the Mexican Drug War

Maybe it's time for a Goodjer relocation program.

Heh, thanks guys but I wouldn't leave my family, we live and die here =)

I think crime might go up because some petty criminals that have nothing to do with the cartels will take advantage of the police's problems...

Mex wrote:

Heh, thanks guys but I wouldn't leave my harem, we live and die here =)

What he really said.

Mexico is a failed state.

Seriously Mex, keep your head down. If the girl mentions her boyfriend has a gun and is unbalanced, STAY AWAY.

DSGamer wrote:

Mexico is a failed state.

I don't think it's reached that point yet, but for sure, some parts of Mexico are practically lost and 100% controlled by criminals. But not all is lost yet. There's supposedly a transcript of the President saying in a private meeting "So-and-so state we've lost, and this one too, let's be clear about that..."

Prederick wrote:

Seriously Mex, keep your head down. If the girl mentions her boyfriend has a gun and is unbalanced, STAY AWAY.

I know =( Recently I was going to start seeing an "exotic dancer" but I've seen a few things change in the strip clubs (security mainly) and it's just not the same now. My town isn't as bad off as the hard-core towns but I can see the writing on the wall, many small details are changing here. Oh, like the beauty queen that was arrested with some drug dealers, that was near my town. I haven't pissed anyone off (I think) but still, too many people know where I live and stuff. A friend was going to buy a house in a nearby county and he got warnings that he REALLY shouldn't because the Zetas were moving into that town, and that town was formerly the most unlikely place for them, just full of catholic poor people, working guys.

I mean it's not a warzone or anything and we still go out but there's a nagging feeling that bad stuff could happen, we just try not to let it bother us.

Oh, and they let go the beauty queen a few days ago, and the guys that were with her. Supposedly her boyfriend was "just a lawyer" ... Yeah right.

ok I was gonna write more but I gotta go

In relating it to the US's past, it seems like parts of Mexico have gone back to the Wild West days where gangs are free to take over towns and murder people in the streets. I kind of wonder if any public policy can change that. Military involvement or not. Maybe it will take a complete social change in the attitudes and perceptions of the population at large. As it stands, if things "stabilize" Mexico wouldn't be that different from other central/south American countries or even parts of Russia. I definitely don't think we're at the "failed state" level yet but it's got the potential.

Mex wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Mexico is a failed state.

I don't think it's reached that point yet, but for sure, some parts of Mexico are practically lost and 100% controlled by criminals. But not all is lost yet. There's supposedly a transcript of the President saying in a private meeting "So-and-so state we've lost, and this one too, let's be clear about that..."

You've got to clean up the wasteland, Mex. Find your nearest scrapyard and look for Dogmeat.

From the accounts i've read Mex, it's not like the worst parts are Fallujah circa 2004, but that it's a lot like Miami in the "Miami Vice" years, without Crockett and Tubbs to clear things up.

Calderon is much more of a hardliner on the issue than Fox was (I believe) but he's fighting and obviously uphill battle the whole way, since the Police are largely useless in the fight (for various reasons).

Lord knows what it'd take to stabilize the situation, but i'm guessing it's something along the lines of utterly crushing the cartels, which might be near-impossible.

Prederick wrote:

From the accounts i've read Mex, it's not like the worst parts are Fallujah circa 2004, but that it's a lot like Miami in the "Miami Vice" years, without Crockett and Tubbs to clear things up.

Calderon is much more of a hardliner on the issue than Fox was (I believe) but he's fighting and obviously uphill battle the whole way, since the Police are largely useless in the fight (for various reasons).

Lord knows what it'd take to stabilize the situation, but i'm guessing it's something along the lines of utterly crushing the cartels, which might be near-impossible.

Hah, I never saw Miami Vice so I can't say, but it's definitely not like a war zone, it's more like the stuff you see in mafia movies. Executions, guys turning up dead right outside their house, people disappear, extortion... etc. In some parts there are definitely gunfights between police and criminals, but outright violence is not a daily thing. Sometimes someone throws a grenade at the municipal presidency, as a warning. Bodies are found all the time with their heads cut off.

Honestly I've criticized the president's way of going about this since the beginning, it's like he was living in another country or something.

It was just the most stupid way to go about it. Did he REALLY not know how many people in the government were corrupt? In the police force? I mean, seriously, Mexico's corruption is famous even outside the country. Or was the president really helping a certain cartel? How naive do you really have to be to launch a war against an enemy that you know has practically limitless reserves of money?

Like, the drug bust of a few years ago, where they took away like 200 million in cash, that didn't even do anything against these guys, except piss them off. Who knows how big they are.

And yeah, I don't even know how you'd begin to fix this. The easy way out would be for the president to ask for a truce, make some kind of deal in the shadows with the cartels, and go back to the way things were ("We pretend you're not here, you don't massacre us"), but that would be even worse in the long term. Maybe that's not even possible now. But only they know what's really going on.

Sounds like a war zone in Juarez right now. Crazy stuff.

