Mexico’s War On Drugs Has Been Going On For 10 Years

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Stratfor: A Decade Into Mexico's War on Drugs - Analysis

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Operation Michoacan, and to many, the start of Mexico's deadly war on drugs. But a decade later, the country's prospects for security and peace don't seem much better than they did when the massive crackdown on Mexican cartels began in 2006.

Most people point to Felipe Calderon's presidency as the moment when things began to go wrong for Mexico. In the face of rising crime, and under mounting pressure from the United States to stem the flow of drugs across its southern border, Calderon sent 5,000 soldiers and federal police officers into the streets of Michoacan state, firing the first shots of what would become a long and bloody struggle. But it is neither fair nor accurate to pin the blame for the conflict that ensued on a single decision. Crime-related violence plagued Mexico long before Calderon took office, albeit at a lower level than in the years that followed his declaration of war on the country's cartels. Moreover, Calderon was not the first president to deploy Mexico's armed forces against drug lords and their assets; he was just the first to do so on such a tremendous scale.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The numbers from this war are staggering .... 100,000 dead, 30,000 missing, and the war continues.

More News On Mexico’s Ten Year War On Drugs

Mexico's Drug War Marks a Decade Amid Doubts, Changes -- NYT/AP
Decade-long drug war has left deep scars on Mexican society but brutal turf wars continue -- AFP
Mexico marks decade-long drugs war -- Al Jazeera
A decade of murder and grief: Mexico’s drug war turns ten -- Huffington Post
A look at notable dates in Mexico's decade-old drug war -- AP

Mexico's Drug Cartel War -- News Updates August 11, 2009

Felipe Calderon launched a war on the country's
powerful drug cartels in December 2006 Photo: AP

Mexican Police Foil Drug Cartel Plot To Kill President -- The Telegraph

Mexico's federal police force have foiled a plot by the Sinaloa drug cartel to assassinate President Felipe Calderon.

After a year-long investigation, Ramon Pequeno, head of the federal police's counter-narcotics wing, said a suspect had been arrested on and was charged with plotting to kill the president in retaliation for the army's nationwide crackdown on trafficking.

The plot also was intended as retaliation for the seizure of $5m by police during a raid targeting a Sinaloa cartel chief, Mr Pequeno said.

Read more ....

More News On Mexico's Drug Cartel War

Mexico: Suspect plotted to kill president -- AP
Mexican drug violence kills 18 -- AFP
Mexico’s Drug Traffickers Continue Trade in Prison -- New York Times
U.S. helping Mexico repair broken prisons -- UPI
Everyone wants to fight the drug barons. They just don't know how -- Times Online
Drug gangs are Mexico's worst rights problem -Obama -- Reuters
Busts of Corrupt US Border Police Rise -- ABC News
US shows off new speedboat to catch smugglers -- AP
Mexico's drug war compared to fight with mafia -- My San Antonio News
A Test of Faith in Mexico's Drug War -- Washington Post
The U.S. war on drugs is ravaging Mexico -- National Post opinion
Mexico’s Deadly Wave -- Times Online opinion

Obama Faces Mexican Drug War -- A Commentary

U.S. Mexico Border (Photo from Bits and Pieces)

Cartels' Turf Fights Escalate And Threaten To Spread Into U.S.

Add another pressing challenge to President-elect Barack Obama's growing to-do list - tamping down a dramatic rise in violence and corruption that has overwhelmed the U.S.-Mexico border and spread an escalating turf fight between warring drug cartels into the United States.

Near-daily shootouts and ambushes along the southwestern border pose a serious threat, according to separate government reports, which predict a rise in "deadly force" against law enforcement officers, first responders and U.S. border residents.

Even President Bush, during a Dec. 21 interview with The Washington Times, warned that Mr. Obama faced a looming war with drug cartels where "the front line of the fight will be Mexico." He said the new president will need to deal "with these drug cartels in our own neighborhoods."

Read more ....

My Comment: As long as the U.S. Mexican border is open .... and law enforcement is kept from enforcing existing immigration laws .... the war in Mexico will ultimately become America's war in our neighborhoods. President Obama's approach towards enforcing immigration laws .... or unwillingness to enforce it .... will only mitigate this problem even an even greater problem than what it is today.

Mexican President Finds Drugs Now Corrupting Military, Too

From McClatchy Newspapers:

Mexico City — On Friday, Mexico's government announced that an Army officer was arrested on suspicion that he sold information about President Felipe Calderon's movements to drug cartels, the closest official to the president to be arrested thus far.

