A few years back a friend of mine, who works for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told me a full blown war was breaking out in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, opposite El Paso, where he works. At the time I thought he was just being hyperbolic, as drug gangs routinely assassinate market rivals, and my attention was focused on America’s two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Well, he wasn’t exaggerating.
Nearly 10,000 Mexican troops, with U.S. agency support, occupied Ciudad Juarez nearly two years ago, a move that has had little effect on levels of violence there; some 10 murders occur every day in that city. Mexico’s vicious drug cartels have now expanded the war with Saturday’s targeted killings of two American officials from the U.S. consulate in Juarez.
I don’t know enough about the drug war in Mexico, although I’m working on redressing that deficiency, and I’ll be posting more about the war there, because I truly believe it is a war. I saw the handiwork of vicious drug cartels when I lived in Peru for a couple of years, at the height of that country’s war against the Shining Path insurgency, which I guess was more a mix of traffickers and anti-government guerrillas.
For some reason, perhaps because of the enormous sums of money involved, cartel enforcers constantly try to outdo each other with the depravity of their acts. The violence in the Mexican border towns reads like something out of a Cormac McCarthy novel (You know the one, Blood Meridian. If you haven’t read it, do so. I consider it quite possibly the best novel I’ve ever read).
Here, for example, is just a single AP news report from a single day in Ciudad Juarez, from early January:
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Police found two severed heads and the bullet-ridden bodies of two women and a handicapped man in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, the latest chapter in Mexico’s increasingly gory drug war.
The killing of women or handicapped people has been rare in a conflict that has cost more than 15,000 lives in the past three years. But drug gangs appear to using such killings — and progressively more gruesome mutilations — to intimidate rivals and the public.
Prosecutors in northern Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is located, said the first man’s body was found on a street late Friday with its hands and head cut off. Between the hands was a message with characteristics similar to those usually left by organized crime gangs.
Another man’s body, with its head cut off and eyes gouged out, was found elsewhere. Mexican news media reported that a handwritten message was found nearby but Mexican police rarely disclose the contents of such notes, which the cartels use to insult and intimidate their rivals.
The two women’s bodies were found in a vacant lot in Ciudad Juarez late Friday.
The body of a man whose legs had been surgically amputated some time ago was also found Friday on a dirt road on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso.
Also Friday, a man riding a bicycle was shot to death in the city, five people were killed in drive-by shootings and a group of three men were shot to death at a fast-food restaurant near a school.
On Thursday, police in the northern city of Los Mochis, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, found the dismembered body of a man whose face had been skinned and stitched onto a soccer ball.
– Greg
{ 38 comments… read them below or add one }
As an American I feel very sorry for the innocent Mexican people who must survive in this nightmare. And it's mostly due to all the low life scum Americans who buy, sell or use illegal drugs.
I blame US organized crime, Russian Mob, Mex Mafia & those on the other side for this Violence, Go to Mexico in those areas BUT GO ARMED.
I feel for the innocent citizens.
Darn we cant send in rogue gunships to omit some cartel hqs etc.
I do know Cabo San Lucas is safe, since if Mexico loses tourisim it loses Jobs etc Big time.
& I blame the US need for illegal drugs.
NO need for illegal drugs=No border wars?
2 bad the USS Iowa cant shell some cartel jungle hqs etc.
This is where the US should commit its resources to next. (Whenever we get out of Iraq, finish with Afghanistan and deal with Iran.. one way or another….)
Invade Mexico?
Committing resources, doesn't mean sending troops into Mexico guns blazing. If I was in charge I would deploy the national guard from all border states to well… secure the border… finish building the fence, and guard it. Work something out with Mexico to either give them some UAV's, or for us to use them and relay the information to Mexico's military. Commit to doing all things possibly covertly. (spec ops, CIA, etc).
I feel safer already lookin' at all those Federales in pickup trucks. BTW Why _is_ dope illegal?
This is going to be a very tricky war for the US to "fight." It seems our immediate priorities should be to help the Mexican government bolster their ability to address this issue through training and equipment and to evaluate the effectiveness of our current relevant domestic policies and be willing to change course in arenas where current policy doesn't produce intended results.
Legalize illegal narcotics, period. No matter what type of narcotic involved. If you do that, you can tax it, and with the revenue involved, pay off the national debt.
