Hornets not going back in nest in Mexico's drug war

[La Huerita]

As a sorta kinda follow-up to the recent thread about drug legalization, here is an interesting article you all might want to read. A few snippets from it:

Commentary: Hornets not going back in nest in Mexico's drug war

...The presidency is next on the ballot in 2012, and observers think that the fact that the PRI aced its midterms sets the party up nicely to accomplish something that seemed unthinkable just a few years ago: retake the top job that it held for much of the 20th century -- 71 years, to be precise -- through corruption and intimidation.

In 2000, the PAN's Vicente Fox broke that streak and reintroduced democracy in Mexico. Calderon squeaked out a narrow victory against a third-party candidate in 2006.

The Harvard-educated lawyer and economist immediately and bravely took the fight to drug lords across the country, unleashing the military in a conflict that has so far killed more than 10,000 Mexicans with no end in sight.

And there are now serious issues -- as spelled out this week in The Washington Post -- involving allegations of torture, forced disappearances and other abuse by the Mexican military as it seeks to retaliate for the killing of soldiers and other terrorist acts committed by the drug cartels.

The Obama administration, which has pledged to support Calderon's drug war, would no doubt like to put an end to this alleged behavior before paying out the remainder of the $1.4 billion in aid to Mexico that Congress approved in the Merida Initiative.

Taken in conjunction with the very sobering article jerry linked to in Mother Jones, this touches briefly on the same subject but takes a different tack and is more general in its focus. You can read the whole thing here: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/07/10/navarrette.mexico.politics/

 

[m4shawn]

Wow.... both the Washington Post and The Mother Jones pieces are just.... heartbreaking and disgusting. What a damn mess - what a filthy, depressing, shocking, horrifying, infuriating mess. What is it that allows human beings to become such vial animals and prey on fellow humans when they get into a position of authority as police and military? These stories are absolutely soul crushing. To live in such an environment of abject fear and submission, devoid of hope or choice or humanity -- what hell. What absolute hell. I weep for these people.

Goddamn our government for one penny they give this corrupt pig pen of idiots, crooks and monsters. The answer is clear to me - screw the stupid "Drug War" - what a hopeless and misguided crock of ---- that is. Take the toys and the fuel away from both the brutal a--holes - the cartels AND all the govt -- they're all animal whack jobs and a lost cause. Legalize drugs - just do it already and see the writing on the wall. As long as their eyes are on the PRIZE - the money, in all it's corrupt forms that flows and is associated with the illegal drug market, this cruelty and abuse of humans will never, ever, ever, ever end in that a--backards country.

 

[La Huerita]

Keeping things in perspective, it doesn't hurt to remember how a--backwards the USA is in many respects, too. If it weren't for the demand for drugs in the USA there would be no drug trade, so those who consume those drugs do bear some responsibility for the mayhem whether they want to admit it or not. Then there's the weapons used by the cartel members. We know where those come from, don't we?

Police and political corruption is rampant. The people who "fall through the cracks" of our for-profit health care and end up dead because of it-- well, let me just say that all Mexicans have health care available whether they are rich or poor, and it's pretty darned good care, too, for the most part.

And if we really want to get into the whole corruption/greed thing, we need look no further than Halliburton, Blackwater (which has changed its name to "Xe" due to, um, shall we say a little image problem), Goldman-Sachs, Wall Street, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, well, you get the picture. And then there's the side issue of all those people who were wrongfully convicted of crimes, waiting to die on Death Row, only to be FINALLY proven innocent and released-- yet how many Americans still think the death penalty is a good idea? I actually heard a woman caller on some radio program, after being asked "But what if someone who is innocent is put to death?" respond with this: "Well, you know, these things happen." I swear to God it's true. Just sayin'...

There's a different view of life in Mexico, too. Take a look at this post from a Travelling fella who lives in Mexico City to see how he feels about his city/country: http://www.city-data.com/forum/mexico/612794-life-mexico.html

It's not ALL bad...

 

[m4shawn]

Sorry Andrea - I can't and won't try to draw any paralell between corportae greed and health care system woes with the barbarous hell these poor Mexican everyday people suffer in these news articles; they live in hell - tormented by perpetual fear and complete sumbission to the monsters around them who will rape, beat, kidnap and "disappear" people with no reverence for life - and these are both cartel pigs as well as mexican military. Their lives are filled with fear of having needles stuck beneath their fingernails, their daughters being cut and raped, mass graves, rifle shots to their skulls, suspicion and arbitrary horrors. Read the stories and you will see it is glib to equate the social issues you mention and the real, physical, immediate and visceral and tearful existence these people of our earth suffer; they have no options, no hope - only fear in a world of bullies and madness.
I blame first the repugnant human nature of these pigs who inflict the immediate harm. Then yes, I blame the drug trade itself - I have no use for intellectual musings over the once removed complicent responsibility of the American drug user - who cares -what BS anyway. Legalize drugs - remove the motive for the corruption, the greed, the brutality - castrate the damn system of black marketry and release the hostages of the cancered situation that are the simple people in Mexico, just trying to keep their families safe.
Piss on the intellectual political talk. Monsters ought to all be shot and dumped in a land fill. I weep after reading these stories.