Podunk wrote:

Sounds like a war zone in Juarez right now. Crazy stuff. :(

Yeah, Juarez is the worst right now, but not every state is at that stage yet. That city is dead and the government has a losing battle there, and economically it's gonna go to the crapper real soon when businesses start leaving =/

but it's definitely not like a war zone, it's more like the stuff you see in mafia movies. Executions, guys turning up dead right outside their house, people disappear, extortion... etc. In some parts there are definitely gunfights between police and criminals, but outright violence is not a daily thing. Sometimes someone throws a grenade at the municipal presidency, as a warning. Bodies are found all the time with their heads cut off.

Sounds very similar to Iraq when I was there. The only thing you're missing is IED's.

Reaper81 wrote:
but it's definitely not like a war zone, it's more like the stuff you see in mafia movies. Executions, guys turning up dead right outside their house, people disappear, extortion... etc. In some parts there are definitely gunfights between police and criminals, but outright violence is not a daily thing. Sometimes someone throws a grenade at the municipal presidency, as a warning. Bodies are found all the time with their heads cut off.

Sounds very similar to Iraq when I was there. The only thing you're missing is IED's.

Don't give them any ideas.

Reaper81 wrote:
but it's definitely not like a war zone, it's more like the stuff you see in mafia movies. Executions, guys turning up dead right outside their house, people disappear, extortion... etc. In some parts there are definitely gunfights between police and criminals, but outright violence is not a daily thing. Sometimes someone throws a grenade at the municipal presidency, as a warning. Bodies are found all the time with their heads cut off.

Sounds very similar to Iraq when I was there. The only thing you're missing is IED's.

Yeah I was about to say... that sure sounds a lot like parts of Iraq. When you mention someone sometimes throwing a grenade in passing you know things can't be good. Good luck and keep safe.

Juarez is f'd up. I been to El Paso and it is weird to look at it from the US side, there are hardly anyone on the streets in the day and the whole thing is pitch black at night. Kinda made me think I was living in some sort of gold plated Ziggurat and the peasants where huddled around it. But I was drinking alone that night because everyone who lives in El Paso is freaking BORING.

The more money we put into the War on Drugs, the more it's worth to smuggle them, and the stronger the criminals get. They're taking over Mexico while we watch.

When are we going to figure out that it's not working?

Just discovered these guys ...

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

Remove the illegal drug trade and I would think you would neuter alot of the gangs.

PissedYeti wrote:

Just discovered these guys ...

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

Remove the illegal drug trade and I would think you would neuter alot of the gangs.

Legalizing would bring a host of other problems, but I think at this point it's the most important thing that would help. Not a solution but a step forward.

The money that illegal drugs make is so ridiculous that even if you somehow killed every person involved in crime right now, there would always be someone poor enough and eager to risk their life and start another cartel.

The biggest problem is that these organized crime cartels are becoming huge and they aren't exclusively dependent on drugs anymore (even if it's still the majority of their income), they've "branched out". Time is running out to act, even if it were legalized today, they have enough money to survive for decades or who knows how long.

Mex wrote:

The biggest problem is that these organized crime cartels are becoming huge and they aren't exclusively dependent on drugs anymore (even if it's still the majority of their income), they've "branched out". Time is running out to act, even if it were legalized today, they have enough money to survive for decades or who knows how long.

Historically, they tend to become the government more often than not.

I completely agree that legalizing things wouldn't stop them cold but it would sure put a hurting on them long enough for the government to get their heads together and maybe change things. As it stands, I'm not so sure we (the U.S.) can sit by and not do anything for much longer. I'm not certain what the watershed moment will be but having chaos and anarchy on our doorsteps is not in our best interests. I feel for you Mex ...

Didn't the US recently declar Mexico and Pakistan as the two countries they're most concerned about in terms of government stability, etc. And, wasn't there supposedly talks about a worse case scenario where the US would consider sending in ground troops to stabilize the country?

We can't even win our own War on Drugs, how can we fight someone else's?

LeapingGnome wrote:

We can't even win our own War on Drugs, how can we fight someone else's?

We're a little less reticent about declaring martial law in other people's countries than our own.

clover wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

We can't even win our own War on Drugs, how can we fight someone else's?

We're a little less reticent about declaring martial law in other people's countries than our own.

And that has worked out so well for us.

Aetius wrote:
clover wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

We can't even win our own War on Drugs, how can we fight someone else's?

We're a little less reticent about declaring martial law in other people's countries than our own.

And that has worked out so well for us. :)

Freedom ain't free, baby.

If what we've been doing over the last eight years had anything whatsoever to do with our freedom, I might be inclined to agree with you.

THEY'RE USING f*ckING BAZOOKAS MAN >_<

http://www.informador.com.mx/primera...

the national army is fighting an "armed squadron" of criminals, it began at 9am...
10 dead so far (this morning) in Reynosa (previously thought "safe" from the narcos). 4 shopping malls frozen with civilians inside, 5 military men dead, and shootings still going on. =/

One guy I know says there's a "toque de queda", I don't know how to translate it but it means people can't go out of their house or business. No TV apparently, but cell phones work.

Lockdown, we call it. What is this, an urban invasion?