the Mexican Drug War

Ahem. They "hit" Pentagon too. Doesn't jive well with your logic.

Damn Mex, I'm sorry to hear how bad things have gotten over there! Those numbers you threw out are mind boggling and I can't imagine living in those conditions. Maybe it's time for you to cross the border (regardless of legality) until things restabilize. I'm sure there are some goodjers in TX that could lend a hand.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Ahem. They "hit" Pentagon too. Doesn't jive well with your logic.

I misspoke, the reason they hit _how_ they did, not where.

900 In November Alone.

Drug-related murders in Mexico more than doubled this year to nearly 5,400 and the violence is likely to worsen in 2009, the nation's top prosecutor says.

"We still haven't reached the peak of violence," Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told reporters.

He attributed the rising violence to the internal power struggles as drug gangs split and fight for turf.

The government has deployed some 40,000 troops and police since December 2006 against the cartels.

The number of killings linked to organised crime registered between 1 January and 2 December was 5,376 - a rise of 117% on the same period last year, Mr Medina Mora told foreign correspondents in Mexico City.

November was the bloodiest month yet - with 943 murders.

"We're still seeing the curve rise. We still haven't reached the peak of violence," Mr Medina Mora said.

But he stressed that Mexico's overall murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants is 11, compared with 33 in Colombia or 50 in El Salvador.

A 117% rise and we're still not at the worst of it yet. Moreover, I like Mr. Mora's "it's not that bad" justification of using murder per 100,000 statistics in nations that combined are barely half the size of Mexico.

Yeah, it sucks, I don't even check how many died today anymore.

No one feels good going out lately.

I personally try not to worry about it, hopefully it's just the assholes killing each other.

Funny thing is the 2nd in command of the Presidency, the President's right hand man(Mouriño was his last name), was killed in an airplane crash a few weeks ago, his plane fell in the middle of Mexico city. Everyone thinks it was an assassination, but the government will never confirm that.

Also, the Secretary of Public Security (or Safety), García Luna, one of the top guys in this "War" has for the past couple months been accused of hard corruption. Same guy wants to unite all the different police forces into 1 big police force that has the right to arrest anyone, check any house without warrant, and other fun things. He was also accused of being behind a kidnapping cartel or something. So those two things would be pretty bad together.

Every day some new police chief is accused of working with Narcos, some politician is corrupt, etc.

We needed to fight the drug cartels but the President, I don't think he planned this very well. EVERYONE knew half the police/government is corrupt and with the narcos. He should've cleaned this up first, maybe. Instead he went to battle and now half his forces have turned out to be working for the other side.

So many things that should've been done differently, but oh well, can't stop now right?

I dunno, I wonder how this will end. At this point I'm just hoping the President is not killed or something.

Maybe a dumb question, but why hasn't the army been mobilized to deal with this? Are they corrupt too?

I don't know about all the Mexican military but some certainly are working for the drug cartels.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,321547,00.html

Yes, I realize the source is Fox News but in this case their info is correct. The Border Patrol believes that these incursions are staged to draw the Border Patrol to the site of the incursion opening the border for the drug mules to cross.

edit:Another article from the Washington Times

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/06/soldiers-cross-into-us-hold-guns-to-agent/

Minase wrote:

Maybe a dumb question, but why hasn't the army been mobilized to deal with this?

Oh, they have!

Military guys took over Tijuana for a day a few weeks ago. Apparently about 500 policemen were caught, while the military kept watch. (I don't remember the exact number but it was in the hundreds).

fake edit: Yep, 500 but probably more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...

It might have been a coincidence, but on the day they shut down the police, there were no kidnappings =)

They've also been moving into various states. I'm sure some military are corrupt, and the drug dealers have no shame in trying to lure them to their side.

I don't have the pics right now, but in some "hot" states, the narcos set up banners and radio ads where they advertise "If you're in the military, we have a job for you! We pay much better! You won't eat ramen noodles! " and stuff like that. I mean kinda big banners that you could see from the main avenues.

I mean, I can't help but laugh at that =)

In general, it's hard to trust any police force here... But on the other hand, if you got money you can usually get out of anything.

Man, our drug war is just wrecking you guys. That sucks

Just to add a third inside voice on this, things are probably just as bad here.

Last week, during the day in a busy street, a guy was cut in by a truck. The drivers got in an argument and got down of their vehicles. The guy from the truck had a gun and shot the other guy on the a*s a couple of times. I mean, he was lucky not to get killed (last thing I heard he was alive), but those people are in control and are wickedly proud of that.

I know this because a friend of mine told me, I prefer not to watch news or read the newspaper anymore. But every time I overhear the news or open the local newspaper's site to check something out it's the same thing: dead bodies found or abductions right in the middle of day. Now I know people who know people who know people who have been kidnapped and some years ago it was only a story in the news every once in a while. This feels like Aeon Flux without Charlize Theron. For the most part I go to work in the morning and when the day is over I head back home and stay there. What scares me the most is the police.

A couple of days ago there were some banners like the ones Mex mentioned but they were telling on the corruption of a high police chief and corruption in the army. They said the police chief was protecting one of the cartels behind many kidnappings and were asking the President to act. The banners were unsigned but were similar to others used used before by some of the cartels. My friends and I were having a conversation about this and some of the comments were "They do it because of their own agenda", "Maybe they do it for the people". I couldn't stop myself from thinking about anti-heroes and if a conversation like that would took place about Batman if the guy existed.