The drug war is a losing proposition, and a waste of money, resources, and lives. We cannot even enforce laws on our side with all the police men and women being bought off and all just to traffic some smack to your kids and families. So, let them get high, stoned and dead. A body bag is worth more for a user than a bullet is for a terrorist.
I don't get it. Illegal use of drugs is the main reason while crime rate is so high in the US at an alarming rate yet the battles are instead fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm sure these are not proxy wars where rich military contractors prove their hardwares and stuff for future fat contracts. Or I am just wrong…?
Legalize and highly regulate the illicit drug market. Just keep the regulations below the Laffer curve cutoff that would drive the trade back into the black market. Allow the Mexican government to do the same on their end, after which newly legitimate drug producers can put the cartels out of business. Drug gangs without a revenue stream should rapidly shrink.
The only thing that changes is the government recognizes something that is already a reality anyway.
I think that legalizing MJ would be a good start as 40% of drugs Mexican cartels smuggle is MJ-that's quite a dent in warchest. Also, big part of this problem is Mexican gov't decades long programs to keep border open for illegal immigrants-if they can flow thru so can the drugs and the $$$ back!! This is simply their chickens coming home to roost!!
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues".
Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865)
I think the problem with legalizing and regulating is that the Cartels will just transition to legal producing and will still control the drug markets with violence. What incentive would they have to change their ways of doing business, the law is already useless.
If drugs are produced legally, a lot of the profit should fall out of them. High cost comes from relative scarcity and the legal risk of producing and selling them. Hopefully that will be a disincentive to the cartels to remain in the business. And if "legitimate" sources can produce narcotics for less than the drug gangs, at least many people would go the non-illegal route.
In California, the medical cannabis loophole allows many smokers to get weed in a (at least state level) legitimate fashion. I would say that most regular smokers do this, to avoid the hassle of uneven street quality, shady street deals, and most of all the risk of getting hit by law enforcement. The same effect might not translate to harder core drugs, but to me it's worth a try. The last thirty years of "war on drugs" has not exactly yielded results worth writing home about.
Just a thought—
Why not employ UCAV's and tactics being used in Pakistan/Afghanistan? Why not terrorize the drug terrorists?
Anyone who has worked the streets as a first responder will tell you legalization does little good. Junkies don't steal and commit acts of violence because the drugs are illegal, they steal and hurt people because they are on drugs, whether they purchased them legally isn't the point. A person wtih a job could afford a drug 'habit', the problem is people on hard core drugs can't keep normal hours and function in a consistent productive fashion.
When you look at the relative damage caused to society by alcohol as compared to illegal drugs, alcohol is far worse. It isn't because it is worse than heroin or meth, it is because anyone in America can walk out their door and with the money buy enough booze to get their town drunk. Legalize drugs and increase their volume to that level? Stupid I think.
In regards to taxing a vice to solve problems, we have gotten to the point where we realize tobacco use is a huge drain on health care dollars and outlawing it would be enormously cost effective, and yet people say legalize other vices that would have even larger health costs, I am somewhat confused. We have gigantic taxes on tobacco and alcohol and no lack of lung cancer or DUI fatal car wrecks.
Mexico's issue is that the country is corrupt through and through. Only Switzerland has a higher per capita number of billionaires than Mexico. The current richest man in the world is Mexican. You have people living in third world conditions there. The govt is a disgrace, that's why there is the problem. There is no middle class to force govt to do anything and there never has been. A few rich folks are well protected from it all by pay offs and no else really gives a damn what happens to all the poor people.
The Mexican govt makes nice noise to placate America, but nothing really changes. I am just waiting for the 'incident'. At some point there will be a group of coyotes or dope runners in the desert in AZ that run across a group of Americans riding quads or something and there will be a bloodbath on US soil by foreign invaders, at which point the sissies in Washington will have their hands forced in this matter.
The violence being committed in Mexico isn't by junkies and addicts though. It's cartels that are basically criminal gangs that have a lot of money at stake because of the black market nature of the drug trade. Think the gangsters of the twenties and prohibition. No one advocates legalization because they think drugs are harmless, but because they are inevitable. They should be discouraged and shunned of course, but the ban just doesn't work.
The Mexican government and society is a whole different mess, and one we really can't do anything about. So I would personally start with our own drug policy. YMMV.
