Mexican Cartel Violence-Are You Prepared America? (Iraq, enemies, illegal, heroin)
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I have been following the Cartel violence in Mexico for many years now, and on the surface, things seem to be getting better in the border towns of Mexico. But the reduction of murders in the past few years has really been a misleading statistic because nobody lives in the border towns anymore. They've all been murdered or have fled the area, leaving their homes to be used by the cartels as stash houses, etc.
Although the level of murders has been decreasing in the past few years, the level of insanity has quadrupled. As Cartels keep trying to come up with new ways to "one-up" the rival gangs, their creativity of how to commit murders is amazing.
El Blog Del Narco, which is a major source for what the Cartels have most recently done (in full graphic, no editing the violence) the levels have reached a mind numbing level of Evil. I have recently seen topless, bound women 6 or 7 of them, filmed as they are hacked to death with axes and machetes by a group of men dressing in automatic weapons and military attire. There's a video of a man cuffed upside down by his ankles from a ladder, where he's beaten with baseball bats and an axe handle and then gutted like a deer. They hold nothing back for the imagination down there. A hancuffed man was seated, a metal band in a vice put around his neck and tightened until his head popped off. Another man castrated, fed his own genitals while alive, and then beheaded. I can go on and on.... The disturbing fact is that there's 1000's of these kill videos out there from our friends down south.
I think that it's time America starts to pay attention, this senseless violence is a direct result of American drug consumption (mainly in Mexico it is marijuana and crystal meth), and their wars over territory and traffic routes into the United States. It's already begun to spread into southern US.
Since 2006, more than 60,000 people in Mexico have been murdered by the cartels, on the Mexican border in the US, there are over 6,700 legal firearms dealers along border US towns, there is only one legal dealer in Mexico.
More than 70% of all guns used in Mexican murders from 2007-2011 were purchased in the US.
90% of the cocaine that enters the US enters through Mexico (via Colombia)
The Mexican Cartels are wealthier that most countries in the world, taking in between 19 and 29 Billion annually.
They have a better army that the Mexican government does.
MAJOR CARTELS INCLUDE:
Beltran Leyva - Founded by the four Beltran Leyva brothers, Arturo, Carlos, Alfredo and Hector. Formerly aligned with the Sinaloa cartel, now aligned with Los Zetas against the Sinaloa, Gulf and La Familia Michoacana cartels. . Gulf Cartel - Based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Formerly one of the most powerful cartels.
Juarez Cartel - Formerly aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel, now fighting it for control of Ciudad Juarez and the state of Chihuahua. La Familia Michoacana - Based in the Michoacan state. Possibly defunct as of 2011. Los Zetas Cartel - Comprised of former elite members of the Mexican military. Initially they worked as hit men for the Gulf Cartel, before becoming independent. They now battle the Gulf cartel for control of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. Sinaloa Cartel - Considered to be the dominant drug trafficking organization in Mexico. Led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Tijuana/Arellano Felix Cartel - Based in Tijuana. Most of the Arellano Felix brothers have been apprehended or killed.
Probably the worst of the worst is what's going on between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartels. The Zetas are known for their shocking videos that hit the internet on a regular basis. All of them involve murdering someone suspected of working for the Gulf cartel. The Gulf cartel will then respond by murdering some Zetas on camera and making it just a bit more heinous that what the Zetas did. Like instead of killing 8 women in children, they will torture ten children, rape their mothers and then kill them. The Zetas will respond by raping all the women in a town, torturing the children, and killing and torturing the elders of a family. It's a vile contest of seeing who can out-do the others murder method. They have started recruiting at an early age, there's a video or two of boys who aren't even teenagers yet, that have a "Rep" in their cartels for being over the top killers.
So my question is this:
Please think about your answers before you respond...
What's the solution?
I have heard arguments for legalizing drugs, building higher fences, funding the corrupted Mexican government, etc etc. None of which are working are can't be pushed through our voting system.
