A Gringo In Mexico Gives Advice

Fred On Everything (FOE) has a most amusing post up and you should read the whole thing. The post is about the drug WAR generally and how to win it. He has lots of suggestions. I liked this one particularly. First the set up:

I see that I may have to take over drug policy for the United States. Maybe not, though. I’ll hold off if I get a call from Michelle Leonhart, who runs the Drug Enforcement Administration, asking me how she ought to do her job, and what she ought to think about Mexico, and what is wrong with Washington’s whole approach to mind candy. (I’m expecting her call any day now.) I will answer as follows:

Now, look here, milady. You need to re-think this drug thing. It’s not going well. It isn’t going to go well. The Bare Skirmish on Drugs (BSkOD) may have seemed a good idea when Reefer Madness came out, or even in the Sixties a half century ago. Now, no. Everyone with the brains of a microwave oven knows that DEA serves only to keep prices up so that the narcos in Mexico can afford classy military weaponry and gorgeous mansions.

Well he goes on a ways in the same vein and then he comes to what I think is his most brilliant suggestion.

So you see, Michelle, the DEA is like a man sitting on a raft in mid-Pacific, trying to outlaw water.

Now we come, tangentially anyway, to Mexico. It is being torn apart, toward God knows what future, because it lives next to the world’s most gluttonous market for drugs. It seems to Mexicans that Washington is forcing them to die for a BSkoD that Washington won’t fight on its own soil.

Is this unreasonable, lady? A couple of things you might do to persuade Mexico that you really want to do your part.

First, why don’t you put a youngish DEA guy, or gal, in each of about ten universities chosen at random: say, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Harvard Medical, Julliard, Haverford, Berkeley, UCLA, and Dartmouth. (I say they’re random). See, young agents could rig their apartments for sound and video. In six months you could arrest hundreds of children of senators, Fortune Five Hundred CEOs, and people high in the Executive branch. You could give them the same sentences that slum blacks get. Think of the headlines: “Senator’s Kid Gets Five Years in the General Population in Leavenworth.” Is that a concept or what?

Yes Fred. It is a concept. I like it. Why do Black kids get herded into prisons for 5 to 20 and the Upper Crust (is there something wrong with their plastic teeth?) get slaps on the wrist or a month or two in a plush private rehab? I guess it is a WHIP type concept. We cycle the poor into jail and the rich stoners can become President. All to better to beat the poor into submission. And WHIP? It is a very old story. Wealth Has Its Privileges. The best money can buy.

Another thing you could do to demonstrate your good faith: You could ask Congress to legislate that people selling drugs to children in high school be tried as adults. Since most of these dealers are themselves in high school, you could put the daughters of lawyers in women’s slam in places like the Cook County Jail. Think how many interesting things they could learn about compulsory lesbian sex.

I mean, you are sincere about wanting to punish dealers, aren’t you?

I'll bet the jailers could make a fortune selling the videos.

And here we come to the crux of the matter. A war with Mexico.

OK. More and more I see suggestions that the US send troops to Mexico to Right Wrongs and make Mexico into Iowa. The Pentagon is sneaking psychopaths of the CIA and “retired” military men into the country, apparently wanting to showcase its systemic incapacity to win any war against anybody at all. Here is a chance for you to do something useful. DEA agents are not idiots, but colonels are.

You might try to drill into the Pentagonal mind—I would suggest a cold chisel and a sledge hammer—that Mexico differs in a fundamental way from the military’s other comic efforts at martial enterprise: The narcos have a million gringo hostages. Or maybe five hundred thousand. Nobody is sure exactly how many Americans live in Mexico. They—we—are very soft targets. We live in a sort of sprawl across Mexico, concentrated in places well known, grouping in known bars, unarmed and utterly defenseless.

A minor contact I have with the bad guys says that, now, attacking Americans carries a death sentence from people who would carry it out with a blow torch over a period of days. “Oh no. Don’t fuck with the gringos,” says this guy. Like most Mexicans, the narcos figure the US is looking for a pretext to invade. They are happy with the current semi-partnership with Washington and don’t want interference.

I'm not going to tell you how it ends. You are going to have to click the link and find out for yourself.

H/T Classical Values commenter Frank via e-mail

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Solution To Mexico's Drug Problem

Yes. There is a solution to Mexico's drug problem says a New York Post columnist.

The ultimate solution is legalization, which would lower profits and take violence out of the drug trade -- just as the end of Prohibition reduced America's gang problem. But there's no political appetite so far (on either side of the border) for legalizing drugs.

Instead, Washington muddles on with an expensive and extremely deadly conceit -- pretending that all we need to do is pour some money on the problem, and Mexico's federal government will somehow eventually prevail.

That dynamic may be about to change.

The Soros Plan For The 2012 Election

Let me start out by saying that this is speculation of the rankest sort. I have nothing objective to go by. The best way to start this is to look at Resident ∅s chances given current conditions.

Current economic conditions are terrible. The jobless rate is running from between 9% and 20% depending on how you do the count. And the housing market isn't coming back any time soon. So he can't run on his economic record.

Hope and Change? A tad too threadbare this time around. You can only be the first black (not a Muslim) President once.

So what do I think a winning issue for the left will be? What issue will be a large negative for every Republican with a good chance of winning the nomination? The Drug War. All it has to do is explode in the right way in 2012.

So what triggered this off for me? George Soros and Richard Branson among others met a little over a week ago in New York to discuss Drug War Strategy.

Gathered within the plush confines of New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel is a veritable UN of former presidents from around the world, George Soros, the billionaire investor, and Sir Richard Branson. Everyone is talking about drugs, though no one seems to be having much fun.

These luminaries are in New York to support the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a thinktank that is calling for an end to the so-called "war on drugs". Branson, who is one of the commissioners, is putting some cash in, as is Soros. Branson's son, Sam, is working on a documentary – a film his father hopes will do for the drugs debate what An Inconvenient Truth did for global warming.

The rest of the commission are serious people, including the former presidents and prime minsters of Colombia, Greece, Mexico and Switzerland, the UN's Kofi Annan, the writers Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa. But it's Branson the cameras flash at most during the press conference. Afterwards, the group is photographed together, and Branson plays the clown, throwing his hands up in the air and whipping out that megawatt smile. It's cheesy as hell, but everyone laughs.

Seldom has he goofed around with more serious a purpose. It's been 50 years since the United Nations orchestrated a global convention on drug prohibition, and 40 years since president Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs. It isn't working

Yep. It isn't working. 3 Men Shot, Tortured, Beaten & Then Hung Over Bridge in Monterrey, Mexico.

Another report on the Global Commission on Drug Policy from Al Jazeera.

A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy has concluded that the global war on drugs has failed. The commission, which includes a group of politicians and former world leaders, says the current anti-drug policy has been fuelling organised crime, costing taxpayers millions of dollars and causing thousands of deaths.

The authors of the report have called for some drugs to be legalised and for an end to the criminalisation of drug users.

They also criticised governments that claim the current war on drugs is effective. But, the White House has rejected the findings, saying the report is misguided. The US government has spent more than $2.5 trillion fighting the war on drugs over the past 40 years.

