Hundreds, perhaps thousands dead? Those were the good old days.

March 14, 2010 9:01 PM

Remember the many news stories about the femicides in Ciudad Juarez? Since 1993, hundreds of mutilated female bodies had turned up in the deserts surrounding this border city, and these horrific crimes have never been solved. Several books have been written on the subject; you might also recall that Jennifer Lopez made a movie about it. But now, with the (gender-neutral) bloodbath that Ciudad Juarez has turned into, it is shocking, indeed offensive, yet true, that we can look back at the decade of femicides as being relatively peaceful when compared to current events. The annual murder rate is now in the thousands (compared to just a few hundred per decade for the femicides), making CJ the most dangerous city in the world, more so than Baghdad, Caracas, or Port-au-Prince.

Some of those killed were directly involved in the drug trade, but many others are innocent bystanders or victims of mistaken identity or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody is safe. Recently, sixteen teenagers were killed at a party. And just this weekend, two US citizens (one an employee of the US Consulate in CJ) and a third person (married to a consulate employee) were shot and killed in separate incidents in broad daylight on Saturday afternoon (in the first, a baby was left alive in the car seat, and in the second, two small children were wounded but left alive). The State Department is now allowing other embassy workers to send their families out of the killing zone.

Previous MetaFilter posts here and here. Reading the State Department's travel advisory for Mexico may make you rethink your plans for spring break.

Many (including the US State Department) agree that the insatiable US appetite for drugs is a major contributing effect to the carnage.

posted by math (74 comments total)

I'm pretty sure it's the illigalization of something (drugs) for which people have an insatiable appetite which is creating the carnage, not the appetite itself.
posted by 12%juicepulp at 9:05 PM on March 14, 2010 [15 favorites]

Some helpful background here: the Mexican Drug War, the Juarez Cartel, the Zetas.

Juarez is the most violent place in the world outside of declared war zones. It's been said that the US wouldn't venture into the Mexican drug war unless it spills over in to the US (El Paso is still one of the safest cities in the US), but this recent murder is inching closer toward some kind of US intervention.
posted by mattbucher at 9:08 PM on March 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Safer than Port-au-Prince, you say?
posted by the cuban at 9:19 PM on March 14, 2010

I agree mattbucher, the US should intervene with all the corruption on the US side that allows all those drugs to reach the rest of the States (also w/the demand that makes the trade desirable and profitable). I'm not gonna defend the Mexican government, but really, the only intervention that could eventually work is for the US to legalize drugs so that the rest of the world can do the same and we can stop this pointless non-winnable war.
posted by Omon Ra at 9:21 PM on March 14, 2010 [12 favorites]

but this recent murder is inching closer toward some kind of US intervention.

Oh, goodie. Not that I can see how we might avoid it, exactly, other than by carefully stepping down the drug war parenthesis not gonna happen end-parenthesis, but when I think of ways the situation could get worse ... well, "getting directly involved on that side of the border in a visible way" is right up there.
posted by feckless at 9:23 PM on March 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure it's the illigalization of something (drugs) for which people have an insatiable appetite which is creating the carnage,

To be fair, a bunch of knuckle-scraping violent assholes with no regard for human life is contributing to the carage.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:26 PM on March 14, 2010 [7 favorites]

The US is already intervening in the situation, it's called the Plan Merida; which in turn makes drugs harder to smuggle, more expensive, and more profitable for drug dealers.
posted by Omon Ra at 9:26 PM on March 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

If reading about Juarez the city fuckin bums you out, try reading about Terry Allen's 1975 country concept album Juarez instead.
posted by nathancaswell at 9:27 PM on March 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

PS I think he means "tells not shows", cause "shows not tells" is correct.
posted by nathancaswell at 9:28 PM on March 14, 2010

Talk about U.S. military intervention in Mexico has been floating about for some time (here's a comment I made about this last fall), but it will almost certainly never happen.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 9:29 PM on March 14, 2010

Let's say the US Ambassador to Mexico gets shot in Juarez, or a US Congressman is murdered, then would we get involved? My guess is no. We would treat it like a criminal act and not an act of war. And yet the Mexican Drug War has claimed over 4600 lives in the past two years alone. But they are mostly poor Mexican lives and their deaths will have no impact on US foreign or domestic policy.