If you've been to a California State prison, take a look inside, what you will find is gang members that have no sense of morality, would kill you if you say something wrong, or live on the wrong block, most are associated with either the Mexican Mafia or MS13 which both traffic high amounts of illegal drugs into the US.
Do we sit by and let people die? Or do we form militias and go to war? Or do we build a higher fence and forget the innocents that die everyday in Mexico?
Heavy stuff for a sunny Friday afternoon. This is above my pay grade frankly.
I'd start with national marijuana legalization, that'll cost them great money/power. One article already inferred that the lesser demand for pot (due to WA, CO, and all the medical pot states) is hurting the cartels already. For f-sakes, we should be buying the superior pot grown here anyway and at least take them out of the weed market. Then maybe the DEA/Coast Guard, etc., could do a better job targeting coke and heroin dealers coming thru Mexico. I'd give that a chance before legalizing all drugs.
I'm all for gun control, arming the cartels with American guns is ludicrous. But now I'll get flamed for that by all the pro gun folks on CD. Democrats won't have leverage for anything if they make it harder for people to get guns.
I wouldn't give the Mexican government a penny to help out. It's been proven again and again that that strategy backfires and the money and guns end up with the bad guys.
Higher fence? Nah, that's child's play to the cartels.
I'm not sure about legality but it would be nice to stop these imprisoned cartel bosses from running their businesses FROM prison!
And sure many "innocents" are killed by cartels but the vast majority are other criminals in the business, so it's not exactly Nazis killing Jews where we feel we MUST respond.
That's about all I got, I'll be interested in other responses. But let's start with legalizing pot!
Heavy stuff for a sunny Friday afternoon. This is above my pay grade frankly.
I'd start with national marijuana legalization, that'll cost them great money/power. One article already inferred that the lesser demand for pot (due to WA, CO, and all the medical pot states) is hurting the cartels already. For f-sakes, we should be buying the superior pot grown here anyway and at least take them out of the weed market. Then maybe the DEA/Coast Guard, etc., could do a better job targeting coke and heroin dealers coming thru Mexico. I'd give that a chance before legalizing all drugs.
I'm all for gun control, arming the cartels with American guns is ludicrous. But now I'll get flamed for that by all the pro gun folks on CD. Democrats won't have leverage for anything if they make it harder for people to get guns.
I wouldn't give the Mexican government a penny to help out. It's been proven again and again that that strategy backfires and the money and guns end up with the bad guys.
Higher fence? Nah, that's child's play to the cartels.
I'm not sure about legality but it would be nice to stop these imprisoned cartel bosses from running their businesses FROM prison!
And sure many "innocents" are killed by cartels but the vast majority are other criminals in the business, so it's not exactly Nazis killing Jews where we feel we MUST respond.
That's about all I got, I'll be interested in other responses. But let's start with legalizing pot!
Excellent points! Although I've never been a pot smoker, I don't care if others smoke. I agree that by taking the money, you're going to hit them where it hurts the most. They can produce pot faster than we can burn it, so using Government funds, while it's a necessary task on our part, to seize drugs as they cross the border, is not an effective way of treating this problem. For every pound of pot seized or kilo of coke grabbed, there's probably 1000 times more that makes it through. If we, as a people took away the DEMAND for these illegal drugs, that might help the solution. We are going to have drug users whether it's legal or not...
10 years ago, I would have told you hell no, no way would I want to legalize drugs in this country. But, before you make that argument, head on over to Blog Del Narco's website, throw up a few times, and try getting the images of what the REAL drug trade business is like and then tell me you're against finding a solution.
Our Government doesn't have the funds or the manpower to stop the cartels, they have more money, workers, and resources than our Federal Government, so why throw our hard earned tax dollars at a losing battle?
We were fairly successful in destroying organized crime in this country. It took tough laws, ballsy attorneys, and a SYSTEM of rooting them out from the inside, and holding the heads of the crime families responsible.
As long as the cartel bosses are untouchable, we will have these issues.