They don't seem very upbeat about the drug war.

How about the LA Times?

A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and past presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, recommends that governments try new ways of legalizing and regulating drugs, especially marijuana, as a way to deny profits to drug cartels.

The recommendation was swiftly dismissed by the Obama administration and the government of Mexico, which are allied in a violent 4 1/2 -year-old crackdown on cartels that has killed more than 38,000 people in Mexico.

Ah. Yes. The Mexico thing. How hard would it be to create an incident in Mexico that stayed on the front pages for weeks? Not too difficult.

So was the Commission a typical left wing operation? No. Former Secretary of State Under Reagan George Schultz was also on the Commission.

Of course the Russians are against any change that would cut into their mafia's profits.

Russia's narcotics control chief has slammed an international drug policy report as propaganda of drug abuse and accused its authors of lobbying the interests of narcotics mafia.

“We have to realise that we are dealing with global propaganda of illicit drugs here,” said Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov, commenting on a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

The report, released on Thursday, said the global war on narcotics was a failure and recommended that governments decriminalise drug use and give addicts access to some drugs, especially marijuana, to undercut organised crime.

Mr. Ivanov hinted that the former United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, who leads the Commission, could have links with international drug cartels. He recalled that drugs production in Afghanistan had increased threefold when Mr. Annan was the U.N. head.

This propaganda campaign is linked to the huge profits [from sales of illicit drugs] that are estimated at about $800 billion annually, Mr. Ivanov told reporters on Friday.

What Mr. Ivanov conveniently fails to mention is that without Prohibition there would be no excess profits. Prohibition is why a pile of vegetables is worth its weight in gold. So maybe it is Mr. Ivanov who supports the cartels.

Of course we have some geniuses in America who know the "truth".

The office of White House drug tsar Gil Kerlikowske rejected the panel's recommendations.

"Drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated," said a spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Let us get something straight:

People in chronic pain chronically take pain relievers.
Can some one please tell me how a war on pain relievers is going to fix a chronic pain problem? If addiction is caused by pain (trauma) how exactly does Kerlikowske intend to prevent that? Obviously he doesn't say.

In any case the winds of change are blowing. A little under half the people in America are against the Drug War. It wouldn't take much of a shift to make it a little over half. And that is all you need to win an election. Every single major Republican candidate for President and most of the minor ones are vulnerable on the issue. If I was George Soros I'd be cooking up a plot. There is evidence that he may very well be.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

It Can't Happen Here

A blogger notes a failing in the reporting of news from Mexico:

few reporters are investigating the rampant corruption within the Mexican government itself that has facilitated the spread and growth of that drug trade

Shouldn't American promoted Drug Prohibition be implicated?

How about some slogans: "We destroyed Mexico with bad policy." Followed by: "It can't happen here."


H/T Instapundit

Busted

A US Navy Officer has committed suicide over a no drug drug bust.

A U.S. Navy officer jumped to his death at Manila's airport after he was arrested with what was thought to be cocaine, Philippine officials said Tuesday, but tests later showed the white powder wasn't an illegal drug.

Lt. Cmdr. Scintar Buenviaje Mejia died of head injuries after jumping from a second-floor staircase Monday while a security guard escorted him to the bathroom, aviation police chief Pedro Desuasido said.

The 35-year-old Mejia, a U.S. citizen of Filipino descent, was arrested a day earlier at an airport X-ray machine after security officials found a plastic packet containing what was suspected to be cocaine in his bag, Desuasido said. He was about to board a flight to Los Angeles.

Desuasido said Mejia shouted and threw the packet at security officials. He denied the packet was his and claimed he was set up.

That is always a problem with status crimes like drug possession. You are effectively guilty until proven innocent. And all it takes is a police officer who takes a dislike to you.

Mexico has a different problem. The police there are getting the very short end of the stick. American drug prohibition is very hard on the Mexican police.

The last remaining police officer in the Mexican border town of Guadalupe has disappeared, and prosecutors in northern Chihuahua state said Tuesday they have started a search for her.

Twenty-eight-year-old officer Ericka Gandara held out despite the desertions and resignations that left her as the only officer in the Juarez Valley town, which was served by eight police a year ago.

But Gandara hasn't been seen since Dec. 23. While some local media have reported Gandara was kidnapped, prosecutors' spokesman Arturo Sandoval said her relatives have not filed a kidnap complaint.

Sandoval said the search was started Monday as a missing-person case.

The same day she disappeared, assailants also set fire to the home of a Guadalupe town councilwoman.

The Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels have been battling for control of the Juarez Valley, leading many residents to flee across the border to Texas or to other Mexican cities.

All my prohibitionist friends need to get together and yell continuously at the top of their lungs, "It can't happen here." It may be utopianism but the energy expended in shouting makes sleep come easier. Which is all to the good. If you don't count what has likely happened to Ericka Gandara.

And another question for my prohibitionist friends: were the alcohol wars of the 1920s caused by a desire for alcohol or a desire for prohibition? Which appetite is it easier for society to abandon? Clue: alcohol is still with us. Alcohol prohibition is not.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Narco State

Things are very tough in Mexico. So tough that many Mexicans have moved from Mexico to avoid the drug war violence.

The businessman and his family aren't sure how many people were killed at the baseball stadium that day. No one ever knows these things with certainty. But the shooting forced the businessman into exile, a huge decision to leave his home of a lifetime.

The adjustment is clearly difficult. The children mope about, friendless, unsure of what to do. The wife is despondent, nervous. "You have to learn to start your life over," she says.

He says exile will last just two years, because after the Mexican presidential elections in 2012, the next government will make a deal with the narcos and "this war we did not ask for" will be over.

It will be back to the norm: the narcos, peacefully, in charge

And now you know why America doesn't prosecute the Drug War with all the power at its command. No politician wants to be responsible for a bloodbath on American soil.

So when did America make peace with the narcos? All you have to do is look at the murder rate stats. They peaked in the early 90s and have been declining ever since. Everyone is happy. The narcos deal their drugs and the murder rate goes down. And those who want drugs to remain illegal are happy. The only cost is the corruption of our government. And the police? They are doing well. They take payments from the local dealers to implement official policy. Which is: Look the other way.

"The Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It's possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government." - William Colby, former CIA Director, 1995

Another Glorious Victory

In the never ending progress of the drug war it appears that Mexico is making great progress against the drug cartel. Or is is cartels? Or a loose confederation of independent operators?

The federal government insists it is steadily wiping out the once-powerful Beltran Leyva cartel. Two of the Beltran Leyva brothers are behind bars. Last week, troops captured Jose Gerardo Alvarez, another purported leader of the gang who had a $2 million U.S. bounty on his head.

Troops fought Alvarez and his men in a wealthy neighborhood on the outskirts of Mexico City, leaving three people dead. The battle brought closer to the capital the kind of bloody conflicts that have often rattled states on the northern border and the country's two coasts.

Authorities say Alvarez, known as "El Indio," was behind much of the fight for control of the Beltran Leyva cartel, both in Cuernavaca and the Pacific resort city of Acapulco to the southwest.

