View Full Version : Mexican Cartels and Violence
The Reaper
05-26-2009, 09:20
Mexican drug violence coming soon to a street near you.
Stay aware, be prepared.
TR
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/18/mexico.us.cartels/index.html
Stakes rise as drug war threatens to cross border
updated 11:18 a.m. EDT, Mon May 18
By Ann O'Neill
CNN
(CNN) -- Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, a 54-year-old drug cartel leader whose nickname means "Shorty," is the most wanted man in Mexico. He's also one of the most wanted men in the United States.
For five years, the State Department has kept a $5 million bounty on his head, calling Guzman a threat to U.S. security.
Guzman, who leads the Sinaloa cartel, is a key player in the bloody turf battles being fought along the border.
He recently upped the stakes, ordering his associates to use lethal force to protect their loads in contested drug trafficking corridors, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The cartel's tentacles and those of its chief rival, the Gulf cartel, already reach across the border and into metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Seattle, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri; and Charlotte, North Carolina, Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Joseph Arabit told a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee in March.
"No other country in the world has a greater impact on the drug situation in the United States than Mexico does," said Arabit, who heads the DEA's office in this year's border hot spot, El Paso, Texas. See where Mexican cartels are in the U.S.
A December 2008 report by the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center revealed that Mexican drug traffickers can be found in more than 230 U.S. cities.
So far, the U.S. has largely been spared the violence seen in Mexico, where the cartels' running gunbattles with police, the military and each other claimed about 6,500 lives last year. It was a sharp spike from the 2,600 deaths attributed to cartel violence in 2007.
Once again, drug war casualties are mounting on the Mexican side at a record pace in 2009 -- more than 1,000 during the first three months of the year, Arabit said.
The violence that has spilled over into the U.S. has been restricted to the players in the drug trade -- trafficker-on-trafficker, DEA agents say. But law enforcement officials and analysts who spoke with CNN agree that it is only a matter of time before innocent people on the U.S. side get caught in the cartel crossfire.
"It's coming. I guarantee, it's coming," said Michael Sanders, a DEA spokesman in Washington.
Sinaloa cartel leader Guzman's shoot-to-kill instructions aren't limited to Mexican authorities and cartel rivals; they also include U.S. law enforcement officials, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing sources and intelligence memos. The move is seen as dangerously brazen, the newspaper reported. In the past, the cartels have tried to avoid direct confrontation with U.S. law enforcement.
U.S. officials are trying to stop the violence from crossing the border. The Obama administration committed to spending an additional $700 million to help Mexico fight the cartels and agreed to double the number of U.S. agents working the border.
But $700 million pales in comparison with the wealth amassed by just one target. Guzman, who started in collections and rose to lead his own cartel, is said to be worth $1 billion after more than two decades in the drug trade.
He made this year's Forbes list of the richest of the rich, landing between a Swiss tycoon and an heir to the Campbell's Soup fortune. Popular Mexican songs, called narcocorridos, embellish the myth of the poorly educated but charismatic cartel leader.
"Shorty is the Pablo Escobar of Mexico," said security consultant Scott Stewart, invoking the memory of the colorful Medellin cartel leader who also landed on the Forbes list and thumbed his nose at Colombian authorities until he died in a shower of police bullets in December 1993.
Stewart, a former agent for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, gathers intelligence on the cartels for Stratfor, a Texas-based security consulting firm that helped document Guzman's worth.
Just a decade ago, Mexican smugglers worked as mules for Colombians, moving their cocaine by land across the U.S. border when the heat was on in the Caribbean. But Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's campaign of arrests and extraditions made ghosts of the Medellin and Cali cartels.
The mules stepped into the power vacuum and never looked back. Now they buy cocaine from the Colombians and take their own profits.
Mexican cartels now bring in about 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States, according to the DEA. Mexico also is the top foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamine.
Marijuana became the cartels' biggest revenue source for the first time in 2007, bringing in $8.5 billion. Cocaine came in second, at $3.9 billion, and methamphetamine earned $1 billion, a top U.S. drug policymaker told a group of U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials last year.
The Mexican government recognizes seven cartels, but the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels are the major players along the U.S. border, according to the DEA agents, local police officials and security analysts who spoke with CNN. The cartels' enforcers -- Los Negros for Sinaloa, Los Zetas for Gulf -- are believed to be responsible for most of the violence.
The status and alliances of the players continue to shift. Although the DEA and some analysts disagree, others say the Zetas, a paramilitary group of turncoat soldiers and anti-narcotics police, are now running the Gulf cartel.
"From what we've seen, the Zetas have taken over the Gulf cartel," analyst Stewart said. "In violent times, soldiers tend to rise to the top."
These soldiers are incredibly well-armed, police learned after a November raid that resulted in the arrest of top Zeta lieutenant Jaime "Hummer" Gonzalez Duran. It was the largest weapons seizure in Mexican history -- 540 rifles, including AK-47s; 287 grenades; two rocket launchers; and 500,000 rounds of ammunition.
At the very least, the Zeta enforcers now have a seat at the table. The DEA's Arabit testified that the Gulf cartel is now run by a triumvirate. Included is Los Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, a former military man who is also known as "El Lazco," or "The Executioner."