One solution I would like to see happen is this, we work with Mexican government to "declare war" against the cartels. Then we do nightly stealth bombing raids on their compounds. To me, this is a much more justifiable use of our military might than fighting an ideology in Iraq...
You start nightly bombing runs on their drug factories, wouldn't take six months tops to drive them underground, greatly dampening their ability to manufacture, transport, and sell drugs to the US.
It sounds extreme, but go watch one or two of the 1000's of Cartel videos and tell me if we need to handle this with extreme actions or not...
Let's face it, this pretty much boils down to drugs. Cocaine, heroin and marijuana with some meth and ecstasy throw in on the side. Until we deal with the drug issue on this side of the border, the cartel's will be there to take advantage of the situation. As somebody noted, there's been a dent in the marijuana trade albeit a minor one. However, as long as it's illegal anywhere (and we have the DEA screwing with our medical marijuana states) the cartels will traffic the stuff across the border as well as send people into our national forests to grow it right here. 1st step in combating the cartels, legalize weed across the board.
The harder drugs are a tougher issue but legalizing and regulating them may ultimately be the answer. Junkies are gonna feen no matter the legality. By regulating the harder drugs and prescribing them you help identify the user base and can manipulate treatment programs. You will also stop the spread of Hepatitis and AIDS and have a safer product for public consumption. Sounds crazy but keep this in mind, as much as the DEA and the media hype the hard drug problem, about 1% of the population consumes 80% of the hard drugs in the US. Making hard drugs legal would have little affect on the common man.
That being said, I doubt we'll see the legalization of hard drugs across the board for years to come........look what a battle it's been to re-legalize a harmless weed. So the other alternative is to combat these cartels with US troops. How about we close at least half of our overseas bases and put that excess manpower along the Southern border? Just in Germany, South Korea and Japan alone we have over 100,000 troops. Imagine what a difference half that number would make sweeping the border 24/7..........and if we took the fight to the cartels, I doubt they'd last long pitted against our military.
As somebody else said, it's all about the money. Take away the demand and the cartels will wither away... but with all the money being made by them now, I imagine they've bought some very powerful allies in Washington.
Just watched the documentary Narco Cultura which showed two perspectives of narco/cartel culture; the one romanticized through norte music and movies, and the reality with what's going on in Juarez.
Really, after nearly a century of unchecked corruption, Calderón suddenly declaring a war on drugs at the behest of the US government was asking for trouble...though I'm not sure anyone expected it to get this bad. Legalization wouldn't completely cut the head off the beast, but it would at least bring it to its knees. Legalize drugs in both countries, and if the US doesn't play along, we need to send our troops down to help. The latter won't work, so we'd better be prepared to at least let Mexico handle this the best way they can and not interfere if the gov't decides to call a truce with the cartels.
It seems to me that the Mexican govt. wants to do what's best for it's citizens, the problem is that every time they hire someone, the cartels just have that person (and their family) killed. That makes for one hell of a deterrent to join law enforcement.
I think it time... Enough is enough and we need to be much more involved in Mexican affairs. Pull the troops from Afgan and Iraq and refocus them in the Mexican border towns where all the violence is happening. Label the cartels as enemies of the State, declare war, and shoot to kill...
It seems to me that the Mexican govt. wants to do what's best for it's citizens, the problem is that every time they hire someone, the cartels just have that person (and their family) killed. That makes for one hell of a deterrent to join law enforcement.
I think it time... Enough is enough and we need to be much more involved in Mexican affairs. Pull the troops from Afgan and Iraq and refocus them in the Mexican border towns where all the violence is happening. Label the cartels as enemies of the State, declare war, and shoot to kill...
It certainly makes more sense to nation-build with our neighbor, rather than the other side of the globe. No oil, no suicide bombers, no me importa.
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So the other alternative is to combat these cartels with US troops. How about we close at least half of our overseas bases and put that excess manpower along the Southern border? Just in Germany, South Korea and Japan alone we have over 100,000 troops. Imagine what a difference half that number would make sweeping the border 24/7..........and if we took the fight to the cartels, I doubt they'd last long pitted against our military.