You’ll have to forgive me in advance for any mistakes I make in my OP WRT the forum rules…I don’t start many threads (much less in GD).
Last year more than 5,000 people were killed in drug related violence. I know it’s early in 2009, but the numbers up to this point suggest that this year will surpass last year’s totals. Phoenix is the kidnap-for-ransom capital. It seems that the majority of Americans are simply unaware of what is going on in Mexico. The Mexican government has been powerless, for the most part, to do anything about it; soldiers are deployed to keep civil order and combat the narco-terrorism, but it is never clear who can really be trusted. Some law enforcement and military are corrupt, and the others are targets of brutal, unspeakable violence. Cartels recruit on busy streets and highway overpasses mocking the government and military, making them appear impotent. Journalists are also targets of violence and threats of violence.
At this point, I can’t say that I think that the Mexican government is on the verge of collapse, but I can definitely see it happening (when you consider what they’re up against). I’m just wondering what the rest of this board thinks. Do you think any action should be taken on our part? I’ll post more if this thread doesn’t die, but for right now I’ll just give the citations for the figures I mentioned above (and relevant SDMB thread).
Full Disclosure: I have a personal interest in what happens with Mexico; my hometown’s sister city is one of the most violent places in Mexico and all my immediate family lives in both cities. Two high school acquaintances were murdered in a different TX city, their deaths Mexican drug related (those two being the only ones I’ve heard of…I’m sure there have been/will be others).
I think they should legalize drugs and put the drug lords out of business. They could help the economy by taxing the hell out of them. It’s a win-win situation. I realize this is not going to happen as long as drug use is consider taboo in society, but as the baby boomers start retiring and gen X takes over we may see a shift in attitude because most of them have tried drugs and know they aren’t the evil Reefer Madness paints them to be*
The kidnappings that are starting to happen in Phoenix are too dangerous to ignore and I fear they will spread unless law enforcement finds a way to definitively deal with them. As long as the drug lords make a profit they are not going to stop, damn the consequences.
Yes I know some of your harder drugs are dangerous but for the purpose of this discussion I am talking mainly about marijuana.
The Drug War breeds lawlessness and is leading to the collapse of Mexico. Marijuana needs to be legalized but the real issue is Cocaine and Crystal Meth anyhow. Maybe if we made coca leaves but not refined cocaine legal people would start chewing it like they do in South America, and it would work as a stimulant.
I don’t know what we’re going to do but the reality is we are about to have a failed narco-state on our southern border due to a policy based mainly in superstition.
Or we could have spent more of the money we tossed into the black hole of the Drug War on research into addiction. Or both.
Legalize the essentially harmless stuff like marijuana, and eliminate or greatly weaken addiction and the destructive effects of drugs would shrink drastically, I think.
And yes, I realize we don’t know when or if research would be able to cure addiction. But it’s a strategy that has a lot higher chance of succeeding than tossing people into prison, and a lot less destructive.
It may be proper to think that a policy of legalization will be the right thing to do. However, Obama is not going to be able to either propose or get that one through Congress. The firestorm alone would be nearly fatal to his political capital.
This is one of those things where someone on the other side needs a public conversion to spearhead it through public opinion. Someone like McCain, in Arizona, would be the type to say ‘It’s not working. We need to rethink the war on drugs.’ With legalization could come the politically palatable construction of the border fence along the entire border and perhaps the deployment of troops along hotspots until things calm down.
About Mexico? Who the hell knows. To big to occupy and without, near as I can tell, resource sufficient to combat the narco-anarchists within them I might advise them to treat it as military and have those subverting socity summarily killed but other than that I don’t think they have the tools or the horses to get out of this on their own.
One thing that I forgot to mention in the OP is the fact that the majority of weapons used by cartels are being smuggled in from the United States; the unregulated sale of ammunition has dramatically compounded the problem. More than 90% of the weapons seized at the border or after shootouts have been traced to the United States. Clearly, the problem isn’t only the demand for drugs on this side of the border.
Is that all we have to do? I wish I had thought of that. Give me a couple hours in the basement . . .
I have a brother who’s been a drug addict most of his adult life. I think if most people could live with a loved one addicted to drugs, they wouldn’t be so willing to legalize drugs. Tossing a few extra bucks to drug treatment won’t make up for all the extra addicts running around.
[del]Is it not possible that one of the reasons illegal drugs are so popular within youth society, is exactly because they are deemed illicit and rebelious to be involved with?[/del]
I hate to say it, but do you have a cite on that? If I had millions of dollars, and my own transportation capability, I don’t think I would go to the extra hassle of buying black market weapons in the US and smuggling them. I would just go directly to a 3rd party and purchase directly. I’m sure Cuba has AK-47/74 production plants.
Absolutely. The vigilante group calling themselves the Juarez Citizens Command have vowed to kill one criminal a day starting in June if the government cannot restore order to the city.
I knew someone would come in asking for one. I have no reason to make this stuff up, though. Here you go. FTR, it’s no hassle to these guys. They know what they are doing…all they have to do is bribe people with clean records in the States to run guns and ammo across the border. These people (the runners) typically have nothing to lose.
Oh, one more thing. US law forbids the sale of munitions to non-US citizens, but the law does not require vendors to ask for identification. So many of the smugglers are also Mexican nationals who simply cross the border, stock up on ammo, and head back to Mexico, as if they were shopping for clothes or electronics.
The US should do nothing about Mexico other than offer its support to help combat the rampant crimes that are there. This is a criminal matter, not an international political matter. I would be against anyone who advocates anything that comes close to attacking Mexico for the purpose of setting up our laws and our puppet rulers. While there is frustration, sometimes one has to admit that there are no good solutions, only bad ones. Increase cops on the border states, increase security at the borders, but do not think that we can or should violate sovereign borders to attack it at its source. Thats up to Mexico
I agree with this wholeheartedly. However, it seems as if the Mexican government is incapable of doing anything to curtail the violence within its own borders. I don’t think attacking Mexico is the answer, but I don’t think sitting on our hands while this barbarism unfolds only minutes from where my parents and little brother live is the answer either. There has to be some sort of common ground.
I’m not a gun control advocate either (I’ve grown up around firearms, respect them, and plan on owning a few as soon as I graduate and start earning some real money), but I realize that the system is inherently flawed when a non-US citizen can walk into a gun shop and clean them out of 7.62x39, 5.56x45, and .50 BMG. There simply aren’t enough resources being dedicated to securing our borders, and the construction of some fence isn’t going to magically solve all our problems; not when the majority of the guns and drugs moving from the US to Mexico and vice-versa cross through our ports of entry on trailers.