The past year witnessed unprecedented bloodshed as the two cartels battled for control of the border's lucrative drug-trafficking corridors. The cartels are fighting over control of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas; Sonora Nogales, across from Nogales, Arizona; and Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California.
Two years ago, the turf battle was over Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas.
It's all about the highways that help move the drugs. Nuevo Laredo is close to the Interstate 35 corridor, and Juarez has easy access to I-10, a major east-west interstate, and I-25, which runs north to Denver, Colorado. Tijuana is also conveniently near I-10 and I-5, which heads north all the way to the Canadian border.
Some of the battles are internal, Arabit said. Some are with other cartels. And some, he said, can be attributed to the cartels' "desperate" attempt to resist Mexican President Felipe Calderon's unprecedented attack on drug traffickers.
As soon as he took office in January 2007, Calderon called out the cartels. He has deployed about 30,000 troops to back up and, in some cases, do the job of local police. Mexico also has extradited about 190 cartel suspects to the United States since Calderon took office.
The violence involves beheadings, running gunbattles and discoveries of mass graves and huge arms caches. Police and public officials have been gunned down in broad daylight. The cartels' enforcers boldly display recruitment banners in the streets.
"The beheadings started at the same time the beheading videos started coming out of Iraq," analyst Stewart said. "It was simple machismo. The Sinaloa guys started putting up videos on YouTube of them torturing Zetas."
When Mexicans first stepped into the role of Colombians in the mid-1990s, the Juarez and Tijuana cartels were dominant, beneficiaries of their location. Today, they are shadows of their former selves, weakened by the deaths and arrests of their leaders.
Juarez cartel leader Amado Carrillo Fuentes died of complications from plastic surgery in 1997. Known as "The King of the Skies" for his fleet of cocaine-carrying planes, he was said to be undergoing liposuction and other appearance-altering procedures to avoid arrest.
Three of his doctors were charged with killing the cartel leader with an overdose of anesthetic during his surgery. Two of them later were killed.
His death, along with the 2003 arrest of Gulf cartel founder Osiel Cardenas Guillen, set the stage for the ongoing turf battle. When Cardenas was extradited in 2007, Guzman set his sights on controlling Juarez as well as Nogales.
Cardenas is awaiting trial in October in federal court in Houston, Texas, where he is accused of drug trafficking and attempting to kill two federal agents and an informant on the streets of Matamoros, Mexico.
Arrests and extraditions crippled the Arellano-Felix Organization in Tijuana, and last year, Guzman made a move on that plaza as well.
"Right now, they are fighting to survive much like Pablo Escobar," said the DEA's Elizabeth Kempshall, who heads the agency's office in Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix has become the nation's kidnapping capital, largely because of the cartels' increasing presence.
Kempshall said that cartel leaders fear nothing more than extradition: "That is the worst thing for any cartel leader, to face justice in the United States."
Mexican drug violence coming soon to a street near you.
Stay aware, be prepared.
TR
"Arrests and extraditions crippled the Arellano-Felix Organization in Tijuana,"
TR Sir,
Thank you for posting this. Was aware of the above situation, as I used to frequent TJ, and Rosarito quite often, while living in SoCal. Not pretty.
Hope that U.S. citizens are prepared for this...sadly, I fear that most are not.
Holly:munchin
I bought a copy of Harper's to read while flying back from California last week. An essay in which Chuck Bowden interviews a Juarez hit man responsible for the torture and death of many people caught my eye. The man is a cop - trained in the United States - and an eye-opening story. Here's a link - you have to subscribe to Harper's to read it on-line, but I found another link on the blog linked at the bottom of the quoted passage cited here.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
THE SICARIO: A Juarez hit man speaks
Charles Bowden, Harper's, May 2009
I am ready for the story of all the dead men who last saw his face.
As I drank coffee and tried to frame questions in my mind, a crime reporter in Juárez was cut down beside his eight-year-old daughter as they sat in his car letting it warm up. This morning as I drove down here, a Toyota passed me with a bumper sticker that read, with a heart symbol, i love love. This morning I tried to remember how I got to this rendezvous.
I was in a distant city and a man told me of the killer and how he had hidden him. He said at first he feared him, but he was so useful. He would clean everything and cook all the time and get on his hands and knees and polish his shoes. I took him on as a favor, he explained.
I said, “I want him. I want to put him on paper.”
And so I came.
The man I wait for insists, “You don’t know me. No one can forgive me for what I did.”
He has pride in his hard work. The good killers make a very tight pattern through the driver’s door. They do not spray rounds everywhere in the vehicle, no, they make a tight pattern right through the door and into the driver’s chest. The reporter who died received just such a pattern, ten rounds from a 9mm and not a single bullet came near his eight-year-old daughter.
I wait.
I admire craftsmanship.
The first call comes at 9:00 and says to expect the next call at 10:05. So I drive fifty miles and wait. The call at 10:05 says to wait until 11:30. The call at 11:30 does not come, and so I wait and wait. Next door is a game store frequented by men seeking power over a virtual world. Inside the coffee shop, it is all calculated calm and everything is clean.
