Mexico's Drug War - Page 28

On June 20 2011 19:33 Kaonis wrote:


The problem with your argument is that there is absolutely no evidence that global legalization of marijuana or all drugs will actually affect them, or affect them in a manner significant enough to cripple or destroy them. Assuming best case conditions (prices are droped so low cartels can't compete, which they could easily drop their prices as well) then their income is hurt by about half in the case of marijuana.

The second, and larger fault, is that assuming that just because the cartels can't get money from marijuana or even all drugs, they'll just go away. The cartels came to power by selling illegal things that people want; they could and in all likelihood would move on to a new source of revenue if your proposals were to become reality.

On June 20 2011 20:26 Voltaire wrote:


The cartels will never be able to compete with corporations in an international market. These corporations won't have to launder the money or bribe officials, as they will be legitimate. The cartels, on the other hand, would continue to have to do this if they were to attempt to compete in the legalized drug market as the criminal organizations themselves are illegal. There are no other illegal markets with as large of a demand as the drug trade. The illegal weapons trade in the Western Hemisphere mainly consists of weapons going south from the US into Latin America for the purpose of fighting the drug war in the first place. Human trafficking is tiny in comparison to drugs. Legalization on its own may not destroy them but it would at least severely weaken them over the first few years, which is much more than the current policy has done. It would also allow governments to stop spending billions of dollars on fruitless law enforcement efforts and mass incarcerations for drug offenders.

On June 20 2011 21:18 LoneWolf.Alpha wrote:

I think the drug trade and the horrible effects that it has on people is good for the world. Only dumb people do drugs. If you think about it, things like doing drugs, being in the mafia, and getting shot, are ways that society can let the dumb people die. The less dumb people there are, the smarter society will be on average.

I say, even if this military war on drugs continues for decades, then keep it up. Nowhere in history has there been such a great way of selecting for smart people to survive and keenly killing off the dumb ones.

On June 20 2011 21:18 LoneWolf.Alpha wrote:
I think the drug trade and the horrible effects that it has on people is good for the world. Only dumb people do drugs. If you think about it, things like doing drugs, being in the mafia, and getting shot, are ways that society can let the dumb people die. The less dumb people there are, the smarter society will be on average.

I say, even if this military war on drugs continues for decades, then keep it up. Nowhere in history has there been such a great way of selecting for smart people to survive and keenly killing off the dumb ones.

On June 20 2011 21:18 LoneWolf.Alpha wrote:


I think the drug trade and the horrible effects that it has on people is good for the world. Only dumb people do drugs. If you think about it, things like doing drugs, being in the mafia, and getting shot, are ways that society can let the dumb people die. The less dumb people there are, the smarter society will be on average.

I say, even if this military war on drugs continues for decades, then keep it up. Nowhere in history has there been such a great way of selecting for smart people to survive and keenly killing off the dumb ones.

On June 20 2011 19:22 Voltaire wrote:


I'm the ridiculous one?
blabla

On June 21 2011 00:15 FallDownMarigold wrote:


Sorry to cut in but yes, if your argument is contingent upon the idea that legalization of all illicit substances would do more good than bad - you are being ridiculous. There is certainly a logical middle area with regard to legalization - sure I agree to that; however, it's simply illogical to think that ALL substances being legal could possibly go without inflicting a great deal of harm. There has to be some form of control over some of the excessively dangerous substances, just as there is control in any other area of life.

Research proves that marijuana, indeed, is NOT among the excessively dangerous substances. Thus, I don't see a major issue or strong counter point on the side against its legalization. On the other hand, with regard to many other substances, it's quite perfectly clear why they shouldn't ever be legalized - and it's fairly obvious to see.

On June 21 2011 00:15 FallDownMarigold wrote:


Sorry to cut in but yes, if your argument is contingent upon the idea that legalization of all illicit substances would do more good than bad - you are being ridiculous. There is certainly a logical middle area with regard to legalization - sure I agree to that; however, it's simply illogical to think that ALL substances being legal could possibly go without inflicting a great deal of harm. There has to be some form of control over some of the excessively dangerous substances, just as there is control in any other area of life.

Research proves that marijuana, indeed, is NOT among the excessively dangerous substances. Thus, I don't see a major issue or strong counter point on the side against its legalization. On the other hand, with regard to many other substances, it's quite perfectly clear why they shouldn't ever be legalized - and it's fairly obvious to see.

A newspaper columnist known for writing about corruption and drug violence was slain early Monday — along with his wife and son — by gunmen who broke into the family home as they slept.

Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco was shot to death in the port city of Veracruz, the latest of nearly 70 Mexican journalists slain since 2000 and the second to be killed in Veracruz this year. The press in Mexico has increasingly become a target of warring drug cartel factions and corrupt local governments.

Lopez Velasco, 55, wrote a regular column for the newspaper Notiver, one of the largest in Veracruz state, and served as a top editor. His columns frequently highlighted government corruption or detailed matters involving drug trafficking and other crimes and violence. He often skewered politicians, police and criminals, whoever he thought deserving of criticism, colleagues said.

"Everyone knew him or knew of him," Gerardo Perdomo, head of the Veracruz Commission to Defend Journalists, said by telephone from the city. "He was very critical. He told the truth."

