Mexico Drug War Threatens Capital
Mexico has seen its most violent week since Felipe Calderon, the country's president, took office nearly four years ago and declared war on the country's drugs gangs.
Across the country hundreds have been killed as the war increases in intensity, with victims including police, recovering drug addicts, inmates and gang members.
As Al Jazeera's Mariana Sanchez reports, the violence is getting dangerously close to Mexico's capital.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
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President Calderon is a man of courage Mexico should be proud.
ReplyDeleteHe started a war without the resources to see it through. A man of courage? Maybe. A man of wisdom? Absolutely not.
ReplyDeleteCan't we all get along....
ReplyDeleteCalderon did not start a war the wrecklass greed of ignorant criminal peons got completly out of hand forcing a response. I assume you have a better idea.
ReplyDeleteThe citizens of Mexico and also some of the U.S. wanted the mex government to do something about the drugs/cartels, and here you have it an all out war everyone agaqinst everyone. I just shurg at how some people think that U.S soldiers could do something about this. Has the U.S been able to compleatly wipe off terrorists from the face of the earth? Soldiers,goverments ect has rules to follow, bad guys don't. No offence to anyone or any military member of either country, you guys do what you can with what you got and thank you for your service.
ReplyDeleteCalderon only declared war on the Cartels in his inauguration speech but other than that, no he didn't start this war...
ReplyDeleteWar I don't think so. These confrontations are leading to a war. The cartels I believe are buying heaver fire power.
ReplyDeleteI agree. The violence is devastating, yet the "war" hasn't yet begun... I read an article elsewhere that said everything that is now occurring in Mexico fits the definition for a civil war, and we aren't just dealing with cartels, but terrorists. I am inclined to agree. The U.S. demand for drugs/human trafficking is the very thing that perpetuates the situation, yet the average American citizen has no idea how deeply penetrated America is by the "cartels". They simply don't want to acknowledge the issue, and America's role in the problem. And how do you solve that?
ReplyDeleteOur business has been in Mexico for many years, working in small cities and agricultural areas of central and northern Mexico. Our suppliers are fearful of the criminal gangs and extortion. The level of violence has increased to the point we no longer send buyers to the field. What surprises is that many persons we speak with place the blame on the government and particularly Calderon. The people do not believe that the government has the ability or the willpower, at the local level, to deter the violence. As a result they remember the relatively calm years prior to Calderon's drug war. The people think the problem is a result of U.S. drug consumption, not Mexico smuggling. The drug war cannot be won when there is an unlimited supply of economically deprived persons willing to take a risk to fill the demand for illegal drugs north of the border.
ReplyDeleteSo right! US (and European, and Asian, and 3rd world) demand is the crux of the traffic. Only humane decriminalization of drugs and humane treatment of addicts can reduce demand. But so much ill gotten gain has been squirreled away that decades will be required to track it down and appropriate it. Many hypocrites will be disclosed on both sides of the border.
ReplyDeleteFrom my perspective as a Calderon basher, drugs, cartels and corruption were all part of a social wound whose bandage was ripped off without warning by the new president and like a wound whose scab was removed prematurely it is now bleeding heavily. This upheaval of the "natural order" is probably why the people on the local level blame Calderon for the violence.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing America is interested in is keeping the cartel violence on the other side of the border and Calderon screwed that up when he opened this new front on what was more of a war of rhetoric instead of a "war on drugs". Simply put; America will never quench its thirst for Drugs, Hookers and cheap manual labor and Mexico will never stop providing these services unless demand in America is curbed (which is impossible, we've tried various forms of prohibition for the past 100 year).
The only thing that stops this madness is Drug law reform in the U.S. and bringing the Cartels and its leaders into legitimacy by providing them a council of sorts to handle their business and disputes, basically make them politicians instead of pistoleros, like what is being attempted with The Awakening Council in Iraq (and although it has had limited success over there I really see no other options)
Don't mind a Kiwi girl like me, but what's the population in Mexico? I assume, it's just over 100 millions of people living there? Drug war just couldn't quit - it keeps doing it again and again, leaving about 30,000 victims and criminals hurt and dead since the current President took over?
ReplyDeleteIt was never a war on drugs.
ReplyDeleteSince the start of it all, it was a change of dictatorship. They wanted the CDG out because the Zetas where causing too much mayhem and becoming too powerful. The CDG turned the Zetas in so they all got together against the Zetas.
Since the start of it all it was never a war on drugs..
Constantly they're breaking the law and they won't stop until something prevent them, but who knows it might happen or not...? The world stopped Nazis Germany 10 - 15 years later since it was established, but the drug - it goes on and on for many years and continue... It's one of the powerful actions in the globe...
ReplyDeleteNobody seems to mention that demand in the U.S. might be somewhat subsiding causing more and more players to fight over a smaller pie. There is no longer any glamour in the straw, pipe or spoon. The tweakers are old and dying. Any decent job in the U.S. requires a drug test. I have no data but a feeling the U.S market is shrinking.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Bush was/is a coke head.
ReplyDeleteHow can you fight drugs like that?
-Maka
First off, there is nothing either smart nor courageous about Felipe Calderon. He is a total stooge being used for carrying out US government policies in fact, and the Mexican 'drug war' is nothing more than an appendage of American foreign policy and the Pentagon. Many Mexicans support this, but that does not mean that it is an independent Mexican political policy to be fighting this stupid war without end. It simply means that your own Mexican business class has tied itself in chains to the US Empire.
ReplyDeleteJust like with Mexico, many Colombians have supported a get tough policy by the death squad government there, all backed up pretty and nice from Washington D.C. The violence has not ended in Colombia at all, though right now it is a bit less than the previous high levels of human destruction that have taken place.
Get ready, Mexico, the US has Colombianized your country, same as it has done with the more northern lying Central American countries, too. The US government has criminalized much of its own inner cities and the people that live inside those darkened areas of despair. This so-called 'drug war' is not going to end soon, because the rich like terrorizing the poor with the Police State and militarization that this war necessitates having around.
Look around you? The terrorists are really your own elites and the policies they carry out. Calderon is as much a terrorist as Osama bin Laden ever was. He's tied Mexico to the Pentagon!
Ernest
The solution is to build a giant wall accoos California, Arizona, and Texas. This will not stop the flow of drugs and aliens completly, but it will put a huge stop to a lot of this mess.
ReplyDeleteLegalizing the drugs is the only way to end this. Destroy the profitability and you end the cartels. The only thing the prohibition laws in the 1920's did was to create an environment for the the Mafia to flourish. We still have not gotten rid of them. The drug prohibition laws are doing nothing but creating the Drug Cartels. The "War on Drugs" has been an abject failure from the very beginning. The more restrictions that have been put on drugs, the more profitable they become.
ReplyDeleteIt will not end until the people rise up and force the issue. Washington leadership needs to be flushed like a giant commode along with Mexico City and the leadership replaced completely with the exception of Ron Paul. US Citizens don't want to admit it, but the US Govt leadership is so corrupt they make Mexico City Officials look like a bunch of pikers. Look at Goldman, US Treasury, Federal Reserve, for example. We are talking Trillions of dollars here.
The CIA is supplying and protecting the opium poppy crops in Afghanistan. CIA and other US military industrial companies use the drug trade to finance black ops/projects.