I am in the safe country. I will not name the city, but it is far from Juárez and it is down by the river. At noon, the next call comes.
We meet in a parking lot, our cars conjoined like cops with driver next to driver. I hand over some photographs. He quickly glances at them and then tells me to go to a pizza parlor. There he says we must find a quiet place because he talks very loudly. I rent a motel room with him. None of this can be arranged ahead of time because that would allow me to set him up.
He glances at the photographs, images never printed in newspapers. He stabs his finger at a guy standing over a half-exposed body in a grave and says, “This picture can get you killed.”
I show him the photograph of the woman. She is lovely in her white clothes and perfect makeup. Blood trickles from her mouth, and the early-morning light caresses her face. The photograph has a history in my life. Once I placed it in a magazine and the editor there had to field a call from a terrified man, her brother, who asked, “Are you trying to get me killed, to get my family killed?” I remember the editor calling me up and asking me what I thought the guy meant. I answered, “Exactly what he said.”
Now the man looks at her and tells me she was the girlfriend of the head of the sicarios in Juárez, and the guys in charge of the cartel thought she talked too much. Not that she’d ever given up a load or anything, it was simply the fact that she talked too much. So they told her boyfriend to kill her and he did. Or he would die.
This is ancient ground. The term sicario goes back to Roman Palestine, where a Jewish sect, the Sicarii, used concealed daggers (sicae) in their murders of Romans and their supporters.
He leans forward. “Amado and Vicente”—the two brothers who have successively headed the Juárez cartel—“could kill you if they even thought you were talking,” he says.
These photographs can get you killed. Words can get you killed. And all this will happen and you will die and the sentence will never have a subject, simply an object falling dead to the ground.
I feel myself falling down into some kind of well, some dark place that hums beneath the workaday city, and in this place there is a harder reality and absolute facts. I have been living, I think, in a kind of fantasy world of laws and theories and logical events. Now I am in a country where people are murdered on a whim and a beautiful woman is found in the dirt with blood trickling from her mouth and then she is wrapped with explanations that have no actual connection to what happened.
I have spent years getting to this moment. The killers, well, I have been around them before. Once I partied with two hundred armed killers in a Mexican hotel for five days. But they were not interested in talking about their murders. He is
(cont'd)
http://redblueamerica.com/blog/2009-05-04/harpers-mag-came-out-with-a-great-article-on-the-sicario-by-chuck-bowden-a-juarez-hit-man-speaks-5243
And the losers are...??? :mad:
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Vast US illegal drug market fuels Mexican cartels
Mark Stevenson, AP, 26 May 2009
The Mexican drug cartels battling viciously to expand and survive have a powerful financial incentive: Across the border to the north is a market for illegal drugs unsurpassed for its wealth, diversity and voraciousness.
Homeless heroin addicts in big cities, "meth heads' in Midwest trailer parks, pop culture and sports stars, teens smoking marijuana with their Baby Boomer parents in Vermont — in all, 46 percent of Americans 12 and older have indulged in the often destructive national pastime of illicit drug use.
This array of consumers is providing a vast, recession-proof, apparently unending market for the Mexican gangs locked in a drug war that has killed more than 10,780 people since December 2006. No matter how much law enforcement or financial help the U.S. government provides Mexico, the basics of supply and demand prevent it from doing much good.
"The damage done by our insatiable demand for drugs is truly astounding," said Lloyd Johnston, a University of Michigan researcher who oversees annual drug-use surveys.
The latest federal figures show that 114 million Americans have used illegal drugs at some point — and 20 million are current users.
Marijuana is by far the No. 1 drug, sampled by 100 million Americans, including nearly half of high school seniors. But more than 35 million Americans have used cocaine at some point and 34 million have taken LSD or other hallucinogens.
"It's a drug dealer's dream — sell it in a place where he can make the most money for the risk taken," said Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of the federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment.
"There's a tremendous amount of denial until you're face to face with it," Clark added. "A substance abuser can be anybody. Everybody is at risk."
___
The Mexican cartels are eager to feed this ravenous appetite. Once used mostly to transship drugs from South America, Mexico is now a major producer and distributor; its gangs control cocaine networks in many U.S. cities and covertly grow marijuana on U.S. public lands.
For now, the Mexican government is fighting the cartels and working with U.S. authorities who have promised to stop the southbound flow of weapons and cash — but all parties are aware of the role played by the U.S. market.
"When the U.S. government turns up the pressure a lot, then is when you see a return to the old formula of saying (to Americans), 'You also have corruption, you consume the drugs, you're the biggest drug consumer in the world,'" said Jose Luis Pineyro, a sociologist at Mexico's Autonomous Metropolitan University.
Gil Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief recently appointed by President Barack Obama as the U.S. drug czar, said the Mexicans "make an excellent point."
"Our drug abuse causes problems elsewhere — our per capita consumption is very high," said Kerlikowske, who argues that reducing demand through education and treatment is as vital as border interdictions in quelling Mexico's drug violence.
___
Country of origin didn't matter much to David Hart.