 

[PitiquitoRosy]

I apologize in advance for posting without reading the articles you've linked to, but I just have to interject here that there is wide-held belief among Mexicans that the so-called war on drugs is just the government's attempt to clear the path for Chapo Guzman, who was in prison and pulled off a fantastic escape (without a shot being fired) while Fox was President.

 

[La Huerita]

Shawn I think I didn't make myself clear. I largely agree with you regarding the hell so many Mexican people live in and I was not trying to trivialize it in any way.

However, I take issue with you when you say that the points I raised about our own sins are merely "social" issues or "intellectual political talk" or "glib" and are irrelevant to the conversation at hand. They are none of the above. To the millions of people directly affected by them all over the world (including Mexico), these are "real, physical, immediate and visceral and tearful" things. People are dying by the hundreds of thousands every year, and lives are being ruined, because of those things-- a lot of them right in our own country. That it doesn't generally happen in the USA in such an in-your-face manner doesn't make it any less grievous to those on the receiving end.

Corporate greed is corporate greed whether it comes in the form of drug cartels or the military or the police or from a President's/dictator's office or at the hands of religious fanatics like the Taliban or out of a fancy boardroom. It all boils down to the same thing regardless of the structure and the name by which it is called. The goal is the same: power and money. And the end result is the same everywhere in the world, differing perhaps mainly in the level of physical violence used to gain their ends.

And some of those monsters that ought to be shot and dumped in a landfill wear expensive suits and frequent the hallowed halls of government and corporate establishments, never personally seeing the direct results of their actions. Not that they would care if they did.

As for complicity, America's drug use (much of it "casual" pot use) and gun running by dealers large and small is not just complicit, it is directly responsible. We should own up to our own "complicity" in the hell we have helped to create in Mexico and do something about it. Weeping and the wringing of hands does nothing to change it. Yes, legalize drugs already and be done with it, I agree. So are you personally doing anything to help bring that about? Writing your Congress critter, joining an activist group, writing letters to the editor? Anything, large or small? It will never happen without pressure from the public. That's you and me.

To me none of this is about which side of the political fence anyone is on or (pseudo) intellectualism. It's down and dirty and REAL, and I've seen enough of it up close and personal in various countries to have a glimmer of how pervasive it really is.

Putting on my cynical hat, I quote the character "Rex Kramer" in the movie Airplane: "They're all cheats and liars."

End of rant. My apologies, everyone, for boring you.

 

[La Huerita]

Hi Rosy. Yeah, I've heard that, too, but wasn't sure how widespread the belief was. Just as a little background for you so you know where I'm coming from:

I first moved to Mexico just after Salinas de Gortari's election in 1988. Ignorance being bliss, I first thought maybe he was doing good things for Mexico, but by the time he left office I had enough Mexican friends to give me a more realistic idea of what was really going on in the country. I learned about the de la Madrid administration, the allegations of voter fraud in the Salinas election, etc., and began to have a deeper understanding of the country. I read a lot of books, mostly history. I had just moved from Baja Sur to Quintana Roo when Colosio was assassinated and remember it just as vividly as I remember JFK's assassination. I was so shocked and horrified! Any remaining cobwebs of naivete were removed from my eyes right then and there. I've been following Mexico's politics ever since, and though I'm certainly no expert and don't claim to have extensive knowledge, I do try to understand the various points of view, the ins and outs, and especially what the "people" think. There seems to be a pretty sharp divide in the country right now, as evidenced by the closeness of the last Presidential election (more voter fraud?) and the gains by the PRI in the recent midterms.

That belief about Guzman doesn't surprise me, and thanks for mentioning it.

 

[m4shawn]

Can't agree with you Huerita - can't equate Enron/Goldman Sachs with mosters who rape daughters, "disappear" people and shoot families in the desert.

Also can't assume "responsibility" for a fudged up semi-3rd world corrupt country that allows monsters to roam and prey on its people because I smoke a joint twice a month.

I think it's deeply wrong to not make a clear distinction, both in immediate shock and underlying dynamc and cause, beetween these different types of human behavior. Apples and oranges in my value system. I get what you are striving for - I do. I just reject your correlations.

The Mexican military and cartel pig humans in these stories are a whole different level of evil. Actually, evil personified and made manifest.

 

[La Huerita]

So who is more evil, the monsters who carry out the evil or the monsters who create the opportunity and hire them and profit from it? Who was more evil, Hitler, Goering, the leaders of the SS et al, or the monsters who carried out their will? Who was more monstrous, Charles Manson or the "Family" members who did the murdering? Who is more evil, the cartel leader or the monsters he pays to commit the monstrosities? Who is more evil, the heads of government who OKed and encouraged torture or the monsters who carried it out at Abu Ghraib and other places?

I don't think I mentioned Enron, but I'll concede Goldman-Sachs. That's probably a different level, you're right. But Haliburton, KBR, Blackwater et al are not. It doesn't take much digging to discover how monstrous they are. The correlation there is apt.

At any rate, we agree more than we disagree, so truce?

 

[m4shawn]

Of course, Andrea.
The articles made me ill, moved me to near tears; that's all you're seeing here.