Beto O'Rourke, a member of the El Paso city council, has written in Texas Monthly and elsewhere that marijuana should be decriminalized in Texas, but I don't ever see that happening, even if the murder rate in Juarez triples or quintuples or x1000.
posted by mattbucher at 9:30 PM on March 14, 2010

For four and a half years I was a preacher in Las Cruces, NM, about 45 minutes from Juarez. Through some mutual acquaintances, I befriended a preacher in Juarez, Enrique, and his wife and children. Enrique doesn't speak much English, and my Spanish is pretty limited, but I felt a real kinship to him and an admiration for what he was doing. He was from the southern part of Mexico, and could have had a comfortable existence closer to home, but he felt drawn to the border region to try to help. He had a little financial support from a church in Oklahoma, but to make ends meet--barely--he worked in a maquiladora bagging candy for sale in American stores.

We would walk around his neighborhood, which was maybe 1 1/2 steps up from the poorest in Juarez. Houses were built from old shipping crates. Electricity was stolen from nearby power lines using a succession of extension cords, strung across the ground where children played. He pointed to a field one day, and told me his elementary school age daughter had found a body there. Several women nearby had been brutally raped. He wouldn't let his kids go to the nearest school because, in his words, the teachers were all drunk by lunchtime. He drove them further away to a somewhat safer place.about

My family and I started visiting Enrique's family about every six weeks or so, and we'd bring along what we could to help out. Mainly used clothes--Enrique's home was a sort of clothing bank for all the nearby families. We would take his wife, Anya, shopping and then we would all cook together. I guess we were probably one of the few Anglo families that neighborhood ever saw, but I was deeply struck by this family that had intentionally settled in a desperate place, choosing poverty for themselves, and doing what they could to feed and clothe the people around them. Enrique's life was the closest I've ever seen to what I think Jesus was about.

All this is to say that I don't necessarily know a lot about the big issues in Juarez, I just know the hovels that line the dusty roads that I used to walk with my friend. And I know that last year, after giving a lot for a long time, it was just too much. Juarez passed a point that even Enrique couldn't tolerate. He spent a few months with some mutual friends in the States, and then he moved his family south, to a beautiful little town not too far from Puerta Vallarta, and started passing out food and clothes far from the sound of gunfire and close to the ocean breeze.

I can't blame him--he's still a hero to me, and he would be if he had done what he did for even a year, much less the decade he put in. But I hate to think of his little neighborhood, barely hanging on before, and now continuing on with a family that really was something like a light on a hillside for them. I'd like to think that if I were back in the area, I'd drop by again and see how they are doing, but I'm not Enrique, I'm just me, and I have my own family to think about now.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:40 PM on March 14, 2010 [111 favorites]

I also wonder, given how very difficult it is to own a gun legally in Mexico, where all those guns came from... hmmm I wonder... is it maybe from all those unregulated gun shows in Texas?

"While it is impossible to know how many firearms are illegally smuggled into Mexico in a given year, about 87 percent of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced in the last 5 years originated in the United States, according to data from Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). According to U.S. and Mexican government officials, these firearms have been increasingly more powerful and lethal in recent years. Many of these firearms come from gun shops and gun shows in Southwest border states" (U.S. Government Accountability Office)
posted by Omon Ra at 9:42 PM on March 14, 2010 [8 favorites]

Thanks to mattbucher's links, I found out about the Kaibiles, a special operations force of the Military of Guatemala, whose motto is "If I advance, follow me. If I stop, urge me on. If I retreat, kill me." I'm sure there are other military outfits with equal or more drastic mottos, but in light of the FPP, it's enough to make me look the other way and pretend that part of the world doesn't exist.

Maybe this was all covered in the links above or the previous posts, the NY Times summary does a good job encapsulating the situation to date (updated Oct. 16, 2009):

The upsurge in violence is traced to the end of 2006 when President Felipe Calderon launched a frontal assault on the cartels by deploying tens of thousands of soldiers and federal police to take them on. Mr. Calderon has successfully pushed the United States to acknowledge its own responsibility for the violence in Mexico since it is American drug consumers who fuel demand and American guns smuggled into Mexico that are used by the drug gangs.