Now 49, Hart said he started using drugs at 14 and didn't stop until he entered a one-year recovery program in January at the Springs Rescue Mission in Colorado Springs, Colo.
The son of an alcoholic father, Hart moved from Arizona to Colorado in 1993. A promised construction job didn't materialize, and since then he's mixed part-time work with stints of homelessness, panhandling to pay for hits of crack, marijuana and speed.
"When you're depressed about your lot in life, and angry about the way you've been treated, drugs are a perfect way out. You smoke that crack and your problems just go away. You know they're going to come back, but for that brief moment you don't have to deal with it."
He's grateful to his supporters at the recovery program, but unsure what lies ahead.
"It's been a part of my life for so long," he said. "It's going to be a challenge for the rest of my life to stay clean."
Yet Hart is, in some respects, lucky. Federal figures indicate that roughly 7.5 million Americans needed treatment for illegal drug abuse in 2007, and only about 1.3 million received it.
The Rescue Mission's CEO, the Rev. Joe Vazquez, said Hart is part of a wave of drug-abusing transients who've settled into the netherworld of an outwardly prosperous region.
"There's this whole segment of our community living well below what their creator created them for — these men coming with a toolbelt and backpack, living in little rundown motels, struggling with addiction," Vazquez said.
___
Federal surveys reveal cyclical trends in drug abuse — but the number of lifetime users keeps growing. Overall abuse rates were highest in the 1970s, declined through the early '90s, went back up and now seem to have stabilized over the past six years.
Studies of youth drug use in Western Europe show a few countries with serious problems, but overall a far lower portion of young people there are abusing drugs than in America. Elsewhere around the world, drug use also is widespread, though data is generally not as thorough as in the U.S.
"There's no escaping the fact that we have the highest drug rates in the world," said Craig Reinarman, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
U.S. authorities were encouraged that drug use among 12-to-17-year-olds declined by about 25 percent between 2002 and 2007. But Johnston, the University of Michigan researcher, says his latest student survey suggests the decline halted in 2008, and he is concerned by data showing that fewer students view smoking marijuana as a serious risk.
There was no similar recent drop-off of drug abuse among the biggest demographic category — young adults aged 18-25. Illicit drug use also has surged among those aged 55 to 59 — baby boomers whose young adulthood coincided with the drug culture's heyday. And there is deep concern about increasing abuse of prescription medicines among all age groups.
Survey after survey shows the vast scope of illegal drug use — deep-rooted in all regions, among all races and socio-economic groups. Big cities indeed have severe problems, but the states with the highest overall abuse rates include Rhode Island, Vermont, Montana and Alaska.
"There's this assumption that drug abuse is more common in racial minorities, especially blacks," said Dr. Wilson Compton, a division director at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "It's not true. Either the rates are lower or at least no higher."
Reinarman reflected on the recent methamphetamine outbreak across the American heartland — Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and elsewhere.
"Here they live in crummy little houses, in towns that are dying ... and along comes a drug that provides a great rush," he said. "You can't separate drug problems from the broader matrix of social and personal problems. You can't have a drug policy that works unless it's part of a much broader social policy."
___
For those concerned about marijuana, Vermont is an active front line, with the nation's highest rates of pot usage. It's one of several regions where joints may now be more prevalent among teens than cigarettes.
"People say, 'It's easier for me to get pot than to buy a beer,'" said Barbara Cimaglio, deputy commissioner of the state Health Department's Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs.
Annie Ramniceanu, clinical director at Spectrum Youth and Family Services in Burlington, Vt., says many of the 350 youths her agency counsels annually started smoking pot before their teens.
"They just get high all the time," she said. "They never learned how to have fun without smoking pot, never learned how to deal with conflict, how to focus on anything."
In both blue-collar and affluent families, she sees multigenerational problems.
"It's become the cultural norm for these families, where drug use is absolutely no big deal," she said. "The kids smoke with their parents, or know their parents use other drugs."
Another drug counselor, Yolanda Morales of New York City, is cautiously upbeat about the attitudes she observes among young people.
Now 55, Morales lapsed into a cocaine habit and a 15-year addiction while trying to juggle graduate school and a job. She spent five years in federal prison for trafficking, got out in 2003, and now works for the Fortune Society in New York, counseling other ex-offenders.
She has shared her story candidly with her college-bound daughter.
"When I was in school in New York, people stood on the corner selling drugs — no one gave a damn," Morales said. "The consequences of that era has the younger generation a little more scared. I don't see them doing the hard drugs like we were. They're more informed — there's more wariness about trying different stuff."
But other Fortune Society staff members see worrisome signs.
Damien Cabezas, vice president for clinical services, says New York teens are starting to use cheap heroin arriving from Afghanistan.
Kerlikowske, as he takes over the Office of National Drug Control Policy, would like to beef up treatment programs and divert more drug offenders to them instead of prison. It's an issue with personal overtones — the drug czar's own stepson has faced drug charges.
Eliminating drug abuse is not a realistic goal, Kerlikowske cautions. "But we can reduce the harm, the dangers, the drain on our economy."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090526/ap_on_re_us/us_drug_war_user_nation
If I may add a prediction from The Trends Journal, by Gerald Celente...