The U.S. State Department hailed his capture, saying Alvarez has overseen major deals involving the trafficking of crystal methamphetamine and other drugs between Mexico, Central America, South America and the United States.

President Felipe Calderon counts the downfall of the Beltran Leyva brothers as one of the biggest accomplishments of his military-led offensive against drug traffickers.

Calderon has deployed tens of thousands of troops and federal police across the country since taking office in December 2006, a campaign the U.S. has backed with training and equipment through a $1.3 billion aid package.

Drug-gang violence has since soared though, claiming nearly 23,000 lives throughout Mexico, with Cuernavaca becoming the latest front.

Is the war now going on in Mexico a conspiracy of evil or the profit motive at work? If it is a conspiracy of evil - well we are in trouble. On the other hand if it is just the profit motive at work then something can be done. Prohibition is the only difference between a pile of vegetables and a million dollars. Laws passed by city councils and legislators can be repealed.

It Is Not Happening Here

It looks like drug prohibition has given us a gift.

The battle for Ciudad Juárez began about two years ago when the Sinaloa drug cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and based along Mexico's Pacific coast, began trying to wrest control of the crucial drug smuggling corridor into the United States from the Juárez cartel.

Fighting for the Juárez cartel is a street gang known as the Aztecas that operates on both sides of the border. Most Azteca members are heavily tattooed ex-cons who served time in Texas jails. One of the top Azteca leaders, Eduardo Ravelo, is a U.S. citizen.

Ah. A multi-national enterprise. That seems rather discomforting in this particular case.

Criminal gangs working for drug cartels already operate on both sides of the border, and in a sign of the growing risks, on March 13 gunmen killed three people linked to the U.S. consulate in Juárez. The sky-high murder rate is driven by two rival groups – the Juárez cartel and the Sinaloa cartel – and their battle for control of drug smuggling into the United States.

The FBI estimates that 40 percent to 60 percent of the narcotics and marijuana smuggled from Mexico to the United States moves through the corridor, which runs roughly from the Texas border with New Mexico to Big Bend National Park, about 300 miles southeast.

Murder is only one of Juárez's problems. Ambitious cartel underlings have diversified into extortion, kidnapping, carjacking and robbery. When President Felipe Calderón sent 10,000 soldiers to Juárez in March 2008 to bolster security after a purge of corrupt police, the army largely ignored other crimes to focus on the cartels, and crime has taken off.

The result is a palpable sense of unease despite assertions by the mayor, José Reyes Ferriz, that only 200 of the 2,400 people killed last year were innocent bystanders.

Coming soon to an American city near you. In fact the prototypes are already installed and they are producing satisfactory results. All we need is a crack down to produce the requisite amount of violence.

The question for me is how long can the war be contained to Mexico? Not too much longer.

Mexico's drug war is spreading uncomfortably close to the capital at a time when drug-related violence is spiraling out of control throughout the country.

Over the weekend, panic gripped the central city of Cuernavaca after alleged drug traffickers imposed a nighttime curfew on the city, which sits just an hour south of the capital. Cuernavaca, a city of one million, is a popular weekend retreat for Mexico City residents and is also well-known to Americans as a retirement spot and a place to learn Spanish.

On Friday, an e-mail from a purported drug gang warned residents to stay indoors past 8 p.m. "We recommend you not go out to restaurants, bars, etc. because we might confuse you with our enemies," said the e-mail, a copy of which was seen by The Wall Street Journal.

They can close down a city with just an e-mail. That is some awesome power.

I think that pretty soon Mexico is going to say "No Mas" and come to terms with the gangs. Either officially or in a covert manner. And then the gangs will go hunting for bigger prey. Or maybe one gang will win the Mexican Drug War and the losing gangs will decide to come north.

And every day I wonder how much longer this stupidity can keep going. And at the end of ever day I'm amazed. Another day's useless energy spent.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Pot Cartels Busted

Novel headline eh? About what you would expect if you believed in law enforcement. Well as usual I mean what I say but in a different sense. Pot cartels are going broke.

ARCATA, Calif. -- Stiff competition from thousands of mom-and-pop marijuana farmers in the United States threatens the bottom line for powerful Mexican drug organizations in a way that decades of arrests and seizures have not, according to law enforcement officials and pot growers in the United States and Mexico.

Oh yeah. Quasi legalization is destroying the market for imported marijuana.

So what is an economically savvy cartel to do? Improve the product and shorten the supply chain.

Now, to stay competitive, Mexican traffickers are changing their business model to improve their product and streamline delivery. Well-organized Mexican cartels have also moved to increasingly cultivate marijuana on public lands in the United States, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center and local authorities. This strategy gives the Mexicans direct access to U.S. markets, avoids the risk of seizure at the border and reduces transportation costs.

But, at least in California it is just a stop gap measure. Californians will get a chance next year to legalize pot.

SAN FRANCISCO - Marijuana advocates are gathering signatures to get as many as three pot-legalization measures on the ballot in 2010 in California, setting up what could be a groundbreaking clash with the federal government over U.S. drug policy.

At least one poll shows voters would support lifting the pot prohibition, which would make the state of more than 38 million the first in the nation to legalize marijuana.

Such action would also send the state into a headlong conflict with the U.S. government while raising questions about how federal law enforcement could enforce its drug laws in the face of a massive government-sanctioned pot industry.

The state already has a thriving marijuana trade, thanks to a first-of-its-kind 1996 ballot measure that allowed people to smoke pot for medical purposes. But full legalization could turn medical marijuana dispensaries into all-purpose pot stores, and the open sale of joints could become commonplace on mom-and-pop liquor store counters in liberal locales like Oakland and Santa Cruz.

And you know what else? If none of the initiatives pass the proponents promise to do it again until they get the answer(s) they want.

Well what about the politicians? Cowards the lot of them.

Even some prominent politicians, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have recently shown some movement on the issue, saying publicly that the time has arrived to at least study the legalization of pot.

But the skittishness of politicians on this subject is still palpable. When the Legislature last month was discussing sentencing reform, Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, spoke of just how fearful lawmakers are of voting for anything someone might label as “soft on crime.”

Leno noted that in California it is a misdemeanor for an adult to possess up to 28.5 grams of marijuana and that the penalty for that crime cannot exceed a fine of $100.

As Leno told fellow senators, that is the very definition of an infraction. Every year, he said, judges ask the Legislature to change possession of a small amount of marijuana to an infraction because it is folly for them to conduct misdemeanor trials on a charge for which the maximum penalty is a $100 fine.

To date, lawmakers haven’t been moved by such logic. Perhaps in June, voters will get the chance to leap well beyond that small step.

If this passes I wonder if California will become the pot supplier to the nation - at least temporarily reversing its economic situation from dire straights to just abysmal.

Well I just couldn't resist. So here is the video:



H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Legalization A Failure

In an article discussing Mexico's probable decriminalization of small amounts of drugs for personal use, the US Drug Enforcement Agency made its unhappiness known.

Michele Leonhart, acting director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, however, said in April that legalization "would be a failed law enforcement strategy for both the U.S. and Mexico."