Not knowing more than what I've read here and in past short articles, I think President Calderon's goals are noble, but I'm wondering if there is any end in sight. Are the 233 "zones of impunity'' across Mexico where the cartels and gangs have their own government of sorts more or less than in years past?
posted by filthy light thief at 9:50 PM on March 14, 2010

Laura Carlsen lives in Mexico, and recently gave a great informal interview revealing some related drug-war murders at drug rehab facilities , very sad state of affairs.
posted by hortense at 9:58 PM on March 14, 2010

I would recommend Roberto Bolano's 2666 as a great fictionalization of these events...but I got stuck amid "The Part about the Crimes" and never finished.
posted by sallybrown at 10:01 PM on March 14, 2010

Now, it's the most dangerous city in the world, but the femicides still haven't been solved. The only difference is that now, everybody is at risk. It makes me think that if they'd spent more time on the violence when it was directed at women, they may have been able to prevent the drastic increase in murder. Either way, I'm never going anywhere near there.
posted by MEOW at 10:04 PM on March 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

The LA Times has a series about the drug war in Mexico.
posted by rtha at 10:20 PM on March 14, 2010

US consular staff murders
posted by hortense at 10:21 PM on March 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

el paso natives At the drive-in wrote a song about the femicides the video has facts, and it's one of the better songs off of that record.

Other than that I don't have much to say about this. I lived in Las Cruces, but my friend was from el paso, and i think his father, who still lives in juarez, may be in one of the cartels.
posted by djduckie at 10:43 PM on March 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

Let's say the US Ambassador to Mexico gets shot in Juarez, or a US Congressman is murdered, then would we get involved?

hortense beat me to it, but the consular murders may escalate things. Then again, they may not. I suppose you would have to define what "involved" entails. It's hard to see the Obama Administration breaking ranks with or ruffling too many feathers in the Calderón Administration, particularly since (even when consulate employees are killed) Mexico/Central America/South America seems very low on their list of foreign policy interests (which the region was for the Bush Administration as well, except when seeming engaged served their propaganda purposes).

Not knowing more than what I've read here and in past short articles, I think President Calderon's goals are noble, but I'm wondering if there is any end in sight.

His goals may or may not be noble, but he dismissed the most recent massacre in Juárez by saying that the victims were probably just gang members executed by rivals, and he seldom visits Juárez either, except when the violence is so egregious that not doing so would get him in even hotter water.
posted by blucevalo at 11:19 PM on March 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

what the crazy...?
posted by crystalsparks at 11:55 PM on March 14, 2010

Please be advised that the rest of the world sincerely hopes the United States steadfastly refrains from any more "military interventions", especially in (misguided) hopes of correcting a catastrophic situation the United States was responsible for in the first place. We would rather you developed a more proactive and innovative solution other than invasion.

For the people casually advocating in this thread that the US "get involved", haven't you learned anything from the past miserable decade?
posted by KokuRyu at 11:59 PM on March 14, 2010 [11 favorites]

When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez
And it’s Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don’t pull you through
Don’t put on any airs
When you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outta you
posted by telstar at 12:28 AM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

The most chilling and disturbing section of Roberto Bolano's incredible book 2666 is directly based on the femicides.

There's so many aspects of this sitution that are distressing I don't even know where to begin, and I've never even been to Juarez.
posted by Hickeystudio at 1:33 AM on March 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Many would argue that the insatiable US appetite for keeping the drugs trade in the hands of armed criminal gangs is a major contributing effect to the carnage.

That's both the recent carnage and the earlier femicides.
posted by motty at 2:55 AM on March 15, 2010

The only thing I "know" about Ciudad Juarez is that it is full of vampires, and I lost a character there once.
posted by moonbiter at 2:56 AM on March 15, 2010 [3 favorites]

For the people casually advocating in this thread that the US "get involved"

I'm pretty much down with the idea of deflating the drug war through some legalization strategy, refining our trade policy so we're not making a living hard for most Mexicans, and otherwise trying to figure out how to address upstream causes. But there might be a time and a place to send in the guns, and when a town on your border becomes a mass murder zone, I think it's OK to leave military options on the table.
posted by namespan at 3:31 AM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Many (including the US State Department) agree that the insatiable US appetite for drugs is a major contributing effect to the carnage.