It is written from the perspective of an observer in 2012.
Celente has quite a good track record, and has been featured on CNBC.
His website is HERE (http://www.trendsresearch.com/)
Excerpt:
In the US, up to 2009, a good portion of violence was gang-on-gang and drug related, but it would not stay that way. The American appetite for drugs, though huge, had its limits. 20,000 gangs vying for the same market produced a power struggle that saw individual gangs looking to both diversify and merge with competitors. Other businesses gangs were involved in included auto theft, assault, burglary, extortion, home invasion robberies, homicide, identity theft, insurance fraud, mortgage fraud, prostitution rings and weapons trafficking.
But the most profitable gangland business model imported into the US from Mexico was kidnapping. Between 2007 and 2009, nearly 700 kidnappings for ransom were recorded in Phoenix. These were confined almost exclusively to Latinos involved in the drug or immigrant-trafficking industries.
But by 2012, Phoenix, along with Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, New York City … would look like Mexico City. Kidnapping would become an equal opportunity criminal occupation with extraordinary profit potential. It would expand exponentially beyond the current Latino/drug/trafficking market sectors to include anyone (white, black, old, young) able, or thought to be able, to pay a high ransom.
If I may add a prediction from The Trends Journal, by Gerald Celente...
It is written from the perspective of an observer in 2012.
Celente has quite a good track record, and has been featured on CNBC.
His website is HERE (http://www.trendsresearch.com/)
Excerpt:
In the US, up to 2009, a good portion of violence was gang-on-gang and drug related, but it would not stay that way. The American appetite for drugs, though huge, had its limits. 20,000 gangs vying for the same market produced a power struggle that saw individual gangs looking to both diversify and merge with competitors. Other businesses gangs were involved in included auto theft, assault, burglary, extortion, home invasion robberies, homicide, identity theft, insurance fraud, mortgage fraud, prostitution rings and weapons trafficking.
But the most profitable gangland business model imported into the US from Mexico was kidnapping. Between 2007 and 2009, nearly 700 kidnappings for ransom were recorded in Phoenix. These were confined almost exclusively to Latinos involved in the drug or immigrant-trafficking industries.
But by 2012, Phoenix, along with Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, New York City … would look like Mexico City. Kidnapping would become an equal opportunity criminal occupation with extraordinary profit potential. It would expand exponentially beyond the current Latino/drug/trafficking market sectors to include anyone (white, black, old, young) able, or thought to be able, to pay a high ransom.
A far cry from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.....scary stuff.
mojaveman
05-26-2009, 19:28
The Mexican-American gang problem got so bad in the city where I live that the District Attorney had to enact special gang injunctions so that the police could attempt to regain control of certian neighborhoods that were infested with criminal activity. Injunctions prohibit: the wearing of gang attire, the use of silent hand signals, the association of gang members, drinking, using drugs, fighting, etc.
One of my worries is that these gangs could become more sophisticated and organize themselves at a state or national level to where it wouldn't be a gang anymore but something much worse.
One of my worries is that these gangs could become more sophisticated and organize themselves at a state or national level to where it wouldn't be a gang anymore but something much worse.
I think it is to that point already.
Just because the majority of their employ is centered in low class neighborhoods, doesn't mean the gangs/cartels aren't sophisticated.
Roguish Lawyer
05-26-2009, 19:45
Let's just send Biden down there to reason with them. Maybe smoke a few joints, get to know them better. Then we'll have peace. :)
armymom1228
05-26-2009, 21:49
The question that crossed my mind as I read the first post. "Okay so the Mexicans took over after the Columbians were tossed out.. who takes over after the Mexicans?" Someone has to be 'waiting in the wings'. Who?
A far cry from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.....scary stuff.
IMO, Kidnapping not only preys on the most innocent in this whole mess. It also is attacking the most sensitive subject to a victim. Not their property but their Family.
The only way to stop kidnapping is to make the odds of getting away with it nearly impossible. Problem is, the the majority of these kidnappings go un reported. Most of the victims are illegals and wont go to the Police.
These Gangs are nothing more then predators praying on the absolute helpless in our society. The law has their hands tied. They are not going to ever receive the resources to go after kidnappings of illegal immigrants. Especially since most go unreported.
Only solution I see. Is for these victims to band together as communities vigilante style and fight back on their own. I don't see that happening.
The only fear these Gangs have is being caught or killed. Our current laws and the ROE'S LEO'S have to follow are nothing more then an inconvenience to these Gangs.
Problem is, the the majority of these kidnappings go un reported. Most of the victims are illegals and wont go to the Police.
I read the Harper's article referenced by Richard - it does provide a profoundly different perspective. The subject of the piece was a supervisor in an anti-kidnapping unit in Mexico. He was also active in kidnappings, torture, and murder, even while on the police force. He contends that 85% of the police are corrupt, with many involved directly in kidnappings. If such statements are true - or at least believed to be true - then the victims can hardly be blamed for regarding contact with the police as futile or worse.
