Notice: This is the official website of the All Empires History Community (Reg. 10 Feb 2002)

  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Register Register  Login Login

It's starting to look like Mexico is falling apart

 Post Reply Post Reply Page  123 4>
Author
Kevin View Drop Down
General
General
Avatar
AE Editor

Joined: 27-Apr-2007
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 767
  Quote Kevin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: It's starting to look like Mexico is falling apart
    Posted: 28-Feb-2009 at 18:59
Here in the US we are getting more and more news about the drug-related violence in Mexico. It seems to be getting worse by the week and it appears Mexico could be very well the next Columbia.
 
Any thoughts in terms of open discussion about the current state of affairs in Mexico at the time being? In addition to it's possible effects on the geopolitics of the region


Edited by Kevin - 28-Feb-2009 at 19:34
Back to Top
Al Jassas View Drop Down
Arch Duke
Arch Duke
Avatar

Joined: 07-Aug-2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1810
  Quote Al Jassas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Feb-2009 at 19:31
One of the reasons why drug cartels thrive in Mexico is the US itself. All weapons that the cartels have come from the US and US citizens sell these weapons which they can get easily without any checks, especially assult weapons, to the cartels and the US refuses to accept that it is partially responsible for the mess especially in the border cities where Cartels have more weapons than the federales:
 
Al-Jassas
Back to Top
Kevin View Drop Down
General
General
Avatar
AE Editor

Joined: 27-Apr-2007
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 767
  Quote Kevin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Feb-2009 at 19:37
Originally posted by Al Jassas

One of the reasons why drug cartels thrive in Mexico is the US itself. All weapons that the cartels have come from the US and US citizens sell these weapons which they can get easily without any checks, especially assult weapons, to the cartels and the US refuses to accept that it is partially responsible for the mess especially in the border cities where Cartels have more weapons than the federales:
 
Al-Jassas
 
I wouldn't say that is nessacerly true as alot of these weapons are coming from China and elsewhere in Asia, if not the majority. In addition the Feds here in the US are beginning to crack down on illegal weapons sales that go into Mexico.
 
Also if you look at much of the weaponary and manpower that cartels have now you will realize that illegal weapons sales from the United tates couldn't have made much of that possible alone.


Edited by Kevin - 28-Feb-2009 at 19:39
Back to Top
Al Jassas View Drop Down
Arch Duke
Arch Duke
Avatar

Joined: 07-Aug-2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1810
  Quote Al Jassas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Feb-2009 at 19:51
No, read the articles. 90% of the weapons come from US and particularly from Texas and Arizona which has I think the most liberal gun laws in the US. Plus AK-47 is manufactured in the US so are many Russian and Israeli guns the mob like. It is because of these laws which makes it legal for gun stores to sell weapons to whom ever comes even if he had connections with drugs and organised crime that exacerbates the problem.
 
Plus if one sees where the drug war in Mexico is concentrated he will find that it is in the border states of Chihuahua and Sonora. Other states don't have such a problem as these two states because gun flow is much more limited.
 
Al-Jassas
Back to Top
ArmenianSurvival View Drop Down
Chieftain
Chieftain
Avatar

Joined: 11-Aug-2004
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1460
  Quote ArmenianSurvival Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Feb-2009 at 20:59
The CIA makes these problems worse by backing their own cartels and cartels with ties to the Mexican government, against their rivals, mainly local Mexican cartels. If our intelligence agencies simply opposed ALL cartels and patrolled our border, these problems would never reach the proportions they have. But the CIA is an unconstitutional body with no oversight, which is why they can engage in these activities. From their perspective, there are billions in profits to make from the control of drug trafficking in north America. The 'War on Drugs' should be called the 'Drug War', because thats what it really is. Two people trying to sell drugs on the same block are bound to go to war.
 
 
Originally posted by Al Jassas

Plus if one sees where the drug war in Mexico is concentrated he will find that it is in the border states of Chihuahua and Sonora. Other states don't have such a problem as these two states because gun flow is much more limited.
 