If you declare a war on a substance that's in high demand, that increases the profits to the suppliers to the point that they can field actual soldiers against you. It's not the appetite for drugs that's causing the violence, it's OUR violence that's causing the violence. Our War on Drugs is, slowly and surely, destroying the Mexican state. In many areas, the putative law enforcement is completely ineffectual; drug barons run large chunks of that country.

Not only is the War on Drugs not winnable, it's a guaranteed loss, because no matter how much you ratchet up the pressure, no matter how many people you imprison, there will always be new suppliers. The more dangerous it becomes, the more profitable it becomes. At this point, the drug barons have so much money that they can outspend the Mexican government; they can bribe the police with more than their actual paychecks.

The erosion is happening here too... this is what the PATRIOT Act, and similar eavesdropping initiatives, are (presently) aimed at. As the corrosion in our social fabric continues, those 'terrorist' surveillance networks will gradually be turned on more and more mainstream citizens, but the primary driver in getting these surveillance programs going was the War on Drugs. It was never really about terrorism at all.

The War on Drugs is even more destructive than the War on Terror, because we're fighting ourselves, and we can never outspend ourselves.
posted by Malor at 3:48 AM on March 15, 2010 [13 favorites]

Following on from Hickeystudio and sallybrown, 2666 is excellent and directly related (although, of course, fictional). The striking thing of The Part About the Crimes is the matter-of-factness, the regularity of the killings. For instance:

As March came to an end, the last two victims were found on the same day.

...

In October 1995, no dead woman turned up in Santa Teresa [the fictional Ciudad Juárez] or the surrounding area. Since the middle of September, the city had been able to breathe easy, as they say. In November, however, [...]
posted by smcg at 4:13 AM on March 15, 2010

I hope that toke was worth it, folks. If I still smoked, I think I'd quit now.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 4:22 AM on March 15, 2010 [3 favorites]

I hope that toke was worth it, folks. If I still smoked, I think I'd quit now.

My weed is locally grown.
posted by Max Power at 5:00 AM on March 15, 2010 [9 favorites]

I cannot praise 2666 enough. The part about these murders though was probably the most brutal literary experience I can remember, made all the more breathless but the clinical, objective tone of the writing.

When I learned that it was all based upon real events... and that these events are not only still going on but getting worse, I was incredulous.
posted by Hickeystudio at 5:09 AM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I hope that toke was worth it, folks.

A fine reason for US smokers to buy Canadian, find locally, or DIY.

If I still smoked, I think I'd quit now.

NO WAY YOU SHOULD TOTALLY WATCH AZUMANGA DAIOH AGAIN FIRST ;)
posted by jtron at 5:23 AM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I would recommend Roberto Bolano's 2666 as a great fictionalization of these events...but I got stuck amid "The Part about the Crimes" and never finished.

Seconded. Both parts. I did eventually finish, but "The Part About the Crimes" took me a whole month to get through because I just couldn't stomach large doses of it. And I have no problem with blood/gore/violence in my fiction. It was just all too real and gut-wrenching.

Amazing, amazing book though. Truly. Amazing.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:38 AM on March 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

To understand that the War on Drugs is, quite literally, impossible to win one must merely observe the fact that the drug trade is active in maximum security prisons.

Think about that for a moment. Even if we surrender so many civil rights that our general society becomes as locked down and controlled as that of a maximum security prison there will still be a trade in illegal drugs. Criminalizing drugs cannot work, it is proven not to work.

Once we admit that the War on Drugs is guaranteed to never produce victory, that there will always be trade in those drugs, we can ask the real question: given that we can't, ever, stop the trade in those drugs is there benefit in keeping them illegal?

We can't ever stop murder, that happens in maximum security prisons too, but I don't think anyone would argue that legalizing murder would be a good idea. However the benefits of keeping murder illegal are significant enough that even though we acknowledge that we can never stop murder there are legitimate reasons to keep murder illegal.