My personal concern, selfish though it is, focuses on how long it will take those gangs to decide that their methods are effective against the general U.S. population. Although the law enforcement organizations in my own area have many positive attributes and include a great many dedicated officers, I question how effective they would be if faced with such challenges.
Richard has succeeded in developing my gloom and doom to even higher levels. Congratulations are in order, I guess. ;)
"Okay so the Mexicans took over after the Columbians were tossed out.. who takes over after the Mexicans?" Someone has to be 'waiting in the wings'. Who?
Can't trust those Ivy League gangs, my money is on the Princentonians or perhaps the Yalians? :D
...My personal concern, selfish though it is, focuses on how long it will take those gangs to decide that their methods are effective against the general U.S. population. .....
The next question would be - Why? What is there to gain?
For the most part America continues to chug along while the gang and drug related stuff happens "somewhere else, not in our part of town".
As long as it stays in "that part of town" the average American is content with letting the police handle things.
When it spills over into "our part" is when the public meetings for the city and county get real interesting. "Something must be done - and now."
I read the Harper's article referenced by Richard - it does provide a profoundly different perspective. The subject of the piece was a supervisor in an anti-kidnapping unit in Mexico. He was also active in kidnappings, torture, and murder, even while on the police force. He contends that 85% of the police are corrupt, with many involved directly in kidnappings. If such statements are true - or at least believed to be true - then the victims can hardly be blamed for regarding contact with the police as futile or worse.
My personal concern, selfish though it is, focuses on how long it will take those gangs to decide that their methods are effective against the general U.S. population. Although the law enforcement organizations in my own area have many positive attributes and include a great many dedicated officers, I question how effective they would be if faced with such challenges.
Richard has succeeded in developing my gloom and doom to even higher levels. Congratulations are in order, I guess. ;)
I believe that the article was refering to kidnappings of illegals on American soil.
I don't think that the cartels will move in on the general US populace.
That is their clientelle, why would they want to distrupt that?
Right now the cartels have what they want.
Fighting for control on both sides of the border, and the only player with enough to do something about it decides to not take them seriously.
The Reaper
05-27-2009, 12:12
Maybe we should secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws.
Oops, what was I thinking?
Sorry, Janet.
TR
Maybe we should secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws.
Oops, what was I thinking?
Sorry, Janet.
TR
TR Sir,
Ah-Ha!:p Now there is a noble idea!!!
If only Nappy-head Janet was capable of some kind of intelligence, other that her store-bought, perm weaved, shit for brains thinking she currently has...:rolleyes:
Of course, JMHO...
Holly
greenberetTFS
05-27-2009, 14:26
Maybe we should secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws.
Oops, what was I thinking?
Sorry, Janet.
TR
TR,
I think you may have forgotten that there aren't two borders,only one according to Janet...........:rolleyes: Canada to her has a border,however Mexico has not ........;)
GB TFS :munchin
I think you may have forgotten that there aren't two borders, only one according to Janet...
Have you ever seen the esteemed Director of Homeland Security? IMO that one border you're talking about is her a$$ - it's certainly wide enough to be desrving of the title - and she'll do anything she has to do to defend it against all comers there in wishy-washing town. :rolleyes:
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Team Sergeant
05-27-2009, 16:08
Have you ever seen the esteemed Director of Homeland Security? IMO that one border you're talking about is her a$$ - it's certainly wide enough to be desrving of the title - and she'll do anything she has to do to defend it against all comers there in wishy-washing town. :rolleyes:
Richard's $.02 :munchin
"The Community Organizer" could not have made a better choice, Napolitano sure knows her stuff, friggin idiot. This country has become a joke in short order.
Napolitano Tries to Make Amends With Canada Over 9/11 Misstatement
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano caused an uproar in Canada last month for saying in an interview that the Sept. 11 terrorists crossed from Canada.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/27/napolitano-tries-make-amends-canada-misstatement/?test=latestnews
WOW Richard! Are you saying that our Janet is a bit broad across the beam? My, My. This whole current regime is about as organized as a soup sandwich.
As far as the border goes that is honestly a cheap fix. You have all along the southern border various branches of the Armed Forces. You could start at California and going through Texas.
The Armed Forces could use the edges of these border states as bombing ranges and impact areas for the larger artillery pieces. I think this would serve to curb the influx of illegals.
Or is this being insensitive?
mojaveman
05-27-2009, 16:22
The Armed Forces could use the edges of these border states as bombing ranges and impact areas for the larger artillery pieces. I think this would serve to curb the influx of illegals.
Or is this being insensitive?[/QUOTE]
How about a minefield?
The Armed Forces could use the edges of these border states as bombing ranges and impact areas for the larger artillery pieces.
Ah-ha! H&I fire to create a DMZ (De-Mexicanized Zone)? Sounds like a plan. :p
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Maybe we should secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws.
Oops, what was I thinking?
Sorry, Janet.
TR
Why, thats just crazy talk......