You have it backwards. The reason why the violence is much more concentrated in northern Mexico as opposed to the southern US is precisely because most people in the southern US own guns, while Mexicans throughout their country are victims of the tightest gun regulations in the hemisphere. Thats why, despite complete freedom of movement due to an ungaurded border, and freedom to own guns in the US, the drug violence is more than 10-fold inside Mexico than in the US. Because cartels know that the citizens (and even police) in northern Mexico are sitting ducks, and unless there are full-time army patrols in northern Mexico (which they started lately), the people are defenseless. Not the case in Texas, where you can create citizen militias out of a couple of city blocks, and you don't even need police protection from drug criminals, since even granny knows how to use a rifle. Cartels know that everyone in Texas owns guns, which is exactly why they operate a few miles away in northern Mexico.
 
And northern Mexico, in terms of crime rate, is not that different from the rest of the country--- Look at Mexico City, geographically in the middle of the country, and one of the most crime-infested areas in the world. Again, because citizens are unarmed and armed criminals know this. Even southern Mexico is infested with crime, with major rebellions in Oaxaca and Chiapas.
Mass Murderers Agree: Gun Control Works!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Resistance

Քիչ ենք բայց Հայ ենք։
Back to Top
Al Jassas View Drop Down
Arch Duke
Arch Duke
Avatar

Joined: 07-Aug-2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1810
  Quote Al Jassas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 07:52
Here we go again, more gun control means more crime.
 
With all due respect AS gun control has nothing to do with the problems in the north, it is the lack of them that makes things go wrong. Even if you arm people there with tanks and F-22's cartels will have the upper hand because they are just too powerful. If police and army could do simply nothing and they have a kill-first policy how the hell do ordinary people going to make use of liberal gun laws.
 
Al-Jassas
 
 
Back to Top
Maharbbal View Drop Down
Sultan
Sultan
Avatar
Retired AE Moderator

Joined: 08-Mar-2006
Location: Paris
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2120
  Quote Maharbbal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 12:15
The lack of US control over gun trafficking to Mexico is indeed scandalous but cannot be considered the main reason why such violence is happening on the Norther border. If they didn't get their weapons from the US, they would get it from somewhere else. These guys are able to bring in tens of tons of cocaine and other drugs, you don't think that a few guns are beyond their reach. At best some small gangs would lose their gun supply. On the other hand, demand for small firearms may create the necessary economies of scale for the Mexican cartels to import big stuff they cannot find in the US market (rockets, mines, machine guns, etc.).

The argument that it is gun control in Northern Mexico that causes the violence is totally bogus because:
1. most of the people killed had a gun in the first place (many gangsters and policemen are shot). What the army brings is not so much firepower as a more organized force.
2. the primary cause of the violence (control over drug trade) makes no sense north of the border.

Cartels are rent-seekers fighting over the control of the smuggling of drugs and to a lesser extent of human beings (coyotes). Self-evidently the best way to stop the violence is to stop the smuggling; this can happen if you end demand for drug and undocumented labour or if you make the trade legal by opening the border to drugs and migrants. It would make good economic and fiscal sense but it is of course politically difficult.
I am a free donkey!
Back to Top
Guests View Drop Down
Guest
Guest
  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 12:18
Mexico has always being falling appart.
 
Well, in the possitive side, what's going on in Mexico could mean the beginning of the end of the tolerancy to crime.
 
Twenty years ago, Colombia was in a similar situation. The guerrilla and the drug lords literalilly dominated that country, killing each politician and military that tried to prosecute them. They even asaulted the supreme court and killed a hundred people. Fear had that country helpless. But though people came and started to persecute and kill the bad elements. When Uribe arrived he started to destroy sistematically every single source of crime and violence, and today they have the FARC and drug lords diminished in theirs violence and power.
 
Mexico will have to follow a similar path. It will happens sooner or later. They are concient the situation is escaping from theirs hands. What they need is more decision and a couragious man as Alvaro Uribe in Colombia.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Back to Top
pikeshot1600 View Drop Down
Tsar
Tsar


Joined: 22-Jan-2005
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 4221
  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 15:32
Originally posted by Kevin

Here in the US we are getting more and more news about the drug-related violence in Mexico. It seems to be getting worse by the week and it appears Mexico could be very well the next Columbia.
 