I don't think the same applies to drugs. I can't actually see any benefits to keeping recreational drugs illegal, which makes the harm caused by the War on Drugs worse than it otherwise might be. I have no idea, beyond puritanism, why recreational drugs are illegal, I've never encountered an explanation that made sense.
posted by sotonohito at 6:49 AM on March 15, 2010 [13 favorites]

I hope that toke was worth it, folks. If I still smoked, I think I'd quit now.

If we shook hands, would I feel a diamond on your engagement ring?
posted by Justinian at 7:11 AM on March 15, 2010 [15 favorites]

I'll add another recommendation for 2666. Holy shit that book is powerful, beautiful, horrifying, sad, strange... I've never read anything like it. And I'm a Pynchon/Vollman fan.

As intensely disturbing as the The Part About The Crimes is, the juxtaposition against the themes in The Part About Archimboldi is, well, just go read it.
posted by georg_cantor at 7:30 AM on March 15, 2010

Yeah, good plan, send in US military forces, that'll solve *everything*.

What it will do is get the US into a real fight.

Not some 'shock and awe' 'police action' where US military forces are shooting fish in a barrel 'way on over there on the other side of the world, where no one (in the US, that is) gives a shit about how many die at some wedding party or other when things get left-handed. What we would be talking about here is a real fight, against real warriors, with real weapons, bought with piles and piles of real money, real warriors with real weapons who are woven into Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California, woven into the US border region so tightly that you can't see them in the weave.

If this were to start, expect to see killings of US citizens (Oh, wait -- were these Terrorist Actions? Man, I'm sorry I only called them killings, you'd best set the colors on the Terror Alert system so we'll know what's happening here...) by warriors taught the very best techniques by the US war system in all areas of combat -- anyone remember The School of The Americas? That's the level of training these characters have had, on the US dime. Expect to find out -- fast -- if the US citizenry has the jam to stand up when these these warriors bring this 'war on drugs' onto US turf, where it rightfully belongs, actually, but, as has been pointed out upthread, has been kept South by feeding it dollars. The US pay dollars, they pay lives. A trade-off that the US govt has been down for in many areas 'cross the globe, and as long as fat fuck US citizens can get to WalMart to buy LCD tvs and cheap carbohydrates no one has had any beef with it.

Let's see what happens if/when these guys bring some shock and awe to South Texas, or LA. These gangs absolutely rule northern Mexico, they own it. No telling how deeply they've gotten into the military but know for a fact that they are in it deep; are they in deep enough to control tanks and jets? I don't know -- do you? They are fighting one another today but wolves fight to the death amongst themselves but turn as one against a dog. The US would be that dog, a big, fat, dumb lap-dog, not at all used to fighting in it's own backyard. Want to bring a fight to the US, want some of your very own war-zones on the southern US borders?

Walk real slowly here, boys and girls...
posted by dancestoblue at 7:53 AM on March 15, 2010 [5 favorites]

A fine reason for US smokers to buy Canadian

How Mexico's drug war washed up on Canada's West Coast
posted by KokuRyu at 8:13 AM on March 15, 2010

If you declare a war on a substance that's in high demand, that increases the profits to the suppliers to the point that they can field actual soldiers against you. It's not the appetite for drugs that's causing the violence, it's OUR violence that's causing the violence. Our War on Drugs is, slowly and surely, destroying the Mexican state. In many areas, the putative law enforcement is completely ineffectual; drug barons run large chunks of that country.

Not only is the War on Drugs not winnable, it's a guaranteed loss, because no matter how much you ratchet up the pressure, no matter how many people you imprison, there will always be new suppliers. The more dangerous it becomes, the more profitable it becomes. At this point, the drug barons have so much money that they can outspend the Mexican government; they can bribe the police with more than their actual paychecks.

A quote from the best book on the subject, 'Down by the River' by Charles Bowden:

"A Mexican study [2001] by the nation's internal security agency, CISEN (Centro de Investigacion y Seguridad Nacional), that has been leaked to the press speculates that if the drug business vanished, the U.S. economy would shrink 19 to 22 percent, the Mexican 63 percent.

...

In 1995, one Mexican drug-trafficking expert guessed that half the hotel revenues in his country were frauds, meaning empty rooms counted as sold in order to launder drug money."