How true. It would be one less set of laws to enforce.

The police would have a lot less work to do.

Well I'm going to be fearless and ask a question no one else will ask: "If the police have so much less work to do, who will pay for them?"

Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Pat Buchanan - Legalize Drugs

My friends when Pat Buchanan says legalize drugs, political support for the drug war has collapsed.

How does one win a drug war when millions of Americans who use recreational drugs are financing the cartels bribing, murdering and beheading to win the war and keep self-indulgent Americans supplied with drugs?

There are two sure ways to end this war swiftly: Milton's way and Mao's way. Mao Zedong's communists killed users and suppliers alike, as social parasites. Milton Friedman's way is to decriminalize drugs and call off the war.

When Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs in 1972, Milton, writing in Newsweek, objected on ethical grounds:

"On ethical grounds, do we have the right to use the machinery of government to prevent an individual from becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict? For children, almost everyone would answer at least a qualified yes. But for responsible adults, I, for one, would answer no. Reason with the potential addict, yes. Tell him the consequences, yes. Pray for and with him, yes. But I believe that we have no right to use force, directly or indirectly, to prevent a fellow man from committing suicide, let alone from drinking alcohol or taking drugs."

"Am I my brother's keeper?'" asked Milton, answering, "No."

Americans are never going to adopt the Maoist solution. For the users of drugs are all too often classmates, colleagues, friends, even family. Indeed, our last three presidents did not deny using drugs.

Is Pat happy about it? No. But he says we have to make the best of some bad choices.

Which is the greater evil? Legalized narcotics for America's young or a failed state of 110,000 million on our southern border?

I have to admit that Pat Buchanan is the last person I thought would come out in favor of legalizing drugs.

Now I saw the Mexico situation coming twenty years ago when narco States started their inexorable march north. People said I was crazy. Well here we are. What Pat fails to get is that the march of the narco States does not end with Mexico. Guess what country is North of Mexico? In any case glad to have you aboard Pat. Better late than never.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Dallas Morning News - Legalize!

I do't know what it is about the new administration. It seems to have changed some attitudes. Or else the troubles in Mexico are giving some people second thoughts about the advisability of prohibition as a solution to the drug "problem".

So how to achieve major reductions in American demand for illegal drugs, as well as the profitability and criminality it fuels?

Seventy-five years after its repeal, Prohibition remains instructive. Like the 13-year ban on alcohol, the illegality of drugs failed to curb demand. Like the bootleggers and gangsterism of that era, today's drug cartels are simply serving popular demand.

As with the repeal of Prohibition, the U.S. must again follow a common-sense approach by thinking the unthinkable: the gradual legalization of some drugs.

For such a change in strategy, the U.S. must recognize that all drugs are not created equal. It is now clear that marijuana and methamphetamines do not have the same harmful effects as cocaine, heroin, opium and other hard drugs. Discriminating among different drugs – as does the new Massachusetts law decriminalizing possession of less than an ounce of marijuana – points the way toward a more rational approach.

At great cost, in blood and treasure, Mexico is fulfilling its responsibility with a war on supply. It's time the U.S. fulfills its responsibility with a real war on demand.

And just who is it giving America advice?

Ambassador Andrés Rozental, former deputy foreign minister of Mexico, is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and may be reached at andres at mexconsult dot com. Stanley A. Weiss is founding chairman of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan Washington-based organization, and may be reached at sweiss at bens dot org.

The Ambassador was being very diplomatic. The only way severely reduce the financing of criminal gangs is to legalize. Everything. Of course it doesn't hurt to start some where and since marijuana is rather well accepted in our society (it takes about 50 years from the wide spread introduction of a new drug into a culture until acceptance) that is probably a good place to start. And another point in his diplomacy? Mexico has a lot of meth labs and is only a transport route for cocaine. You don't suppose he wants cocaine to stay illegal because Mexico would get a commercial advantage? It is ridiculous to even think such thoughts. It is way too cynical to think the drug war is being run for any other but the highest of motives. After all the purpose of drug prohibition is to make it easier for kids to get an illegal drug than for them to get a beer. Right?

H/T Colleen McCool of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Crackdown Crackup

The crackdown on drug gangs in Mexico is leading to a crackup.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — In this carnage-racked border city of 1.3 million, more than 80 murders have been clocked in the past three weeks, and kidnappings, extortions, robberies and rapes further bedevil an already rattled population.

So far, the new year looks to be bringing as much if not more havoc than the last. The demons are loose.

“Walking in the streets of Juárez is an extreme sport,” said political scientist Tony Payan, an expert on border violence, repeating a grim quip making the rounds.

Though little more than 1 percent of Mexico's 105 million population lives in Juárez, it accounted for a third of the country's nearly 5,400 gangland murders last year, according to the federal government. And with President Felipe Calderón's war on the country's powerful drug syndicates unlikely to abate, this city bordering El Paso looks to remain a prime battleground.

Some U.S. security experts warn that Mexico teeters on meltdown — of being a “failed state.” Irritated Mexican leaders shrug off the notion, but Juárez's criminal chaos wails like a siren before an approaching storm.

That is pretty bad and predicted to get worse. In the mean time Guatemala has a better idea.

Guatemala is so overrun by drug traffickers that in 2005 its top anti-drug minister was arrested in the U.S. for smuggling cocaine. U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officials describe the country as "the biggest conduit of Colombian cocaine to Mexico," where only 2% of murders are prosecuted.

"Guatemala is the closest thing we have to a failed state in Central America," says Kevin Casas-Zamora, former vice president of Costa Rica and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Yet somehow a complete surrender to the narcotics trade has left Guatemala better off than its neighbors. Wanton political and judicial corruption have, if anything, greased the wheels of business interests and kept violent crime rates below that for its regional neighbors.

So let me see if I have this straight. Let the drug gangs control the drug trade without interference and violence goes down. Interfere with their business and violence goes up. In other words de facto legalization works. I wonder what de jure legalization would look like? Maybe we could get the violence down without corruption. Then you have to ask yourself what would politicians do for a living? Simple. There is always infrastructure. Say isn't that new guy from Chicago big on infrastructure? Hmmmm. I think he has a plan.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

It Is Unanimous

The El Paso City Council has unanimously passed a resolution asking the Federal Government to look into the legalization of drugs.

On Tuesday afternoon El Paso Mayor John Cook vetoed a resolution unanimously passed by city council that would have asked the U.S. government to begin a serious debate on legalizing narcotics.

Earlier in the day city council passed a resolution, rationing that the best way to stop the drug wars in Juarez may be to legalize the drugs here in the United States. It was part of a larger resolution outlining several steps for the United States and Mexico to take in order to cut down on the number of murders between rival drug cartels. Last year more than 1,600 people were murdered in Juarez.

"We know that this drug war and this prohibition on drugs is enriching criminals to traffic in narcotics to these communities, which costs the narcotics teams in the U.S. and Mexico billions of dollars," said Councilman Beto O'Rourke, who added the "legalize drug debate" amendment to the already established resolution.