It was another embarrassing setback for Mr. Calderon, who has made the battle against drug trafficking a cornerstone of his presidency since taking office two years ago.

He has employed the military to lead the fight, particularly where the local forces are, at best, ineffectual and, at worst, in collusion with drug cartels. He also promised to modernize and clean up the police force with a series of training courses, incentives, and trust tests.

Read more ....

My Comment: We have found the enemy .... and it is us.

Strategies For Mexico's Drug War

From The L.A. Times:

Experts and public figures in the U.S. and Latin America offer a range of views, from stepped-up policing to legalization.

At times, the fight against drug trafficking in Mexico seems hopeless. The body count grows steadily, each massacre seemingly more gruesome than the one before. The flow of drugs to America and Europe continues virtually unabated. The Times asked experts and public figures in the U.S., Mexico and other parts of Latin America for their views on the problem and what should be done about it. The comments, compiled by Mexico City Bureau Chief Tracy Wilkinson, have been edited for space or clarity.

Read more ....

My Comment: Kudos to the L.A. Times for extensively covering this war. If it was not for their reporting, much of what is happening south of the border will be unknown to all of us.

In Sinaloa, The Drug Trade Has Infiltrated 'Every Corner Of Life'

From The L.A. Times:

'Narcos' have made their way into government, business and culture in this Pacific state, where kids want to grow up to be traffickers.

Reporting from Culiacan, Mexico -- Yudit del Rincon, a 44-year-old lawmaker, went before the state legislature this year with a proposition: Let's require lawmakers to take drug tests to prove they are clean.

Her colleagues greeted the idea with applause. Then she sprang a surprise on them: Two lab technicians waited in the audience to administer drug tests to every state lawmaker. We should set the example, she said.

They nearly trampled one another in the stampede to the door, Del Rincon recalled.

Read more ....

Confessions Of A Mexican Narco Foot-Soldier

Members of the Los Zetas gang are arrested in Mexico City in 2007
EPA / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

For a confessed drug cartel hood whose alias is "The Nut Job," Marco Vinicio Cobo is remarkably calm and plain-looking. Sitting in the blue-walled interrogation room of a Mexican army base, the chubby, goatee-bearded 30-year-old coolly describes his work for the Zetas, a feared paramilitary force responsible for thousands of brutal murders. And even when he details how his bosses kidnapped and chopped the head off a soldier, he appears relaxed and unemotional, as if he were discussing the weather. But despite the unsettling indifference of its tone, Cobo's confession — of which a video has been obtained by TIME — offers some extraordinary insights into how the cartels have grown into a formidable threat to the Mexican government, outwitting and outgunning the armed forces in great swathes of the country.

Read more ....

My Comment: This article gives a good look at how the drug gangs work in Mexico. It is no surprise that the Mexican Army and the government have so much trouble in winning this war.

Mexican Beauty Queen Jailed In Drug Gang Probe

In this two image composite, Laura Zuniga is crowned as Miss Sinaloa state at left in the city of Mazatlan, Mexico July 8, 2008 and is shown to the press with unidentified gunmen after her arrest in the city of Zapopan, Mexico Tuesday Dec. 23, 2008. Police said Zuniga who was stopped at a checkpoint, was riding in one of two trucks with seven men, where soldiers found a large stash of weapons and some $53,300 in U.S. currency. (AP Photo)

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A Mexican beauty queen arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking was ordered jailed for another 40 days on Friday while investigators probe suspected ties to violent smuggling gangs.

A judge ordered Laura Zuniga, the current Miss Sinaloa who was nabbed at a military checkpoint on Monday along with seven heavily armed men, to stay behind bars during the investigation, the attorney general's office said in a statement.

One of the men arrested with Zuniga, 23, is linked to the leadership of the Juarez cartel, which operates lucrative smuggling routes into the United States, investigators said.

Read more ....

Mexican Beauty Queen Arrested In Gun-Filled Truck

Laura Zuniga (Photo from The Huffington Post)

From Yahoo News/AP:

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – A reigning Mexican beauty queen from the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa was arrested with suspected gang members in a truck filled guns and ammunition, police said Tuesday.

Miss Sinaloa 2008 Laura Zuniga stared at the ground, with her flowing dark hair concealing her face, as she stood squeezed between seven alleged gunmen lined up before journalists. Soldiers wearing ski masks guarded the 23-year-old model and the suspects.

Zuniga was arrested shortly before midnight on Monday at a military checkpoint in Zapopan, just outside the colonial city of Guadalajara, said Jalisco state police director, Francisco Alejandro Solorio.

Read more ....