BigJimCalhoun
05-27-2009, 18:06
Mexican drug violence coming soon to a street near you.
and I-25, which runs north to Denver, Colorado. ." ... and can be seen from my house:(
Have you ever seen the esteemed Director of Homeland Security? IMO that one border you're talking about is her a$$ - it's certainly wide enough to be desrving of the title - and she'll do anything she has to do to defend it against all comers there in wishy-washing town. :rolleyes:
Richard's $.02 :munchin
AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!..... I made the mistake of double-clicking on that thumbnail and the damn picture blew up to almost full screen size. I think I burnt my retinas:eek:
Richard, you need to post warning lables and/or discaimers before you post stuff like that.
Maybe we should secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws.
TR
Chuck recently attended a seminar about the border area and the criminal element. Obviously he couldn't tell me 100% of what was talked about but had some interesting things to say on the points he could discuss.
From what he said, you are right to be concerned. What would you suggest be done to secure the borders and what advice would you give ICE on enforcement?
Given the extensive knowledge base of this TEAM (QP), I suggest we format a real solution, kinda like planning if we were the ones in charge.
It may be us someday having to do it for real.
The Reaper
05-28-2009, 07:02
Chuck recently attended a seminar about the border area and the criminal element. Obviously he couldn't tell me 100% of what was talked about but had some interesting things to say on the points he could discuss.
From what he said, you are right to be concerned. What would you suggest be done to secure the borders and what advice would you give ICE on enforcement?
I suspect that they are under strict instructions from the administration not to interfere with illegals crossing the southern border. Too much riding on pandering to the Hispanic vote.
Looks like Janet feels that the Canadians are the bigger threat anyway.
What would I suggest?
Build the damn fence from the Gulf to the Pacific, double the number of BP agents, put the Guard on the border, deny social services to illegals, end the anchor baby program, deport the illegals, arrest their employers, incarcerate people breaking the laws of this country, open a visa application office in every town in Mexico with more than 50,000 residents for anyone with a clean record who wants to work here, run background checks, issue alien worker IDs, and run a bus service for them.
None of that is going to happen, though it is all feasible, if we want to secure our borders and enforce our laws. At least not until Beslan happens here or a city gets nuked. Then we may get serious.
TR
The best and cheapest way to secure the border was proposed by former Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman. He proposed the 5 Mexican General Plan. You divide the border into 5 districts. (He was referring to Texas only, but it could be expanded). You hire a Mexican general for each district and put, say $5,000,000 in a pot for each general. Every time an illegal was captured on our side of the border in a district, an amount was deducted from that general's pot. The general got what was left at the end of the year. The beauty of the plan, according to Kinky, was his Mexican friends were not at all offended, so it was politically correct, but they also felt, damn, it might work! I might vote for Kinky again!
Surf n Turf
05-28-2009, 20:02
I bought a copy of Harper's to read while flying back from California last week. An essay in which Chuck Bowden interviews a Juarez hit man responsible for the torture and death of many people caught my eye. The man is a cop - trained in the United States - and an eye-opening story. Here's a link - you have to subscribe to Harper's to read it on-line, but I found another link on the blog linked at the bottom of the quoted passage cited here.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Richard,
I just finished the Harpers article, and was a bit overwhelmed. I have met, and worked with “Psychopaths”, but never expected that a whole nation would collect them, and send them to our borders.
If this is the situation elsewhere along the border, they will cross over, to “greener pastures”. Prostitution, gambling, loan sharking & drugs would just set them up to buy legal business enterprises, and we start with a 2009 version of Chicago under a Mexican Al Capone.
SnT
Definition of psychopath
A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse.
The psychopath has antisocial traits for sure but they are coupled with and enhanced by callousness, ruthlessness, extreme lack of empathy, deficient impulse control, deceitfulness, and sadism.
Also see sociopath, and Antisocial Personality Disorder
http://personalitydisorders.suite101.com/article.cfm/psychopathantisocial
What would I suggest?
Build the damn fence from the Gulf to the Pacific, double the number of BP agents, put the Guard on the border, deny social services to illegals, end the anchor baby program, deport the illegals, arrest their employers, incarcerate people breaking the laws of this country, open a visa application office in every town in Mexico with more than 50,000 residents for anyone with a clean record who wants to work here, run background checks, issue alien worker IDs, and run a bus service for them.
None of that is going to happen, though it is all feasible, if we want to secure our borders and enforce our laws. At least not until Beslan happens here or a city gets nuked. Then we may get serious.
TR
I am impressed with your solution. Too many people bitch without having a good perspective or answer for the problem. Not true with you. The other part that of your answer that I like is that it addresses the concerns of people like myself. It is not just a "build a fence." "deport them all." type reply.
Next time I get asked wat I think will solve the problem I'm going to say "I don't know but I do know the opinion of a very smart man." Thanks.
I am impressed with your solution. Too many people bitch without having a good perspective or answer for the problem. Not true with you. The other part that of your answer that I like is that it addresses the concerns of people like myself. It is not just a "build a fence." "deport them all." type reply.
Next time I get asked wat I think will solve the problem I'm going to say "I don't know but I do know the opinion of a very smart man." Thanks.
Indeed CRad.
QP's are very smart men, with smart solutions, to difficult problems!!!
IMHO.