City council members realize it may be extreme to legalize drugs like heroin, but others like marijuana could make sense. Currently, marijuana accounts for 70 percent of the drugs coming across the border. "Any business will tell you, you take a 70 percent hit to your pocket book, you're going out of business," said Councilman Steve Ortega.

Well of course the Mayor is correct. Debate is out of the question. It might lead to action. Besides we have already had the debate. President Nixon asked for a report. He got one in 1972. Thirty-six years ago.

In this Chapter, we have carefully considered the spectrum of social and legal policy alternatives. On the basis of our findings, discussed in previous Chapters, we have concluded that society should seek to discourage use, while concentrating its attention on the prevention and treatment of heavy and very heavy use. The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal is socially self-defeating as a means of achieving this objective. We have attempted to balance individual freedom on one hand and the obligation of the state to consider the wider social good on the other. We believe our recommended scheme will permit society to exercise its control and influence in ways most useful and efficient, meanwhile reserving to the individual American his sense of privacy, his sense of individuality, and, within the context of ail interacting and interdependent society, his options to select his own life style, values, goals and opportunities.

So the drug war is self defeating. How true. If it wasn't evident then it should be evident 36 years later. Any success that the government has in taking drugs off the market just draws new players into the market.

In any case the El Paso recommendation is just the first hole in the dike. It has been plugged. There will come a time when the holes will exceed the number of pluggers. Then it is all over. For the drug cartels. It takes about 50 years from the time a drug attains wide spread use (1968) until the prohibitionists give up. That means around 2018. Maybe a little sooner if the Mexican problem draws attention to the situation. So I'd say ten years at most.

H/T Colleen McCool who has an interesting www site. She suggests you visit this site if you are interested in a cure for cancer. Here is another site that has a few words on the subject.

In a cannabis study on cancer conducted in 1974, researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, instead found that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice - lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

The Drug Enforcement Agency shut down that study and buried that life saving information. In 2000, it was validated again when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.

There is some serious criminal behavior going on here and it is not on the part of pot smokers.

Colonels Look At The Mexican Collapse

General Barry McCaffrey has called for an evaluation of his failed policies from a couple of Colonels who have visited Mexico. Michael Yon runs down the details in this [pdf]. Let me excerpt a few highlights:

Thousands are being murdered each year. Drug production, addiction, and smuggling are rampant. The struggle for power among drug cartels has resulted in chaos in the Mexican states and cities along the US-Mexico border. Drug-related assassinations and kidnappings are now common-place occurrences throughout the country.

Squad-sized units of the police and Army have been tortured, murdered, and their decapitated bodies publicly left on display. The malignancy of drug criminality now contaminates not only the 2000 miles of cross-border US communities but stretches throughout the United States in more than 295 US cities.

I really like the part about the drug criminality contaminating more that 295 US cities. However, I'd say they Colonels need to improve their observation and estimation techniques. It is every city, town, and hamlet in the US of A.

Well let us look at some more of the report and see if the Army geniuses in charge can figure out what is causing the problem.

Senior government officials are taking enormous personal risk; the drug cartels have demonstrated their willingness to murder political leaders and law enforcement officers who threaten their well being. The commitment of these senior Mexican Government officials to reestablish the rule of law will become a matter of historical pride to their nation if they succeed.

Well yes. The report fails to mention that if they fail they can get rich. Which seems to be sufficient inducement for quite a lot of them. However, success not only brings pride, it also brings death. Not an inconsiderable incentive on its own.

A failure by the Mexican political system to curtail lawlessness and violence could result of a surge of millions of refugees crossing the US border to escape the domestic misery of violence, failed economic policy, poverty, hunger, joblessness, and the mindless cruelty and injustice of a criminal state.

As opposed to the millions crossing the border now to escape violence, poverty, hunger, joblessness, cruelty and injustice.

And you know it is even worse than people think. Mexico is not faced with ordinary corrupt corruption. No siree. They are faced with something more evil than that. Narco corruption and terrorism.

Mexico is not confronting dangerous criminality--- it is fighting for survival against narco-terrorism.

Which is way different than religious terrorism and narco corruption like we see in Afghanistan.

What can we do General? What can we do to prevent this horrible narco tragedy from befalling us? Please. Please I beg you. Tell me before it is too late. What should I do?

A terrible tragedy is going to take place in the coming decade if we don’t closely ally ourselves with the courageous Mexican leadership of the Calderon Administration---- and develop a resourced strategy appropriate for the dangers we face.

Ah. A resourced strategy. That means money. Why didn't you just say so? How much? Where do you want it delivered? Unmarked small denomination bills? Yeah. That is doable.

Then the Colonels go on for a few more bullet points about the wonderful goodness of Mexico concluding with:

In sum, Mexico and its people are a joy to visit--- and a trusted partner in business cooperation. Mexican and Central American labor is a central pillar of US economic strength. However, Mexico is fundamentally at risk from drug-fueled crime which is so powerful that it could threaten the viability of the state.

Well yeah, provided you don't get killed or kidnapped by the various gangs or extorted by the police who are just attempting to make their positions pay. So how much should you pay? Well that depends on how much you have got and what you or your relatives can raise up.

Well enough of local color. What is the problem? The real problem? (watch for the magic trick - here comes the slight of hand, the palming of the card).

THE PROBLEM IS DRUGS

Why sure it is. It couldn't possibly be the laws making drugs illegal transmuting a pile of vegetables into a pile of gold. Oh. No. Don't think of laws and government and supply and demand and smuggling and black markets. That would be wrong and complicated. Can't have that. Just think of DRUGS. And remember the most important thing of all. DRUGS ARE VERY BAD. So if you see any DRUGS it would be wise to beat them about the head and shoulders with a stick. BAD DRUGS. BAD.

Mexico is on the edge of the abyss---it could become a narco-state in the coming decade. Chronic drug consumption has doubled since 2002 to 500,000 addicts. Possibly 5% or 3.5 million people consume illegal drugs. (the US figure is 8.3% or 20.4 million). Since 2002--- past month Mexican national drug consumption has increased by 30% and cocaine use has doubled. The fastest growing addiction rates are among the 12 to 17 year old population -- and the consumption rates among women have doubled.

My god. America has a 14 trillion dollar economy and about 8 1/2% take drugs. While the Mexican economy is at $1 trillion and only 5 % take illegal drugs. How do they expect to catch up with us economically when there is a severe shortage of drug takers in their society. We must help them to catch up Barry. We must.

Drug criminal behavior is the central threat to the state. Mexico probably produces 8 metric tons of heroin a year and 10,000 metric tons of marijuana. 90% of all US cocaine transits Mexico. Mexico is also the dominant source of methamphetamine production for the US market. The drug cartels have criminal earnings in excess of $25 billion per year ---and physically repatriate more than $10 billion a year in bulk cash back into Mexico from the US.

Central threat to the state? It looks more like it is central to Mexican prosperity.

