Mexico: Emergence of an Unexpected Threat

[nmap]

This is from Stratfor - it discusses how some radical environmental groups are making steadily more frequent use of IEDs. The implication is that Mexico, already fighting a battle with the cartels, is now facing an additional challenge.

LINK (http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/442059/aad3cd69d8/1641503981/c6d9bf32c7/)

Brief excerpt:

The activists’ most common tactics tend to be on the lower end of the violence scale and include graffiti and paint (frequently red to symbolize the blood of animals) to vandalize a target. They also frequently release captive birds or animals as well as use superglue and pieces of metal to obstruct locks, pay phones and ATM card readers. Moving up the violence continuum, activists less frequently will break windows, burn buildings and vehicles, and make bomb threats — there have been at least 157 incidents involving arson or incendiary devices so far in 2009. To help put this into perspective, these activists have conducted more arson attacks in Mexico to date in 2009 than their American counterparts have conducted in the United States since 2001.

At the high end of the violence spectrum are the IED attacks, and this is where there has really been an increase in activity in recent weeks. In the first six months of 2009, there were several bomb threats and hoaxes and a few acid bombs, but only two real IEDs were used. In June, July and August there was one IED attack per month — and so far in September there have been seven IED attacks in Mexico City alone and one successful attack and one attempted attack in Guadalajara. Again, by way of comparison, these eight IED attacks by Mexican activists in September are more than American activists have conducted in the United States since 2001.

[incarcerated]

The Press has not had much to say about Mexico lately. Keeping this problem off the public's radar helps reduce expectations of our Freshman Senator In Chief, who is maxed out on crises right now.

[incarcerated]

Judy Barry, one of the founding members of Earth First were looking at blowing things up at first. They later dialed it down realising they could get more support that way....

Nut jobs.

On November 2nd, 1992, Bill Clinton became President Elect of the United States.
On November 3rd, 1992, I had a 25 minute conversation about the election with a 50 year-old Administrative Nurse. Mostly, I was on the receiving end of the conversation. All kinds of (civilian) people at work, who I had never known to have a political thought in their head, let alone harbor massively Leftist political views, were running around in a gloating euphoria. Their feet didn't touch the ground. Their day had come. Finally, at long last. Most of the corrections officers were pretty sullen at the results, so the contrast between the two groups was conspicuous. Except that the happy Leftists weren't noticing.

So this giddy professional woman took nearly half an hour to explain to me that the Planet is sick, and in order to heal the Planet, Western Civilization must fall, and that Bill Clinton was just the man to bring this about (her words, nearly verbatim).
I was stunned.
This was a grown woman, an adult. She was freakin' wack! A true, living, breathing Nut-case. And we were paying her $65,000 per year.
She would later withdraw her support for Bill after the sex scandal.

The worst of it is that, in the following years, I would come to realize that this individual was not a rarity in our little municipal government. Our entire upper management structure was of this political complexion. Not just Democrats, but KPFK supporting, Southern Poverty Law Center-loving, ACLU-adoring Leftists. The kind of people that David Horowitz writes about, but the smaller-time version.
And everyone around here thinks that our local government is conservative. Our local law enforcement knows better.