When the assualt weapons ban ended in the USA the Mexican killings escalated. Read the NYU study.
The gun dealers and makers apparently love the killings. The more the better for them. They probably also love any random violent acts in the USA that cause fear levels to rise increasing their sales.
NRA = dealers in death.
Apparently this thread is about everything related to Mexico and drugs and cartels except this point. I can’t help noticing there’s much more interest in Mexico-related stuff that is actually about the U.S.
That’s ironic, that a Danish newspaper would be talking about other people’s violent ancestors.
That’s a pretty human outcome. It’s easier to engage on stuff that you know or have more of a stake in. Most people don’t engage internationally or read the Human Rights Watch reports, support the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent, Amnesty International, etc. Dunbar’s number is a real thing and leads to exactly this type of situation.
Enjoy,
Steven
Not to mention that beyond support of those institutions, people have at least some marginal control over domestic policy and the autonomy to not contribute to escalating the situation. It may be less that those discussing drugs in the thread don’t care about the victims, it’s that they can’t do very much to prevent there from being fewer victims.
I’m not suggesting people don’t care about the victims- that’s what this thread is about. I’m saying they’re less interested in the issues in Mexico that caused these murders than the drug and gun issues that we’re always arguing about in the U.S. I’m far from an expert on Mexico, but my understanding is that this large-scale butchery started after President Calderon started going after the cartels instead of just tolerating the corruption everybody was used to. This isn’t just the result of the U.S.'s (moronic) drug war or its gun laws, it’s an act of revenge and intimidation by the drug cartels because their ability to operate almost at will and their attachment to the Mexican government was challenged.
This killing and the corruption that spawns it is a basic part of the way government runs in Mexico. There are the ‘real bad guys’, then the ‘not so bad’ guys who take a piece of the action to look the other way. There are becoming a few brave souls attempting to be the ‘new good guys/gals’ but mostly they end up being the ‘new dead.’
The custom is called “La Morida” or ‘the bite’. Take a little time to read the link:
http://www.mexicomatters.net/retirementmexico/04_bribeslamordidainmexico.php
Everyone with any authority at all, takes a small cut to facilitate things and suppliment their income. It is the way business, both legal and illegal, is done.
The roadblocks are there to shake down and arrest anyone who has not paid to be ignored, NOT to catch the cartels. Even the ‘honest’ cops are paid to look the other way, the alternative is to have your family killed, so you let that truck through that you were told about, and you live another day and a little bonus shows up.
The Army or Police never seem to catch the really big shipments, unless there is an upcoming election for the new ‘tough guy’, then there will be a sacrifice shipment to get him into office. If he stays alive he is part of the cartels, if he gets killed, he wasn’t.
There is no question the violence is a backlash against attempted government crackdowns on the cartels. Not only in protest against them, or revenge as it were, but also because the effectiveness of the crackdown has actually made the cartels work a little harder for their money. Desperate to keep their profits at their former levels they were forced to turn on each other to fight for territory more ferociously than before. Also there is a lot of speculation that various government entities favor one cartel over another. For example in a recent prison riot/jailbreak where many prisoners escaped and many were killed in the riot, only members of the Zetas cartel escaped and only members of competing cartels were killed. Many say the police wanted it that way. The rumor is that if they let the Zetas kill all the other cartels then they only need to deal with the Zetas later after the rest of the house has been cleaned.
But any way you look at it, the flow of US money and guns (e.g the results of our war on drugs and looser gun laws) are still directly responsible for their ability to afford to fight this battle with such ferocity and general impunity. If they had no profit incentive to get the drugs to the US all the other factors in the conflict would be moot.
That was a common problem years ago but at least in the parts of Mexico I’ve visited it is not at all the case now. Every police officer has a military commander, governor and others looking over their shoulders and it has been that way for at least 5 years or more. The roadblocks are not conducted by police, it is the army and they are all business (as in legitimate business and very professional). It has been many years since a police officer shook me down for a mordida and they have big signs along highways in tourist areas warning not to pay cash to police and to report any attempts to extort cash. All government offices refuse to accept any form of payment directly or handle any money. All fees, taxes, etc. have to be paid at a bank where you get a receipt to show them it’s paid. There have been earnest efforts to cut corruption out of the police and government. When the US is able to completely accomplish that, maybe we can find more fault in Mexico for not being able to fully do so yet either.
You said it so it must be so. Diogenes, were he here, would be proud of you.
For that matter, IME fingerprinting by Mexican law enforcement just isn’t the same as it is in the U.S. I had a (Mexican) client who we had to get fingerprinted U.S.-style for immigration purposes in Mexico (long story). He went to I think 4 different law enforcement agencies, including the police unit responsible for investigating violent crimes, and not a single one could roll a 10-print card that the FBI could read. We finally gave up. The explanation I got was that the Mexican law enforcement standard method is index fingers only.
Eva Luna, (U.S.) Immigration Paralegal
If this theory were correct, you’d expect to see a lot of violence in Scandinavia now. Those things happened there in the Viking past.
Didn’t something similar (though without the spectacular butchery) happen in Italy in the 1980s, when the government cracked down on the Mafia and it responded by assassinating government officials? How did Italy deal with that?
Here’s one Mexican trying to do something about it.
Thank you for this.
The () comes from the fact that the Italian process has always stayed within civilian hands. Calling in the military = tossing due process out the window. In Mexico, the war on drugs is literal; in Italy, the war on corruption is metaphorical. In both cases you get dead and wounded and families moving away and parents sending their kids to stay with grandma - but the scales are completely different.