The crime rate is staggering. The US State Department notes that crime in Mexico continues at high levels particularly in Mexico City. Criminal assaults occur on highways throughout Mexico. Armed street crime is a serious problem in all the major cities. Robbery and assault on passengers in taxis are frequent and violent. Mexican authorities have failed to prosecute numerous crimes committed against US citizens, including murder and kidnapping. 44% of all murders through November of this year were of unidentified victims--- primarily because of fear of becoming involved by family and acquaintances of the deceased.

But you know other than that it is a really lovely place to visit. If none of those heads without bodies or bodies without heads shows up on the plaza while you are taking a stroll.

Corruption is pervasive and ruins the trust among Mexican law enforcement institutions at local, state, and Federal level. Corruption reaches into the US Embassy with a DEA Mexican national employee recently arrested for being an agent of the Sinaloa Cartel. He was corrupted by a $450,000.00 bribe. Six high-ranking law enforcement officials have recently been arrested and the current and former Director of the Interpol Office in Mexico indicted. (This is a painful personal reminder of the 1997 arrest of the Mexican Drug Czar, General Gutierrez Rebollo, discovered to be working as an agent of the Juarez cartel.)

Say wasn't General McCaffrey an American Drug Czar? Yes he was. I wonder which cartel he is working for? The pay is good and you can legally put on holier than thou airs and the visage of a scold. What is not to like?

The Mexican people believe the justice system is corrupt and ineffective. Mexican police regularly obtain information through torture and prosecutors use this evidence in courts. The suspect is deemed guilty until proven innocent. Most ominously--- the Mexican people are losing faith in the system. At the start of the Calderon Campaign more than 87% supported the President. Now only 67% are in favor. There is increasing discussion of legalization of drugs—or acquiescence in the drug trade, which used to be presumed to be a US not Mexican problem.

Ah yes. The bane of the cartels - legalization. It would put them out of business. Can't have that. The big bribes will stop before my mortgage is paid off. A disaster. So down with legalization. Death to legalizers. We must never give up. We can win this fight. I see great progress being made. Why just yesterday after a twenty year long investigation my forces found and destroyed two kilos of the most potent pot known to man. Billions of times more powerful than anything your parents smoked. Pot like that is worth thousands of trillions of dollars. And we destroyed it all saving our kids from death, destruction, perdition, and the munchies. Can I have my money now?

The bottom line--- the drug cartels cannot defeat the government through direct violent confrontation. The Armed Forces in particular can at any point on the ground or at sea confront and dismantle a direct threat to the security forces. The most effective tool of the criminal cartels is narco-terrorism -- and corruption and intimidation of the populace to convince the political authorities to remain passive in the face of criminal behavior.

Whew it is cheaper to buy than to fight. How much are you costing them General? What is the Colonel's cut? If you don't mind my asking. Well since you put it that way I withdraw my question. Just forget I ever asked it. I want to live long and prosper. How much is in it for me?

President Calderon has charted a bold and heroic path for the state. His senior law enforcement officer – Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna – has placed his life on the line. The Federal police motto is “Ni un paso atras” (not one step back). Hundreds of law enforcement officers have been murdered. They have seized massive quantities of contraband from these criminal threat forces. (70,000 kilograms of cocaine, 3,700 tons of marijuana, $304 million dollars, 28,000 weapons, 2000 hand grenades, 3 million rounds of ammo.) President Calderon has for the first time in Mexican history boldly used the tool of extradition to the US. (83 major drug criminals sent north.)

Yep. 500,000 drug criminals in Mexico and they sent north a whole 83 of them. Not to worry. They were from a rival gang and we got their business. Profits all around. Except for the evil drug runners from that other gang who deserved it for muscling in on our territory. That'll teach them to mess with us. We bought the government first and an honest government it is. They stay bought. Or else.

The strategy articulated by Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora is to break up the four major drug cartels into 50 smaller entities and take away their firepower and huge financial resources. The senior Mexican leadership have tried to organize the ten US and Mexican Border States to form active cross-border partnerships for law enforcement and drug prevention cooperation. The Mexicans know a central piece of their strategy has to be the modernization of the Mexican justice system and the modernization of the economy.

Ah yes. Drug prevention. If we prevent drugs the drugs will no longer be a menace. And besides even (especially) if we are only partially effective prices will go up. And you know the competition is killing us. We must put a stop to it. For the children. And our profits. My wife (the bitch) wants a new car and a diamond bracelet. So it is critical to destroy those other gangs or my wife will be bitching for months. I hate that. And she knows it.

Now is the time during the opening months of a new US Administration to jointly commit to a fully resourced major partnership as political equals of the Mexican government. We must jointly and respectfully cooperate to address the broad challenges our two nations face. Specifically, we must support the Government of Mexico’s efforts to confront the ultra violent drug cartels. We must do so in ways that are acceptable to the Mexican polity and that take into account Mexican sensitivities to sovereignty. The United States Government cannot impose a solution. The political will is present in Mexico to make the tough decisions that are required to confront a severe menace to the rule of law and the authority of the Mexican state. Where our assistance can be helpful, we must provide it. The challenge is so complex that it will require sustained commitment and attention at the highest levels of our two governments. We cannot afford to fail.

We will decimate the rival gangs and bring profits back in line with my wife's demands. Peace at home requires it.

Or we could just legalize and put an end to this whole sordid farce.

BTW Barry McCaffrey is no fool. He has to know that drug prohibition is supporting these gangs and yet his prescription is to fight the drug war harder. Do you suppose he is on the take?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The American Peole Must Make a Wise Choice

Particularly interesting in the video was a point from about 3 minutes 20 seconds on in the video where the sheriff was saying that the decision on legalization can not be left up to the lawmakers implying that they had been corrupted. Watch how he twists when he makes his statement.

Which brings up something I have been repeating for a while:

"The Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It's possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government." - William Colby, former CIA Director, 1995

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

And this is rather close. Mexican gangs are extorting money from Americans by kidnapping their relatives in Mexico.

FELIPE ANGELES, Mexico — Four hooded men smashed in the door to the adobe home of an 80-year-old farmer here in November, handcuffing his frail wrists and driving him to a makeshift jail. They released him after relatives and friends paid a $9,000 ransom, which included his life savings.

The kidnapping was a dismal story of cruelty and heartbreak, familiar all across Mexico, but with a new twist: the daughter of this victim lived in the United States and was able to wire money to help assemble his ransom, the farmer, who insisted that he not be identified by name, said in an interview.

A string of similar kidnappings, singling out people with children or spouses in the United States, so panicked this village in the state of Zacatecas that many people boarded up their homes and headed north, some legally and some not, seeking havens with relatives in California and other American states.

You know. We are going to have to do two things to fix this problem. Legalize drugs and conquer Mexico. In my opinion all this could have been avoided by legalizing drugs a decade or three ago. It has now metastasized. The measures required to fix it will be heroic. Oh well.

If you are interested in what a confirmed drug warrior (who in my opinion is in the pay of the drug cartels) has to say about the trouble in Mexico read Colonels Look At Mexican Collapse.

Or you might like this book: Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington's Futile War on Drugs in Latin America

Here is a link from the video you might like to visit endprohibition.org

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Good Old Days Of Peace And Corruption

Mexico is hurting. The war on the northern border is devastating the country.