Update: Laura Zuniga: Mexican Beauty Queen Arrested In Gun-Filled Truck -- Huffington Post

My Comment: What a waste. Her life is now ruined. Another casualty in Mexico's ongoing drug wars. This story is more of a symbol of how this drug war is now permeating all aspects of Mexican life.

12 Decapitated Bodies Found In Southern Mexico

From Yahoo News/AP:

ACAPULCO, Mexico – Authorities found the decapitated bodies of 12 men in the southern state of Guerrero on Sunday, and some of the victims have been identified as soldiers.

State Public Safety Secretary Juan Salinas Altes said nine bodies were found on a major boulevard in the state capital, Chilpancingo, just a few hundred yards (meters) from where the state governor participated in a traditional religious procession later in the day amid heavy security.

Mexico has been hit by a rising wave of drug-fueled violence, and officials estimate that more than 5,300 people have died in organized crime-related slayings so far in 2008.

Read more .....

Extreme Drug Violence Grips Mexico Border City

Investigators inspect the body of one of two men killed in Tierra Nueva, a graffiti-stained neighborhood of dirt streets and concrete shacks in south Ciudad Juarez. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

From The L.A. Times:

Two journalists visiting Ciudad Juarez for three days find that death is always just around the corner. Killings in 2008: 1,350, and counting.

Reporting from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico -- The two victims rest at the same 45-degree angle, embraced by seat belts that at this moment seem an odd precaution, given the manner of death.

Gunmen had pulled alongside the forest-green Chevy Tahoe on a gritty downtown street and, in broad daylight, pumped 52 shots into where the bodies now lean.

Read more ....

My Comment: Yup .... the city of Ciudad Juarez is more dangerous than most Iraqi cities. A point that our mass news media is always ignoring.

Mexico's Cartel War: Year Three

Photo: Mexican President Felipe Calderon

From Real Clear World:

If you've ever been stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, in El Paso, you know the neighboring Mexican city of Juarez is a great place to get a steak. Earlier this year, however, Fort Bliss' commander put Juarez off-limits, and it remains off-limits. Why? Juarez is a bloody battlefield in Mexico's Cartel War.

The Cartel War, launched by Mexican President Felipe Calderon in December 2006, is entering its third year. Sensational headlines dubbing Mexico "the Iraq next door" tend to distort both Mexico's and Iraq's complex circumstances. For example, Iraq's emerging democracy faces armed and unstable external challengers -- like Iran -- while Mexico's emerging democracy does not.

Read more ....

My Comment: A good and brief analysis of the situation in Mexico.

The Face Of Mexico's Drug Wars -- But Everyone Is Afraid To Show The Picture

Drug war: Mexican police during a raid on cartel suspects in Mexico City (Reuters)
(Photo from ABC.net (Australia))

Mystery Man Blamed For Gruesome Tijuana Deaths
-- L.A. Times

Teodoro Garcia Simental is believed to run a network of hide-outs where kidnap victims are caged. And he is said to be behind most of Tijuana's gang war bloodshed.

Reporting from Tijuana -- He is said to love the ladies, fast horses and dissolving enemies in lye.

Teodoro Garcia Simental is among the best known but least identifiable villains in Mexico's drug war, blamed for a trail of terror across Baja California.

His heavily armed hit men, authorities say, have been leaving the gruesome displays of charred and decapitated bodies across the city, signed with the moniker "Tres Letras," for the three letters in "Teo." And authorities believe he runs a network of hide-outs where kidnap victims are held in cages.

Yet thousands of police officers, soldiers, state and federal agents can't seem to find him.

Billboards showing Tijuana's most wanted kidnappers don't include Garcia's image, even though he is believed to be behind most of the gang war that has claimed more than 400 lives here since late September.

Read more ....

My Comment:Mexico's drug wars are going to go on fo a long time. Mexico's military is predicting a year to two year conflict. If Colombia can be used as a reference point .... this war will probably go on for a very very long time.

Mexico Says More US Drug Aid Expected By January

From Yahoo News/AP:

MEXICO CITY – A top official in Mexico's Foreign Relations Department says the second installment of U.S. anti-drug aid should be released by January.

Undersecretary for North American affairs Carlos Rico says Mexico expects the U.S. to release $116 million in drug-fighting aircraft and equipment before President George W. Bush leaves office Jan. 20.

The U.S. on Dec. 3 released $197 million under the so-called Merida Initiative. The $1.3 billion package over three years includes helicopters and surveillance aircraft, airport inspection equipment and case-tracking software to help police share real-time intelligence.

Read more ....