Any thoughts in terms of open discussion about the current state of affairs in Mexico at the time being? In addition to it's possible effects on the geopolitics of the region
 
With the possibility of previous cooperation between Hugo Chavez's government and FARC (widely suspected but not yet proved), what might the probability be of Venezuelan involvement in Mexico's current problems?  There is still plenty of narco-business in Colombia, regardless of improvement, because of the money involved.
 
The reduction of revenue from oil production might have to be made up elsewhere by a regime that has staked it's future and reputation on widespread social spending.  How much of a challenge that may be for Venezuela has yet to be determined.  There is no other substantial revenue stream available to the regime.
 
Since caudillo regimes find it useful to construct foreign threats, an inability to fund the socialist order in Venezuela might lead to domestic unrest being blamed on the United States.
 
Venezuela is no military threat to anyone in the Caribbean but an asymmetrical challenge to a key US partner in Mexico by means of narco-business could:
 
1)  assist in revenue aquisition that can easily be laundered through a hundred places in Latin America and elsewhere.
 
2)  provide the perception to key Chavez support within the Venezuelan regime that the United States is being distracted in the Hemisphere by diverting assets to it's southern border and to Mexican authorities.  That might stress already thin US resources to the benefit of narco interests (and sources of revenue).
 
This could be done with public deniability, and, by concentrating on Mexico, there is no military threat of retaliation to Venezuela....anti-Gringo policy by proxy.
 
Why might Venezuela be an obvious matter of concern?  Because the regime has made a wager on oil which may not be sustainable in the short term, and because Hugo Chavez, as a populist, has staked his prestige on outspoken anti-American policies.  
 
This is a matter of geopolitical concern to two important North American states as it impacts basic security in Mexico and has already impacted several states in the American southwest with increrased criminal activity by Mexican cartels in Arizona and Texas.  California and New Mexico are hardly immune.  In a broader sense, the possibility of instability in any sovereign state along the Caribbean littoral impacts the vital interests of the United States. 
 
    
Back to Top
Guests View Drop Down
Guest
Guest
  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 15:46
Mexico should sent drug criminals to U.S. jails. like Colombia do. That would help to reduce the problems.
Now, how come the problems are getting though in the states? I should warn that criminal organizations have so much money they can corrupt anyone. The U.S. is not inmune to it, and should make an effort to control its own corruption more, particularly in gun trade.
Back to Top
Bulldog View Drop Down
Caliph
Caliph
Avatar

Joined: 17-May-2006
Location: United Kingdom
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2800
  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 16:10
The U.S makes millions if not billions from the drug trade, they have to appear as if they are trying to stop it however, its just an image, behind the curtain people very high up in the U.S make so much money from this business and have no intentions for it to end.
      What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
Albert Pine

Back to Top
Guests View Drop Down
Guest
Guest
  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 16:56
That's what worries me. If the U.S. really had the will, a priority should be to cut to zero all the imports of drugs. With technology that can be made.
However, it looks like there are some corruption in the frontier guards, and also among the high spheres. Drug money corrupt everyone, I am afraid.
Back to Top
Al Jassas View Drop Down
Arch Duke
Arch Duke
Avatar

Joined: 07-Aug-2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1810
  Quote Al Jassas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 17:04
Hello Pike
 
What you said in your post is typical right wing propaganda although a much suitable word better describe it.
 
Right wing militias benifit from drugs in Colombia as much as the FARC if not more. Now the FARC has gone and the government and its militia control the country drugs are still a problem as they were. Colombia still produces 70%+ of the worlds Cocaine and actually the percentage is increasing not decreasing believe it or not.
 
The only way to stop drugs is cooperation. The US must crack down not on trade but also consumption. If celebrities keep getting it easy when they are caught with drugs then its hopeless to find a solution without cracking on the civil rights of the people in those areas.
 
Al-Jassas
Back to Top
edgewaters View Drop Down
Sultan
Sultan
Avatar
Snake in the Grass-Banned

Joined: 13-Mar-2006
Location: Canada
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2394
  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 21:01

They could wipe out cocaine and other foreign-imported drugs quite quickly if they wanted to. The networks rely on a system of credit or consignment to distribute the narcotics, which could be easily collapsed by pulling out all the undercover agents simultaenously when they are in possession of a peak amount of consignments and unpaid debts. A wave of killings would ensue and the distribution networks would destroy themselves.