Five thousand, three hundred, and seventy-six people have been killed in Mexico's drug war so far this year, double the number from last year and more than all the US troops killed in Iraq.

Is this what victory looks like?

That's the question Mexico is grappling with two years after President Felipe Calderón took office announcing a massive military effort to dismantle drug trafficking organizations.

Thursday marks two years since Mr. Calderón announced "Operation Michoacán," the first of a sustained series of high-profile deployments of soldiers across the country.

Since then, federal authorities have disarmed scores of police departments, boasted of bundles of cash and caches of weapons confiscated, and heralded arrests of some of the highest-profile traffickers as proof of success.

But the effort's first year, 2007, also turned out to be the nation's deadliest in modern history; and the death toll for 2008 has, as of Dec. 2, far exceeded that, spiking by 117 percent, according to Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora. Authorities at the highest ranks have been arrested for colluding with traffickers, and a strategy that has been a political boon could turn into a liability for Calderón in next year's mid-term elections.

I guess the Drug War is not popular in Mexico. Too much shooting. We are made of stronger stuff here in America. We just ignore it.

Today's staggering violence, they say, is the result of Calderón's get-tough approach, which has caused drug trafficking groups to collapse and splinter.

That is real good in the short term. However, what happens is those splintered groups will form the nucleus of new groups that will form. Multiplying the problem. Instead of vertical integration you get a distributed system.

And how is this affecting the Americans? It seems it is creating a few problems.

The US, which released a report earlier this year saying that Mexican drug organizations have infiltrated every region of the US and nearly 200 cities...

That is just swell. There are already reports of murders and kidnappings by these imported gangs. You can never have too many criminals. Fortunately when we are short we can import them from Mexico. Laborers, criminals, drugs, and oil. When there are not enough in America we can import them. Such a deal.

Elections are coming in Mexico. And what is the mood of the population?

Polls indicate that the Institutional Revolutionary Party – which ruled the country for 71 years during a time when corruption, and trafficking, was more tolerated – is favored.

The reasons are diverse, but analysts say that violence could be one factor for weary Mexicans who long for the "good old days" of "peace and corruption," says Chabat.

You know, if they want more corruption I think we have the possibility of a counter trade. We could export politicians from Chicago and DC.

Or we could make drugs legal and put an end to the charade. And the murders.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

War On The Border

The Drug War in Mexico as chronicled by Newsweek is starting to cross the US border.

Late one night in January, an ambulance escorted by five unmarked squad cars pulled up to Thomason Hospital in El Paso, Texas. Out leaped more than a dozen armed federal agents to protect the patient—Fernando Lozano Sandoval, a commander with the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency. He'd been pumped full of bullets just across the Mexican border in Ciudad Juárez by gunmen believed to have been hired by a drug cartel. Lozano Sandoval's sole hope of survival was the medical team at Thomason, the only level-one trauma center for nearly 300 miles. U.S. authorities took no chances; in Mexico, assassins regularly raid hospitals to finish off their prey. Throughout Lozano Sandoval's three-week treatment at Thomason (which proved successful), the Americans funneled visitors through metal detectors, posted guards outside the commander's room and deployed SWAT teams armed with assault rifles around the hospital's perimeter. Officers "were ready for war if it should go that route," says El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen.

Well isn't that something. US paramilitary police are having to guard Mexican nationals in America. Some one should call Houston and tell them we have a problem. In fact if some one would carry the message to DC it might be even more helpful.

Beyond those cases, 43 additional patients wounded in Juárez have been treated at Thomason this year, including a 1-year-old girl who was pinned against a wall by a truck involved in a drug-related shooting. All the patients have been dual citizens of Mexico and the United States or have had the proper documentation to enter the country, says a Thomason spokeswoman. Yet legal issues are beside the point for many El Pasoans. A recent posting in an online forum on border violence summed up the fear of many: "It is only a matter of time before the Mexican drug dealers send assassination squads over to Thomason hospital." The traffickers already occasionally kidnap Mexicans who have fled north to escape threats of violence in Juárez.

So the drug war violence in Northern Mexico is already crossing the border into the US and the people living along that border expect things to get worse. It is no surprise to me. I was predicting it 20 years ago.

Mr. Obama has promised to take on the Taliban in Afghanistan. I don't think he was expecting to handle a similar situation just a few feet across our southern border. Is he in for a shock.

"It's almost beyond belief." Juárez looks a lot like a failed state, with no government entity capable of imposing order and a profusion of powerful organizations that kill and plunder at will. It's as if the United States faced another lawless Waziristan—except this one happens to be right at the nation's doorstep.

In the past months I was predicting that it might take as long as five years for the Drug Cartel Wars to cross over into the US of A. Obviously I was misinformed. It is happening already.

The cartels operate largely with impunity. Police who defy them are eliminated, as in the case of Oscar Campoya, a municipal cop who was shot dead by assassins in March as he left a local precinct. Despite the presence of several witnesses, including fellow officers, there have been no arrests (only 2 percent of violent murders in Mexico are solved, according to government figures). Mario Campoya, the victim's brother, says Oscar had been pressured relentlessly by other members of the force to cooperate with the drug gangs, but had refused.

There is a saying in those parts plata o plomo - silver or lead. Roughly translated it means take our money and follow our orders or we will kill you. Of course one has to be careful. Cooperate with the wrong gang and a rival gang will kill you. Pretty soon no one wants to be a policeman. Even with pay enhancements from one gang or another it is not enough. In fact that is already happening. Mexico has had to move its army into some Northern Mexico border towns to keep law and order because the police forces were to all intents and purposes non-existent. Of course this has had the usual results. The army is now being corrupted.

Going back to Prohibition, Juárez has helped sate the ravenous American appetite for contraband. These days, the West Texas corridor is a key shipping and distribution center for drugs destined for various markets across the United States. According to a recent report by the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), 6 cartels, 129 midlevel organizations and 606 local groups engage in drug-trafficking activities in the binational region. As part of an elaborate, highly compartmentalized operation, some outfits specialize in transportation, others in enforcement and still others in retail sales. Guided by spotters on the Mexican side equipped with binoculars and cell phones, many shipments cross the bridges into El Paso alongside legitimate commerce. Once in the city, the goods are deposited in stash houses before being sent elsewhere.

Given the permeability of the border, it's not hard to imagine violence seeping over as well. American officials insist that's highly unlikely. The cartels "cannot operate here with impunity," says ICE's Kozak. "One reason we don't see that type of violence here is that it would never be tolerated." El Paso is crawling with federal law-enforcement agents—including representatives of ICE, the FBI, Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration—and all are monitoring events to the south like hawks.

Ah. The infamous: "it can't happen here".

Except it looks like it has already happened here in Las Vegas.

In an early morning news conference Police captain Vince Cannito said, "Cole (Puffinburger) has been found, he is safe and in our custody," he continued "It's just a blessing that this child has been found and he's in extremely good condition."

The six year old boy was abducted by alleged drug dealers posing as police officers on October 15, 2008. Three armed men tied up Cole's mother and her fiancee, ransacked their home and then took Cole after they didn't find money in the home.

