminder, he said, of the day he escaped a remote ranch in Texas where he was held captive by a group of four human traffickers.[snip]http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/immigration/6514945.html
I know it's a LOT to read. To be honest I only read a small portion of it. In any case, it's there for anyone who wants it as a reference later on. Sometimes outsiders stumble on FR threads while researching stuff on the net.
Thanks, I read it all the way through. My brother lives in Fairfax County.
The Terry Anderson Show...
Tonight Terry will declare ...
“Jim Crow, alive and well in Los Angeles”
Wonder who can that be ... Do you care ???
Call Terry and tell him what you think...
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2291119/posts?page=1
I've been saying that for years.
Democrats and Reublicans advocating amnesty should be tried for treason and dealt with accordingly. This includes McCain and GWB.
(Flame suit on)
“I’ve been saying that for years”
And you have been correct for years!
Jeb doesn’t seem to care that the nation will soon no longer be either recognizable or free, as long as there are warm bodies to push lawn mowers.
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