Of course the War on Some Drugs is a guaranteed loser, but if the 2001 study is true we don't even have victory as a goal.
posted by BigSky at 8:44 AM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

A good source for what's going on is the NarcoMexico blog (bits in english, bits in spanish but lots of great links and information gathered also from other sites than the censored media).

"Meanwhile, in cities such as Matamoros, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo, reports are coming out that the cartels are now establishing themselves as "shadow" governments whereby they are "taxing" businesses, setting up check points to control traffic entering and exiting the cities and patrolling the streets with marked SUV´s (marked with the logo of the Zetas or the Gulf cartel prominently displayed on the vehicle) and even issuing fines to other drivers who speed, or run stop signs (something that the real police are lax in doing). The regular media is not reporting much of this nor of the armed battles that take place because of the media blackout placed upon all organisations by the cartels (upon threat of torture and death for disobeying, the point made when 8 reporters were kidnapped last month, with only 3 accounted for, one of which died from his torture wounds and the other 5 have simply "disappeared"). Thus, most "news" is from social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook, updated by the concerned and scared citizens who are still living in this purgatory."
posted by lucia__is__dada at 9:10 AM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also,

"Curiously, the Zetas began as members of elite unit of the Mexican army that was trained in the US in counter-insurgency tactics. However, they switched sides to become the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel. They went on to form their own drug trafficking organization and fight their former associates over control of the territory they formally oversaw together."
posted by lucia__is__dada at 9:12 AM on March 15, 2010

> My weed is locally grown.
> posted by Max Power at 8:00 AM on March 15 [4 favorites +] [!]

By you, so you know that for certain? Or you just taking some dealer's word for it?
posted by jfuller at 9:22 AM on March 15, 2010

I don't think anyone here is advocating that the US should send military troops to Juarez, but it's worth asking the question, what do you think the US will do? Hell, what should Mexico do at this point? What can they do?

are they in deep enough to control tanks and jets? I don't know -- do you?

Pretty much, yeah. See my link to Los Zetas at the top of the thread. They are as technologically advanced and ruthless and well-funded as any paramilitary group in the world.
posted by mattbucher at 9:26 AM on March 15, 2010

mattbucher wrote Hell, what should Mexico do at this point? What can they do?

What I think they should do is never going to happen. I think they should deal with it the way the British and Chinese authorities dealt with Ching Shih: recognize their power, military might, etc and offer them a buy out and pardons. It would be monumentally unpopular, the politicians who proposed it would be "weak" and their political careers would end immediately, and it would work.

Especially if it were coupled with legalization to try and prevent future problems. If the gringos want to make the legal products of Medico illegal that's their problem, and probably forbidden under NAFTA anyway. In any event, there would be no more warring gangs if the drug manufacture and trade were legal in Mexico, just warring corporations and they fight with lawyers and bribes, not by turning cities into killing fields.

what do you think the US will do?

Unfortunately I think the US will do the exact polar opposite of what it should. I think the USA will step up its militarization of the border, will offer "aid" to Mexico in the form of torture training for its military and military hardware in exchange for Mexico stepping up the violence on their side. I think we'll see this used as an excuse to push for even harsher drug penalties in the USA, longer prison terms for possession, etc. I also think it'll be used as an excuse to truly crush the medical marijuana laws of the few states that have passed them.

I'd guess that the border wall will be accelerated, shoot to kill orders will be issued to US troops patrolling the border, and the result will be increased profits to the bad guys and a lot of dead people. I'm also guessing we'll see the Right use this incident to push for torture and "detention" of drug suspects, after all it worked so well for terrorists.

I don't think there's more than two or three US politicians willing to be honest about the War on Drugs.
posted by sotonohito at 9:49 AM on March 15, 2010 [3 favorites]

Here's some historical data that compares the murder rates of Mexican states before and after the drug war.
posted by electroboy at 9:51 AM on March 15, 2010

Like Pater Aletheias, I lived in Las Cruces. Raised there, lived there until the age of 29. In high school I used to go across the bridge from El Paso to go dancing at underage (or perhaps unenforced age limit) clubs there. When I got older, I used to go across the bridge to stock up the bar for parties with cheap liquor. My partner has a velvet Elvis painting I purchased in Juarez. It was always a strange little adventure to go there. I haven't lived near there in quite a while, and it saddens me to have heard over the years the deteriorating situation there.