Holly:munchin
This story could be posted in a number of threads, not the least the ongoing discussion on the possibility of martial law coming to America. (In which case, the article below supports what I'm provisionally calling the "Soak60 Thesis <<LINK (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=271476&postcount=166)>>."
Source is here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_border_troops/print).
AP source: Guard to seek volunteers for border
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 29, 6:55 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is developing plans to seek up to 1,500 National Guard volunteers to step up the military's counter-drug efforts along the Mexican border, senior administration officials said Monday.
The plan is a stopgap measure being worked out between the Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department, and comes despite Pentagon concerns about committing more troops to the border — a move some officials worry will be seen as militarizing the region.
Senior administration officials said the Guard program will last no longer than a year and would build on an existing counter-drug operation. They said the program, which would largely be federally funded, would draw on National Guard volunteers from the four border states. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not been finalized.
Officials said the program would mainly seek out guard members for surveillance, intelligence analysis and aviation support. Guard units would also supply ground troops who could assist at border crossings and with land and air transportation.
President Barack Obama earlier this spring promised his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, that the United States would help with the escalating drug war, which has killed as many as 11,000 people since December 2006.
Earlier this month, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced a 2009 counternarcotics strategy, saying the U.S. would devote more resources to fighting the Mexican drug cartels, including the cash and weapons that flow across the border from the U.S. into Mexico.
But officials say that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has expressed concern that tapping the military for border control posts is a slippery slope and must not be overused.
Paul Stockton, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, said Monday that options for the new program have been drafted, but the plan still must be approved by key cabinet members as well as the president.
"We have been working very closely to build a set of options that would have the Department of Defense in a very limited way, for a limited period of time, serve in direct support for CBP," said Stockton, referring to Customs and Border Protection.
The administration does not want to announce or begin the effort until after the Mexican elections this week, officials said.
Rand Beers, under secretary for national protection at the Homeland Security Department, declined to say how long the program would last, only that it would not be lengthy.
Beers said the additional Guard members would stay as long as needed for the border patrol agents to be trained and given "some period of time" on the border to gain experience on the job.
The administration has proposed spending $250 million on the program, but the precise cost will not be known until the details are worked out, he said.
The White House came to the decision that it is simply not enough for the United States to provide funding in support of the Mexican government's counter-drug efforts, said Beers.
The Guard's volunteer mission, Beers and Stockton both stressed, would not involve law enforcement activities.
The current National Guard counter-drug operation along the border, which has been in effect for many years, involves about 575 Guard members, who applied for the job through their state program coordinator.
The additional volunteers, officials said, would largely be drawn from the more than 50,000 Army and Air National Guard members in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. There are no plans to seek Guard members from other states, although that has not been ruled out.
There is already federal funding in place to hire more than 1,500 border patrol agents.
A previous program — Operation Jump Start — used National Guard troops to help bolster border patrols for three years. Over that time, the federal government added border patrol agents, but the escalating drug war has stretched those forces as they try to increase surveillance of possible cash and arms traffic.
mark46th
06-30-2009, 20:18
I have worked in Mexico, I have some dear friends in Baja. I was telling one of them that Mexico needed either the second coming of Jesus to straighten things out or help from Los Pepes...I explained how they took down the Escobar gang. He told me there was a growing consensus that would welcome them...
Senior administration officials said the Guard program will last no longer than a year and would build on an existing counter-drug operation. They said the program, which would largely be federally funded, would draw on National Guard volunteers from the four border states. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not been finalized.
And that's a key point.
The current downturn in the economy has resulted in substantially reduced revenue for governments at every level. Which means - law enforcement budgets are under pressure, too. As the cartels and their violence impinge on U.S. cities, the various local governments simply cannot meet the challenge. Somehow, they will need outside help.
Could the help come through federal grants? Sure. But I think it will be tempting to make direct use of an existing pool of capable people, such as the National Guard volunteers, if only due to the flexibility and cost savings.
And that's a key point.
The current downturn in the economy has resulted in substantially reduced revenue for governments at every level. Which means - law enforcement budgets are under pressure, too. As the cartels and their violence impinge on U.S. cities, the various local governments simply cannot meet the challenge. Somehow, they will need outside help.
Could the help come through federal grants? Sure. But I think it will be tempting to make direct use of an existing pool of capable people, such as the National Guard volunteers, if only due to the flexibility and cost savings.
FWIW, I took the following to be indications that the proposal is chiefly about the federal response itself (i.e. the number, composition, and mix of assets) and not about the federal government taking up some of the heavy lifting done by local LEOs (i.e. the feds taking over areas of responsibility from a border county's sheriffs department).
The plan is a stopgap measure being worked out between the Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department, and comes despite Pentagon concerns about committing more troops to the border — a move some officials worry will be seen as militarizing the region.
The Guard's volunteer mission, Beers and Stockton both stressed, would not involve law enforcement activities.
And,
There is already federal funding in place to hire more than 1,500 border patrol agents.
So by my reading, the gap being stopped is between the DHS's current manpower level and its manpower level when those 1,500 border patrol agents assume their duties, not the gap between the four states in question's needs and their resources.
Then again, I've been wrong before...as recently as when I was cooking dinner. (Pasta without garlic is just noodles.)