Define legal? Would people under 21 be allowed to use meth and heroin but not alcohol? Plenty drink and are already breaking the law. The consequence of that consumption is plainly obvious. I know plenty of people in law enforcement. You're aware of course there is a thriving black market/organized crime movement in this country involving cigarettes? The tax on tabacco has raised the price to the point where street gangs are committing burglaries and armed robberies because there is money to be made selling cigarettes under the table. If you think legalization equals elimination of crime, you probably aren't as well versed in the topic as you think.
One need look no further than the examples of the legal vices in this nation, tobacco and alcohol, for a reason why legalizing drugs is a dumb idea. Increasing the volume and ease of availability of more serious drugs to that of alcohol and cigarettes would have dire consequences. 90% of prison inmates have substance abuse problems, and most are cross addicted to alcohol and some other substance.
I frankly don't care how much of a mess Mexico is, but I would like my country to secure our southern flank better. Physical barriers, increased use of drones, and military assets for logistics, surveillance and transportation would be a good idea l think.
You sort of prove my point there. Cigarettes started fueling crime only after government put a ridiculous tax burden on them that made their illicit trade profitable. The fact that they are legal to buy has nothing to do with that. The fact that the government violated the Laffer curve on their pricing does.
Do prison inmates develop their substance abuse problems in jail, or are they there because of substance abuse problems? Not being facetious, I am really curious. My inclination is to say that they are already the minority of the population that is going to have problems with drugs, and banning them didn't stop them. Hell, it's widely known that drugs are fairly available in prison. If you can't keep drugs out of a prison, how are you going to keep them out of an open society?
Again, no one is addressing the 18th amendment. We saw all the bad things that come out of alcohol abuse and tried to ban it. It did not work. I think that is the only amendment to be completely repealed. When alcohol became legal again, they didn't completely deregulate it. Alcohol is in fact a highly regulated and strictly controlled commodity. I would envision a similar if not higher degree of regulation for hard core drugs.
gentlemen, what we are seeing now is the beginings of 'Ghost Recon 2' becoming reality. wont be long before a stray "Border Patrol" drone 'inadvertantly" falls out of the sky and …. well you know the rest.
GR2, lol
It's about time to biuld up a Ghost platoon to deal with this…….I'd join!
STemplar, I thought for a minute everyone on here supported legalizing all drugs and couldn't see the blatant consequences. Glad to see someone uses common sense! I agree with everything you said. Especially the cost of health care due to what is already sadly legal. (Saved me time typing something up) =P
Does anyone see anything really wrong with making the drug legal. I would agree if MJ was legalized in the US it would turn the situation even more worst. If you think the cartels would hate, cause you can tax it. You would be really wrong, imagine Target or Wal-Mart with their value add line of MJ available right from the store. Once you open that door it would be hard to close let alone control. I believe the cartels would still use violence to try and control the money flow. Just imagine what they would do to someone trying to sue them cause they they got hook on dope and it lead them down the path to harder drugs.
If you could track the money, you would realize that it leads right to the top. It's no different than what's happening in Afghanistan where the Karzai family has been heavily involved in heroin smuggling for years. Same thing in Pakistan. And where do they spend that money? In Dubai while cavorting with the rich and Infamous.
FWIW, the vast majority of the drugs there are going to the U.S., and the vast majority of the guns used by the gangs come from the U.S.
Mexico has been pursuing drug decriminalization more rapidly than the U.S.
This is what the Nat'l Guard is supposed to be doing. Here. I hope TX manages to figure out how serious this is (maybe that hovering Mex chopper over the ICE enclave will make it clear) and just deal with it. A very large barrier, a deep No Man's Land, and a regretful look to those on this side of it who will not be able to return with the same ease.
I suspect it's all too late but if we get those TX guardsmen stationed and take the burden from DPS we may just be able to hold what we've got.
A war? Definitely. We could end it quickly by militarily closing our border. No more drug traffic, no more drug gangs. And I'm not saying that the military should arrest intruders (that’s illegal); instead they should do what they are trained to do: shoot people who are illegally crossing the border. Okay, they can fire a few warning shots, and if the people want to live they can sit down and wait for the Border Patrol to arrive. Or just turn around and go back where they came from. It’s their choice.
And this will eventually happen, primarily because of the growing nexus of drug traffickers and terrorists. Most likely though, we won’t close the border until AFTER the next 9/11-scale attack.
The volume of legitimate cross-border traffic is immense, and the length of the border is likewise huge. Drugs are high value to weight. It is simply impossible to catch it all, or even enough to make enough of a dent to matter.