Shocking how fragile "civil society" actually is. It doesn't take many people choosing to work against it to really break it down.
posted by hippybear at 10:34 AM on March 15, 2010

Not some 'shock and awe' 'police action' where US military forces are shooting fish in a barrel 'way on over there on the other side of the world, where no one (in the US, that is) gives a shit about how many die at some wedding party or other when things get left-handed. What we would be talking about here is a real fight, against real warriors, with real weapons

This is hyperbolic. One, no way are these gangsters better in a shooting war than, say, their Afghan counterparts. Two, the physical proximity makes it much easier for the U.S. to project force (or it would if so much of its force wasn't on the other side of the world). Three, the language barrier isn't as much of an issue. And four, I don't suspect the gangs in Ciudad Juarez are total idiots and they'd probably bug out as soon as they saw the combat helicopters.

Not that I think up and invading a Mexican city is a good idea at all on a political level, plus the U.S. hasn't shown the capability to transform its military victories into, well, peace, so I'm against it, but not because we'd somehow lose.
posted by furiousthought at 10:53 AM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh, but our Stunt Governor Perry is sending Texas Rangers to save the day.

I feel better now.


note the date
posted by lysdexic at 10:58 AM on March 15, 2010

A fine reason for US smokers to buy Canadian

How Mexico's drug war washed up on Canada's West Coast
posted by KokuRyu at 10:13 AM on March 15 [+] [!]

Did you mean to link me to a story about cocaine gangs, Koko? 'Cause that's an article about cocaine gangs.
posted by jtron at 11:46 AM on March 15, 2010

I hope that toke was worth it, folks. If I still smoked, I think I'd quit now.

Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people are dying over the pot my friend grows in his closet. Get fucking real.
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:52 AM on March 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Here's what I think. I think these cartels are going to win this war but not by caring what the U.S. thinks or does. Here's how I see it going:

1. Power consolidates in or two cartels either by all out bloodshed via inter-cartel wars or by one cartel buying out all the others or a combination of both

2. Two cartels left standing now turn all resources/focus to overthrowing "legitimate' Mexican government (in Matamoras, etc..already kind of happening)

3. "Revolution" results in new Mexico run by established government of one of cartels

4. New government legalizes narcotics in the new nation of Mexico

5. Infrastructure for legal drug economy is set up and managed by new government

6. World consumers flock to Mexico for drug vacations or move there to live due to availabiliity

7. Mexico becomes established, solid, safe world economy as consolidated power is maintained either by balanced legal economy over long term or state sponsored violence to squash upstarts or drug businesses that do not play by rules or combination of both

8 War is over. "Mexico" wins, but not the Mexico we wanted to 'win'.
posted by spicynuts at 12:22 PM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

reports are coming out that the cartels are now establishing themselves as "shadow" governments whereby they are "taxing" businesses, setting up check points to control traffic entering and exiting the cities and patrolling the streets with marked SUV´s (marked with the logo of the Zetas or the Gulf cartel prominently displayed on the vehicle) and even issuing fines to other drivers who speed, or run stop signs (something that the real police are lax in doing).

Uh, it doesn't sound like there's anything "shadow" about it. If you levy the taxes, control im/emigration, and enforce civil law, you're the government. They can't be doing a worse job than the official one, I guess.

At some point Mexico will decide that they've bled enough for our sins. At which time they'll decriminalize drugs whether the U.S. likes it or not. One wonders how the U.S. will react.
posted by Justinian at 12:24 PM on March 15, 2010

Did you mean to link me to a story about cocaine gangs, Koko? 'Cause that's an article about cocaine gangs.

High quality BC Bud is grown by mom and pops out in the boonies of Surrey or Langley and is sold to gangs based in the Lower Mainland (Metro Vancouver). These gangs sell marijuana, as well as heroin (the Port of Vancouver has basically no security) to whoever in the United States, in exchange for cocaine and guns.

As the article suggests, the rising price of cocaine has fueled some pretty serious drug-related violence in Vancouver.