The reason they don't do this is because there would be no prestige, no busts to print in the paper. There would also be a tidal wave of "drug violence" as the distribution networks collapsed in executions and slayings over unpaid debts. The drug enforcement agencies seek good media coverage in the form of large busts and lower drug violence, so they will never do this.

Back to Top
Kevin View Drop Down
General
General
Avatar
AE Editor

Joined: 27-Apr-2007
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 767
  Quote Kevin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 21:25
Originally posted by Al Jassas

Hello Pike
 
What you said in your post is typical right wing propaganda although a much suitable word better describe it.
 
Right wing militias benifit from drugs in Colombia as much as the FARC if not more. Now the FARC has gone and the government and its militia control the country drugs are still a problem as they were. Colombia still produces 70%+ of the worlds Cocaine and actually the percentage is increasing not decreasing believe it or not.
 
The only way to stop drugs is cooperation. The US must crack down not on trade but also consumption. If celebrities keep getting it easy when they are caught with drugs then its hopeless to find a solution without cracking on the civil rights of the people in those areas.
 
Al-Jassas
 
The US has been cracking down very hard on the drug trade and anything related to it since the mid-1970's when it started showing up in large amounts on US soil. Keep in mind US drug laws are amongthe strongest in the Western world. Not to mention that tens of thousands of indivudals are curenly serving sentences in American prisons from drug offences of varying degrees.
 
Pikeshot is also very true in what he says about Chavez's regime, organized crime espeically of the drug type has flourished in his nation under his reign and Caracas has become one of the most crime infested cities in the world as an example of that.
Back to Top
pikeshot1600 View Drop Down
Tsar
Tsar


Joined: 22-Jan-2005
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 4221
  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 22:38
I do not detect much geopolitical analysis in some of the foregoing posts.  Let's give it more thought than that, please.
 
Nowhere did I mention stopping the drug trade.  Stopping the drug trade is unrealistic, and people will continue to make money from it.  "Cooperation" and "technology" are not going to stop it, and drugs can and might be used as a weapon or force multiplier in strategic matters among sovereign states.  This is hardly going to be discussed in public by governments or intelligence agencies.
 
All the usual stuff about "right wing propaganda" and higher ups who make billions, and corrupt "frontier guards" is irrelevant notwithstanding individual perception and bias.  There has been plenty of press linking the president of Venezuela to narco criminals.  If that makes anyone uncomfortable, take his name out of the equation.  It is doubtful that the use of illicit drug revenue (in some form, and to varying degrees) is absent from the operations of any state entity or any intelligence agency.
 
Now, how does this affect geopolitics...in this example in the Caribbean basin?  From the standpoint of the writer, it impacts the vital interests of the United States, and those of other states along the Caribbean littoral.
 
 


Edited by pikeshot1600 - 01-Mar-2009 at 22:40
Back to Top
ArmenianSurvival View Drop Down
Chieftain
Chieftain
Avatar

Joined: 11-Aug-2004
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1460
  Quote ArmenianSurvival Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Mar-2009 at 22:49
Originally posted by Maharbbal

The lack of US control over gun trafficking to Mexico is indeed scandalous but cannot be considered the main reason why such violence is happening on the Norther border. If they didn't get their weapons from the US, they would get it from somewhere else. These guys are able to bring in tens of tons of cocaine and other drugs, you don't think that a few guns are beyond their reach. At best some small gangs would lose their gun supply. On the other hand, demand for small firearms may create the necessary economies of scale for the Mexican cartels to import big stuff they cannot find in the US market (rockets, mines, machine guns, etc.).
 
Yep.
 
 
Originally posted by Maharbbal

The argument that it is gun control in Northern Mexico that causes the violence is totally bogus because:
 
I didn't say gun control causes the violence. The war over the drug market causes the violence. Gun control just makes it worse, because it prevents law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves with lethal force.
 
 
Originally posted by Maharbbal

1. most of the people killed had a gun in the first place (many gangsters and policemen are shot). What the army brings is not so much firepower as a more organized force.
 