MEXICO CITY – Federal authorities apprehended the leader of the cult-like, pseudo-Christian La Familia cartel on Tuesday, saying they had dealt a debilitating blow to a major organized crime group that terrorized western Mexico.

Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, alias El Chango, or "The Monkey," was arrested in the central state of Aguascalientes without confrontation or casualties, said federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire.

"With this arrest, what remained of the structure of this criminal organization has been destroyed," Poire told a news conference.

With the death of La Familia's founder and leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez in December, Poire said Mendez was "the last remaining head of a criminal group responsible for homicides, kidnappings, extortion, corruption and even cowardly attacks on the authorities and the civilian population."

But the leadership of a violent splinter group, known as the Knights Templar, remains at large.

President Felipe Calderon personally lauded the arrest on his Twitter account, calling it a "big blow" to organized crime. The cartel was born in Calderon's home state of Michoacan in 2006, prompting him to deploy thousands of federal police there and warning that La Familia was corrupting local officials, extorting businesses and terrorizing the population.

MEXICO CITY – President Felipe Calderon made an impassioned defense of his military assault on organized crime in an unusual public faceoff Thursday with his biggest critics: sometimes weeping relatives of murder victims who blame the government for the bloodshed.

Poet Javier Sicilia, who lost his son to drug violence in March, opened the publicly televised exchange by demanding that Calderon take the military off the streets and apologize to victims for a failed strategy that he and others say have caused more than 35,000 deaths since Calderon took office in late 2006.

"Where are the benefits of this strategy?" Sicilia asked Calderon, ticking off a list of cases where people have gone unpunished, from drug violence to a 2009 day-care fire that killed 49 children. "You don't have anything to show us, and we are not politicians, we are citizens."

The meeting at Mexico City's historic Chapultepec Castle was emotionally charged, with a mother breaking down in tears as she demanded results into the investigation of her four missing sons, and a relative of two slaying victims of drug traffickers holding back tears while he asked for an update in their case.

Sicilia said that Calderon is "obligated to apologize to the nation and in particular to the victims."

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — Gunmen burst into the office of the police chief of a northern Mexico city and shot him to death Monday, authorities said.

Santa Catarina Police Chief German Perez was shot at least eight times, said a Nuevo Leon state police official, who agreed to give details of the case only if not quoted by name.

Mayor Gabriel Navarro said Perez had not mentioned receiving any threats when they spoke earlier in the day.

Witnesses told police that gunmen in two cars and three pickup trucks arrived at Santa Catarina's police headquarters Monday afternoon and went straight to Perez's office.

Navarro said it wasn't clear where Perez's bodyguards were at the time of the attack. He said state investigators were reviewing surveillance tape.

Perez's killing came a day after three Santa Catarina police officers were detained on suspicion of spying on officers in a neighboring town for the Zetas drug cartel.

Santa Catarina is a suburb of Monterrey, a business and industrial center that is Mexico's third largest city. The greater Monterrey area has been the scene of constant killings and reprisals among rival drug traffickers since a rupture between the Gulf and Zeta cartels in late 2009.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Battles between the vicious Zetas gang and other drug cartels led to the discovery of more than 40 bodies in a 24-hour span, a government official said Saturday.

At least 20 people were killed and five injured when gunmen opened fire in a bar late Friday in the northern city of Monterrey, where the gang is fighting its former ally, the Gulf Cartel, said federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire.

Eleven bodies shot with high-powered rifles were found earlier Friday, piled near a water well on the outskirts of Mexico City, where the gang is fighting the Knights Templar, Poire said. That is an offshoot of the La Familia gang that has terrorized its home state of Michoacan.

He said another 10 people were found dead early Saturday in various parts of the northern city of Torreon, where the gang is fighting the Sinaloa cartel headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's supreme court said Tuesday that military violations of the civil rights of citizens should be tried in civilian courts, as recommended by an international tribunal.

But the justices stopped short of automatically taking all such cases out of military courts, something human rights activists have demanded. The issue has become the subject of heated debate following the government's decision in 2006 to deploy tens of thousands of troops to fight drug cartels.

Some soldiers involved in the war on organized crime and drug traffickers have been accused of opening fire on civilians at checkpoints, conducting illegal searches and detentions, and other abuses. Until now, almost all such cases have wound up in military tribunals.

"It was decided by a unanimous vote of 10 justices that Mexican judges should apply the criteria of restricting military justice in future cases," according to a statement from the court.

Mexican courts must take into account a 2009 Inter-American Human Rights Court decision that says such cases don't belong in military courts, which instead should focus on their main purpose of handling internal military discipline cases, according to the justices.

The 2009 ruling involved the case of a guerrilla sympathizer kidnapped and presumably killed in southern Mexico by government forces in 1974.

On July 13 2011 17:19 insearchof wrote:
a lot of police officers in mexico are teamed up with the cartel. there are only 5 thousand documentaries about ex cartels talking about working with the FBI and going back and forth between the borders at will. its so easy for a middle aged guy that doesnt look like a cartel join the police and actually be tied in the drug trafficking. you would need an army and 1 person to decide who dies or not to clean those streets