Fortunately the outcome in that case was a good one. We may not always be so fortunate.

Now it is the so called social conservatives in cahoots with "progressives" who have pushed this drug war on us. But really they are not conservatives at all. They are radicals. Before 1914 and the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act there were no national laws against drugs in America. And of course in 1937 we got the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.

Well back to the Newsweek article.

...the United States is less insulated than some might think. According to the NDIC report, the increased bloodshed in Juárez "could spill into the [West Texas] region," since it raises the threat that drug-trafficking organizations will "confront law-enforcement officers in the United States who seek to disrupt these DTOs' smuggling operations." (The report cites several armed encounters that took place on the American side in 2006.) The cartels' tentacles already reach deep into El Paso. Local banks are full of drug money, says Claudio Morales, who heads special operations at the El Paso County Sheriff's Office. "We're one of the poorest regions along the border, yet El Paso has some of the largest cash transactions" in the country. Many cartel henchmen are known to have moved their families to the Texas city to insulate them from the carnage back home—though that still leaves the families vulnerable to kidnappers. Kids whose relatives have been killed in the violence are showing up at the Children's Grief Center of El Paso. "We have a lot of kids that are really traumatized," says executive director Laura Olague. "There's a lot of secrecy, or fear, that whoever killed their parents or loved ones would come look for them."

It does seem like law and order is working in America to keep the violence down. And the gangs have an incentive to minimize the violence in America unless it is home grown. But the Mexican gangs do have their methods.

For now, drug organizations prefer to abduct their quarry in the United States and spirit them across the border before harming or killing them. Kozak says that in the past year, a half-dozen kidnappings tied to narcotraffickers have taken place in El Paso. One of them involved Miguel Rueda, a convicted smuggler who failed to pay a drug debt. According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. district court, Rueda was told to meet a former accomplice, Ricardo Calleros-Godinez, at a gas station in El Paso in February. After picking up Rueda, Calleros-Godinez allegedly pulled a gun on him, duct-taped his eyes, mouth, hands and legs, and drove him to a house in Juárez. Four or five days later, Rueda reportedly settled the debt through a transfer of family land and was freed. (He's now in Texas state prison serving a sentence on cocaine charges.)

The criminal group that perhaps best illustrates the porousness of the border is the Barrio Azteca gang. Founded in the 1980s in state prison in El Paso, the organization now counts thousands of members in Mexico and the United States and is believed to be affiliated with the Juárez cartel. Authorities say the gang has a penchant for brutality and engages in everything from extortion to trafficking to assassination. The Barrio Aztecas are "the wild card in all this," says Samuel Camargo, a supervisory special agent with the FBI in El Paso. "That probably has the most potential for violence here"—and it's an American creation. In January, the U.S. Attorney's Office brought racketeering charges against more than a dozen of the gang's members, and a trial began in early November.

So for all you who are in favor of keeping drugs illegal (they didn't used to be), how is it working out for you? We could end all this in short order by passing a few Federal Laws and letting States go their own way with respect to dealing with drugs. One only need consider that before the radicals got hold of the US Government in 1914 there were no national anti-drug laws.

"The Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It's possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government." - William Colby, former CIA Director, 1995

Do you suppose Colby was trying to tell us something?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Success In Mexico

Mexico is having some success in fighting the drug traffickers that are causing so much trouble for Mexicans and their government.

President Felipe Calderón and his government defended their fight against public corruption and drug trafficking Friday, asking for greater powers to go after organized crime. They conceded that most Mexicans feel unsafe and that many police are unqualified to do their jobs.

One hundred days after calling for a sweeping overhaul of security forces, including a reorganization of the federal police into a single agency, Calderón and his cabinet cited some successes, such as the recent arrest of several drug captains and corrupt officials. But they acknowledged that the extreme violence unleashed in Mexico was daunting.

"We know the challenges are many and that the road that we have to travel is long and difficult. But we cannot and will not back down," said Calderón, who appeared with his government ministers at a day-long National Security Council meeting in which they reported on their fight against organized crime and the drug cartels.

More than 4,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence since Calderón declared war against the cartels in early 2007. The campaign has transformed border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez into war zones, complete with 20,000 occupying troops.

Calderón touted the recent arrest of Noé Ramírez Mandujano, a former chief of the anti-organized-crime unit at Mexico's attorney general's office, who is accused of taking at least $450,000 from drug traffickers in exchange for information about police investigations.

And that is what success looks like. It is rather fortunate that the Mexican government is not failing.

One point of success is that kidnappings are down 18% after the government broke up 53 kidnapping gangs. A rough extrapolation tells us that there were something like 250 gangs of kidnappers before the crackdown. Now down to around 200.

And here is another huge success. They are testing the qualifications of police officers already on the force.

In written answers to questions put to him by the National Congress, Calderón reported Thursday that half of the 56,000 police officers evaluated in a federal review failed to reach minimum standards. The examinations included drug and lie detector tests, psychological profiling and reviews of personal wealth.

Almost 50 percent of the officers tested, who work at the municipal, state and federal levels, received a "not recommended" rating. In states where violence and drug trafficking are greatest, the police fared the worst.

In the state of Baja California, where Tijuana is located, almost 90 percent of the officers received failing grades. It is not known how many will be fired or retrained. There are more than 375,000 police officers in Mexico.

The revelation that so many rank-and-file police officers fail to pass scrutiny is likely to come as no surprise to most Mexicans, who harbor deep distrust of law enforcement officers. A poll released Friday by a Mexican research group found that 60 percent of Mexicans do not feel safe and that the great majority do not report crimes because they distrust the police.

Well isn't that something. Only half are failing on average. Fortunately the failure rate along the border is not 100%. That would be a real disaster.

It could be worse. And I'm betting that before long it will be.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

What If They Gave A Drug War And Everybody Came?

There is a Drug War going on in Acapulco, Mexico during spring break.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) - U.S. spring-breakers are guzzling beers and slamming back tequilas in the Mexican Pacific beach resort of Acapulco, unfazed by a violent drug war that has killed police and left body parts strewn about town.

Famed for its cliff divers and sweeping bay, the once glamorous resort city has seen daytime shootouts between police and drug hit men who have dumped severed heads in public as part of turf battles that killed 2,000 people in Mexico last year.

Gunmen disguised as soldiers killed seven people in an attack on two police stations in February and heavily armed federal police now patrol the resort day and night as part of a nationwide crackdown by new President Felipe Calderon.

But with the beachfront strip largely unaffected by the violence, college students are packing hotels and vast dance clubs in what officials hope will be record numbers, most of them blissfully unaware of the drug war raging nearby.

Proving once again that the folks in the drug business are excellent businessmen. They get that you never involve your customers in commercial disputes.

As I recall Acapulco was pretty nice in the late 60s. I stayed at a very cheap hostel called the Jolly Roger. Before going to a little village called Yelapa. Then on to the Oaxaca mountains to a place called San Ysidro. A stay in Mexico City. Back to the Oaxaca mountains. On to Guadalahara. Then home to Bezerkeley, CA. More fun than spring break for sure.