Also, it is worth noting that when the U.S. had similar places in cities like Chicago during Prohibition, thinking of the situation as a war isn't what worked. What worked was the creation of the FBI, a large, well trained and equipped national police force.
Mexico has a blood feud between two or more organized crime entities on its hands that has put ordinary people in the crossfire, not an insurgency or an international war.
I love how people casually dismiss the 'war on drugs' as a failure and it hasn't worked. In the 80s there were something like 25,000 murders a year in this nation annually, now we hover around 15,000. It's a large number but to say the efforts made were a failure is non sense, particularly given there were about 240 million people in the US in the 80s and now we are over 300 million, yet total homicides have plummeted. The current meager international naval assets committed in the Caribbean interdict about 25% of the coke flowing out of South America, I am pretty certain with some Task Force Odin sized effort those numbers would sky rocket. A lot of dope comes right across the border.
Here we are in this nation debating health care and the costs. Some call for legalization of drugs and allow the health system be the one that deals with it as opposed to law enforcement. When you look at how much we spend on the DoJ compared to what Medicare has to spend of health issues related to use of things like tobacco and alcohol, the cost effectiveness just isn't there. to say nothing of increasing the impact by adding more substances to be abused more widely.
I'm not sure you can attribute a fall in homicides to the drug war. Perhaps there is a connection, but teasing that out of the statistics would be a tall order, like trying to prove the theory that Roe Vs Wade lead to increased abortions among the poor and therefor a drop in violent crime 20 to 30 years later. Could be a connection. But it could also be a change in a lot of other factors. It's like anti gunners blaming murder on guns. Never mind that some of the highest murder rates are in cities and states with the strictest gun laws.
Despite all the coke seized, no one seems to be having a difficult time getting it. I work in a blue(ish) collar job, and know of plenty of coworkers past and present who indulged. I am against it, and chose not to associate with people that use. But all these multi-million dollar drug interdiction missions did little except drive the price of their fix up.
Considering the murder rate is dominated by ethnic gangs that are neck deep in the illegal drug trade, I'm not sure how taking drug sales out of their hands will make it worse.
My idea behind legalization would be to make the age of consent 21 as with alcohol. Drugs in the program could only be sold through government run or strictly monitored clubs. The consequences for using and committing a crime (robbery, driving under the influence, etc.) would be stiff and punished hard. The trick would be to keep the hurdles below what would drive users back to their street sellers.
I don't doubt your sincerity, and I could of course be horribly wrong. I just think that strict punishment of most vices does little except empower the government against us. Prostitution is legal in much of Nevada. Yet the girls there are not all whores. Guns are broadly legal in most of the US (despite the opinion of many), yet 99.99% of gun owners never commit murder. The state acknowledging those facts and not trying to eliminate those activities means less wasted resources.
i've been keeping an eye out for info from mexico for awhile and i found this website:
securitycornermexico.com
check it out guys.
The war on drugs shouldn''t be thrown away, But it should instead go after the dealers, not the users. We should also provide government paid programs to get people off the drugs.
Legalize it, with heavy regulation. There's a program in the UK, where the government is allowed to legally provide drugs to addicts in order to wean them off those drugs. It eliminates addicts in a reasonable manner that doesn't fill jails, and it strangles the drug dealers by removing their source of income by providing free drugs of non-questionable quality. Do that, and the cartels will collapse.
You realize of course the robbery rate is 50% higher in the UK than the US? You're just as likely to have your car stolen. Just as likely to have your home burglarized. More likely to be the victim of a serious assault. Their murder rate is much lower, but as long as you don't belong to a street gang, sell drugs, get along with your spouse, and look both ways crossing the street, your chances of being a murder victim are pretty slim in America. Not sure what good legalized drugs have done for the UK.
The program has only started recently, and my point it should break the cartels. The program provides drugs for free in a manner designed to get addicts off drugs. That way the drug dealers can't compete because the price of free is too good to beat, the quality is too high, and they lose their consumer base. Arguing the UK's property crime is lower is completely beside the point, especially when variables haven't been accounted for.
At least the Mex Policia Federales have enough sense to use Ford pickups!! how 'bout some US cops start using -150s!
just what we need, another govt program to deal with the addicts…….there are plenty of those now…..but funded by smaller state/city/town govts.
Just a little info for the uninformed. Mexico has the strongest gun control laws. You can't have one. Military and police only. You can get 10 years for mere possession of a bullet. I see how well that is working for them.