Mexico Drug Gangs 'Top US Threat'

From The BBC:

Mexican drug traffickers pose the biggest organised crime threat to the US, a justice department report says.

Most of the cocaine available in the US is smuggled via the US-Mexican border, while Mexican drug traffickers control most of the US drug market.

Mexican smugglers are also working increasingly with US-based gangs.

But the report says factors including increased border security and inter-cartel violence in Mexico have hit the cocaine supply in some areas.

Read more ....

My Comment: See previous post.

Mexico Is More Dangerous Than Iraq

Mexico: Rampant Crime And Corruption
-- Defense Technology News

(NSI News Source Info) December 16, 2008: This month, about 26 people a day are dying from criminal and terrorist violence a day in Iraq. That's a bit lower than the death toll in northern Mexico, which on a bad day (like last November 3rd) saw 58 people killed. The police are generally helpless, hundreds of thousands of middle-class Mexicans have fled the border region, often to the United States (if they had dual-citizenship, which many do). Those without money must hunker down and wait for someone to win this war. The drug gangs show no signs of weakening, although the army believes that it can prevail in the next year or so.

Read more ....

My Comment: The bottom line .... the Mexican Government and Army are confident that they will smash the drug gangs in a year or two. Consider how heavy handed they are behaving .... they are probably right. The Army is making the cost of doing the drug business in Mexico next to impossible to maintain.

Mexico's Drug Gangs Are Now Threatening Schools

Mexican Schools Close As Children
Are Threatened -- Yahoo News/AP

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Fourth-grader Ricardo Ivan Ortega knows he is a target in this violent city. His school closed temporarily last month after an anonymous note demanded teachers hand over their year-end bonuses — or students would be kidnapped.

Ricardo has a plan.

"I will just hide," the shy 9-year-old said in late November, waiting in the family car while his mother inquired when Luis Urias Elementary would reopen. "My mom told me not to get near the front gate, and if I need to, to run out of my classroom."

Read more ....

In Mexico, Assassins Of Increasing Skill

Ten of thirteen corpses discovered inside a bus, lie on a road in San Ignacio, Sinaloa State, Mexico, on December 4. More than 15,000 people have been kidnapped in Mexico since 1986, an independent watchdog said Thursday, as prosecutors said they had identified the remains of a girl abducted last year. (AFP/File)

From Washington Post:

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- The hit was fast, bold, lethal. Jesús Huerta Yedra, a top federal prosecutor here, was gunned down last week in a busy intersection 100 yards from the U.S. border in a murder of precise choreography.

In Mexico's chaotic drug war, attacks are no longer the work of desperate amateurs with bad aim. Increasingly, the killings are being carried out by professionals, often hooded and gloved, who trap their targets in coordinated ambushes, strike with overwhelming firepower, and then vanish into the afternoon rush hour -- just as they did in the Huerta killing.

The paid assassins, known as sicarios, are rarely apprehended. Mexican officials say the commando squads probably travel from state to state, across a country where the government and its security forces are drawing alarming conclusions about the scope and skill of an enemy supported by billions of dollars in drug profits.

Read more ....

My Comment: Mexico is finally facing up to the criminal gangs that run the narcotics trade in the country. But the war that has resulted from this confrontation is now making some people scratch their heads and asking if this conflict is worth it.

Sadly .... this was expected. Fight now .... fight later .... this battle was going to happen. Better to happen now than later when the cost may be even greater.

Death Toll In Mexico's Drug War Surges

From The L.A. Times:

Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora says 5,376 people have been killed so far in 2008, more than twice the toll for the first 11 months of 2007.

Reporting from Mexico City -- In a chilling assessment of Mexico's drug war, the country's top prosecutor said Monday that more than 5,000 people had been killed in drug violence so far this year, more than double the toll for the same period in 2007.

Atty. Gen. Eduardo Medina Mora released the figures in a meeting with a small group of journalists. It was the first official toll provided by the government in many months, and was substantially higher than the tallies being kept by Mexican newspapers.

Read more ....

Update: Killings in Drug War in Mexico Double in ’08 -- New York Times

My Comment: And these are the bodies that have been found. I can only assume that the real figure is much higher.

Mexico Says Gang Killings Up 117 Percent To 5,376

From Yahoo News/AP:

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's attorney general says organized-crime slayings more than doubled in the first 11 months of 2008 to hit 5,376.

Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora says the 117 percent spike in gangland killings compared to the same period in 2007 is mainly related to increased infighting among drug cartels.

The number of killings for the first 11 months of 2007 was 2,477.

Read more ....