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The Drug War Down South
The Washington Post reports on the drug war south of the border:
The Mexican army has carried out forced disappearances, acts of torture and illegal raids in pursuit of drug traffickers, according to documents and interviews with victims, their families, political leaders and human rights monitors.
....Mexican officials acknowledged that abuses have occurred in the fight against traffickers but described the cases as isolated...."I know that the armed forces are not acting inappropriately, although there have been some cases," said Interior Minister Fernando Gómez Mont, who is responsible for coordinating security operations across Mexico. "The government honestly believes that. There is no incentive for abuse."
No incentive? How about money?
There is the one reported by the US press, a place where the Mexican president is fighting a valiant war on drugs, aided by the Mexican Army and the Mérida Initiative, the $1.4 billion in aid the United States has committed to the cause. This Mexico has newspapers, courts, laws, and is seen by the United States government as a sister republic.
It does not exist.
There is a second Mexico where the war is for drugs, where the police and the military fight for their share of drug profits, where the press is restrained by the murder of reporters and feasts on a steady diet of bribes, and where the line between the government and the drug world has never existed.
Read the rest in "We Bring Fear," part of our cover package on the drug war in the current issue of MoJo. The Mexican army's incentives should become pretty clear.
It's an engaging article.
It's an engaging article.
I'm not sure about all the dynamics, but it's important to remember that most of the folks in the army are short timers drawn from Mexico City and other areas far from the border. If there was political will, reform, reorganization, and renewal might be easier than for the police force. There's also an economic backdrop. Things aren't going to get easier.
prohibition corrupts politicians, police forces and even armies
When the National Guard was sent to the border with Mexico by president W. Bush and governors Richardson and Napolititano a few years ago, some of its members began shaking down migrants and some became involved with the drug trade. Prohibition corrupts politicians, police forces and even armies.
All those innocent Mexicans
All those innocent Mexicans caught in the crossfire. Why? So liberals can toke up.
Leave it to a Rethug to outsource agriculture
I always have and always will purchase only the finest USA Homegrown. Fuck, if there were a Green-Thumb union, I would buy only from them.
Don't you have a bomb to fail defusing somewhere?
meth is the favorite drug of neo-conservatives
Much of the violence in Mexico due to the drug trade comes from the meth producers. Meth is the favorite drug of neo-conservatives.
I saw that WaPo article and
I saw that WaPo article and thought, didn't I just read about this somewhere else? Did the Post reporters read MoJo and then decide to write about this? Didn't Harper's have something on this topic recently too? Maybe also the New Yorker? MoJo's reporting was very specifically on the same topic as the WaPo article, but no reference was made to MoJo's reporting. Is this like the Post's VA hospital "scoop" a few years ago, which I thought I had been reading about on the www for months? Does news have to get in the WaPo or NYT before it gets credited?