Many of the police that are killed work for rival gangs. The police force in Mexico is totally demoralized. Armed citizenry, by historical evidence, have greater morale, because they have an incentive to be organized in order to protect their families. Guns are an incentive for citizens to be organized and ready... without guns, there is no point for civilians to be organized against crime, because they can't to anything without guns. All they can do is duck and cover, and hope that some bureaucrats from the capital (many of whom are secretly part of this cartel war) send the army to the north for an indefinite period. This is why law-abiding citizens need to be armed. The army can't be everywhere at once, and no one has a greater incentive to protect the city than the citizens who live there.
 
And you're right, even armed people die, but that doesn't disprove that a citizen's freedom to own guns curbs violence (curbs, not stops). All genocides and mass murders were made possible because citizens were stripped of their firearms.
 
 
Originally posted by Maharbbal

2. the primary cause of the violence (control over drug trade) makes no sense north of the border.
 
The southern states of the US are seeing unprecedented increases in drug violence, because there is virtually no border patrol. Most authorities from these states confirm that this violence is, by definition, a spillover from northern Mexico.
 
 
Originally posted by Maharbbal

Self-evidently the best way to stop the violence is to stop the smuggling; this can happen if you end demand for drug and undocumented labour or if you make the trade legal by opening the border to drugs and migrants.
 
Good point. Drug prohibition is a major cause of all this. The same way all the powerful American mobs of the 30's were propped up by alcohol prohibition.
 
 
Edgewaters also makes a great point in his post. I would also add that the CIA and similar clandestine groups make billions in profits from these drugs, which is a key reason they haven't done anything about it.


Edited by ArmenianSurvival - 01-Mar-2009 at 22:52
Mass Murderers Agree: Gun Control Works!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Resistance

Քիչ ենք բայց Հայ ենք։
Back to Top
Al Jassas View Drop Down
Arch Duke
Arch Duke
Avatar

Joined: 07-Aug-2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1810
  Quote Al Jassas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Mar-2009 at 16:22
The Chavez regime (by the way the guy was elected in a free and fair election that the US recognised) has nothing to do with the drug problem in the US and Mexico. The drug problem is an American-Mexican problem that both countries know exactly what the solution is and yet dance around it.
 
Also the US did crack down on organized crime, the Italian and US mafia, which lead to a reduction in drugs where the mafia operated, however drug trade soon went to Colombian and Mexican cartels many of which were involved with the CIA back in the 80s and early 90s. Drugs are freely traded nowadays in the US cities and being caught with drugs in some states have become almost a misdemeanor.
 
It is no secret that all gang activity within the US are financed by drug money. Crack down on gangs (that is put every gang member in jail even if his only crime is that he is a gang member) and the cash funding the Mexican cartels with dry out.
 
Al-Jassas
Back to Top
Guests View Drop Down
Guest
Guest
  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Mar-2009 at 16:46
Marijuana is a misdemeanor rightly so in a few states, but hard drugs aren't people are still serving multi-year sentences for them. It is the ones that have the money to get a lawyer-and pay off a judge that get house arrest and or a lesser sentence. That is at least the case in Chicago for years now. 
Back to Top
Bulldog View Drop Down
Caliph
Caliph
Avatar

Joined: 17-May-2006
Location: United Kingdom
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2800
  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Mar-2009 at 17:51
Al Jassas
It is no secret that all gang activity within the US are financed by drug money. Crack down on gangs (that is put every gang member in jail even if his only crime is that he is a gang member) and the cash funding the Mexican cartels with dry out.


There arn't enough prisons, do you know how bad the gang problem is? there are estimated to be over 1 million gang members.

The problem is a social one, people put blame on weapons and drugs but they don't cause the problems people do.

I have lived in mountain villages were everybody walks around with guns and everyone has a gun, however, gun crime was practically non-existant.

The problem with gangs is a tragic social cycle, broken families have kids who grow up on the streets without parental guidance, the surrounding people are in a similar predicament, the area has high unemployment and the people with respect ie people to aspire to are involved in criminal activities, usually involving narcotics. Every generation the gang members get younger and younger untill this way of life in these areas becomes the norm. Over time even in families which arn't broken, most the family is involved in some form of crime which makes the situation even worse.

This is just the lowest level of the drug trade, the highest level is an elite of very wealthy and influential people usually inside the government.

      What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
Albert Pine

Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  123 4>

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Bulletin Board Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 9.56a [Free Express Edition]
Copyright ©2001-2009 Web Wiz

This page was generated in 0.109 seconds.