Scary.

According to wikipedia (it must be true!) Mexico's per-100,000 homicide rate as of 2007 is actually 25, and I doubt it's dropped in 2008.

Hahaha, I just have to post this:

Apparently there was an anti-kidnapping(anti-secuestros) expert who came to give conferences in Mexico, and he was kidnapped right before giving his speech to some high powered executives. No one has heard anything about him yet. I personally think it's an obvious message to government, that "No one is safe". He's probably dead.

That was kinda funny, a few days ago.

Then a State in Mexico got fed up with all the kidnappings (Coahuila), and they legalized the death penalty for whoever was found guilty of kidnapping, or "depriving someone of liberty", something like that. This is in a really catholic country, so it's a big deal, we've never had an official death penalty for anything or anyone.

Then, last week, the General Director of Anti-kidnapping police department of that state was kidnapped.

Then, last week, the General Director of Anti-kidnapping police department of that state was kidnapped.

Wow. From a distance, it sounds like the whole country is breaking down. Do you think you'll be seeing South-Africa style home defense systems with bodyguards and flame throwers on cars?

Minase wrote:
Then, last week, the General Director of Anti-kidnapping police department of that state was kidnapped.

Wow. From a distance, it sounds like the whole country is breaking down. Do you think you'll be seeing South-Africa style home defense systems with bodyguards and flame throwers on cars?

It's breaking down in some "hot" states, security-wise, but I doubt we'll reach that point. It's too bad because we're doing ok economically, even with the global crisis and stuff.

If I start seeing flamethrowers on the streets, I'll let you know...

IMAGE(http://i39.tinypic.com/2vtttfc.jpg)

Mad Mex?

I'm picturing something more like this:

IMAGE(http://www.firstshowing.net/img/el_mariachi.jpg)

Mex does play the guitar, after all.

BadJuju wrote:

IMAGE(http://i39.tinypic.com/2vtttfc.jpg)

Mad Mex?

I laughed way too hard at this, considering the situation in Mexico.

I heard about an hour north of Acapulco, they found 9 bodies the other days. The heads showed up in different towns, and some Army soldiers turned out to be missing...

Well, if you need to become the 51st-60th state of the union maybe we can convince Obama. After all WW2 got our industrial base back up and running post the 30's depression. Maybe fighting a guerilla war in Mexico will do the same for us in the teens.

Just today a commando attacked the probably most important local TV station. I haven't find details but it seems like they shot and threw a grenade at the building. No word about injuries yet.

They left a message stating that the station should inform about drug lords and not only against them (or something like that, actually I didn't understand the message in Spanish either).

EDIT: I think I get it now, the meaning would be something like "Stop broadcasting only about us, broadcast about the corrupt heads of state too"

A related article published in the NY Times on Wednesday.

U.S. Plans Border ‘Surge’ Against Any Drug Wars

boysetsfire wrote:

A related article published in the NY Times on Wednesday.

U.S. Plans Border ‘Surge’ Against Any Drug Wars

That picture looks like Somali technical, doesn't it?

Paleocon wrote:

That picture looks like Somali technical, doesn't it?

It's cutting edge technology against organized crime!

Another article: Pakistan, Mexico and U.S. nightmares

the U.S. economic crisis looks likely to slow down a $1.4 billion assistance program (military equipment, training, technology) to help the Mexican government

That's not even the problem, the problem is that the guys they train and give weapons to might turn to the other side once the money is gone. Same thing happened with the Zetas, one of the biggest cartels right now, and the most violent if you go by the news.

Some guys got some awesome military training, then they figured they could get much more money by smuggling drugs.

What would you think would be a viable solution? Not that I reject your comment but honestly I don't see any way out of this.

A not-so-much related article: Relative of U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes kidnapped and released in Juárez

Hey let us make mexico the 51st state! It would solve the whole illegal immigration thing really fast and give the US a big oil reserve. All we have to do is get some army guys down there to kick some drug cartel ass!

What do you think mex, as mex the plumber ladies man would you like this or dislike this

Pharacon wrote:

Hey let us make mexico the 51st state! It would solve the whole illegal immigration thing really fast and give the US a big oil reserve. All we have to do is get some army guys down there to kick some drug cartel ass!

What do you think mex, as mex the plumber ladies man would you like this or dislike this

Man at this point I wouldn't mind a USA invasion, but I doubt it would go well with everyone.

I just got this, although it's a few weeks old:

http://eleconomista.com.mx/notas-onl...

Basically, there's a rising group of guys whose manifesto consists of "killing 1 criminal every 24 hours", in Ciudad Juarez (near El Paso). They're supposedly funded by businessmen (who obviously would never admit to this). They're obviously outside the law, calling themselves "Citizen Commandos" or something like that.

I hate to admit it but criminals would think twice about bothering regular people if guns were legal in Mexico. I mean, some guns are legal but you need an expensive permit, and "connections".

Also, the violence is reaching my state now, I keep hearing about guys getting killed now like, a few blocks from my house =(

Good Lord, Mex. Stay safe. Consider moving to TX. We like guns here, and your TF2 ping will be a lot better.