Does that help clarify things, jpr0n?
posted by KokuRyu at 12:28 PM on March 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

I hope that toke was worth it, folks. If I still smoked, I think I'd quit now.

If we shook hands, would I feel a diamond on your engagement ring?
posted by Justinian at 7:11 AM on March 15 [9 favorites +] [!]

I just wear a wedding band.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 12:29 PM on March 15, 2010

I have no doubt that you are correct.

But that's not the only way BC bud gets out of BC, nor is BC all of Canada.

It's Koku? All this time I've been reading it as Koko
posted by jtron at 12:37 PM on March 15, 2010

If we shook hands, would I feel a diamond on your engagement ring?

Which is a segue into an interesting comparison. "Conflict-free" diamonds may or may not come to you on the blood and suffering of other people, but even if your diamond comes to you from a supplier that honored the Kimberly Process... you're still (however slightly) reinforcing a culture that produces a demand for diamonds when you buy and wear one.

As I said above, I'm not a War on Drugs kindof guy, and I think getting real on the topic includes considering how much that war costs us in focus, resources, human casualties, and rights along with the utter improbability of ever "winning." But it also includes the ability to examine your own contributions, including those on the demand side of things.
posted by namespan at 12:44 PM on March 15, 2010

But that's not the only way BC bud gets out of BC, nor is BC all of Canada.

Marijuana is estimated to be a $10B industry in British Columbia (oil and gas is $32B, forestry $36B), so it makes sense that there has to be an "organized" way to distribute the product. Without legalization, every toker out there is basically participating in a black market controlled by organized crime.

And sorry, but I could not resist having a little fun with your username :)
posted by KokuRyu at 12:51 PM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Let's see what happens if/when these guys bring some shock and awe to South Texas, or LA. These gangs absolutely rule northern Mexico, they own it. No telling how deeply they've gotten into the military but know for a fact that they are in it deep; are they in deep enough to control tanks and jets? I don't know -- do you? They are fighting one another today but wolves fight to the death amongst themselves but turn as one against a dog. The US would be that dog, a big, fat, dumb lap-dog, not at all used to fighting in it's own backyard. Want to bring a fight to the US, want some of your very own war-zones on the southern US borders?

Its already a war zone. I have gone hunting (whitetail deer) on the southern border in Arizona(2005-2007) and grew up in Albuquerque and El Paso. The hunting was bad due to all the migrants (mostly just poor, hungry folk lookign for work) pushing the deer out and the garbage they left couldn't be good for the enviroment. However as we climbed hills to get place to look around with our binoculars we did see a few very scary looking guys walking through also and the Boder patrol we saw (we had to call in a medevac helicopter for a guy we found at deaths door) were armed jsut like troops in iraq. We also slept with our guns next to us and kept sidearms on us all the time until we got back to I-19 on the way back to Tucson. It was scary to see the actual human wave walking through some of the most rugged and inhospitable terrain along the border looking for better life or just trying to escape the misery in Mexico. I wish I had a good solution to offer to resolve this but the only one that comes to mind is better government in Mexico-and 500 years of history appear to doom that idea.

If you think the drug cartels can stand up to our soldiers you have no idea-they would wither like grass in a fire. A professional, motivated, and well led army is NOT to be challenged by a bunch of thugs, regardless of how well funded or tough they appear. It is just a different league.

I also wonder, given how very difficult it is to own a gun legally in Mexico, where all those guns came from... hmmm I wonder... is it maybe from all those unregulated gun shows in Texas?


The guns that most of the cartels are using are not from the US. Most appear to be stolen from the Mexican Army or smuggled in from overseas. They use fully automatic rifles, and from what I see in the photoes the most popular rifles appear to be Heckler and Koch G3s, which the mexican army has used for a long time. This particular model of battle rifle has never been very popular or common in the US, and especially not in a version capable of Full Automatic Fire. I don't doubt there is some arms smuggling across the border-particularly in handguns-but not really a primary source of weapons. And as far as getting them from gunshows-there just isn't enough unlicensed sellers at gun shows to supply the volume of weapons they need. Most sellers at gun shows are FFL dealers and highly regulated and watched by the ATF. Most will not do any kind of dealing with something as obvious as a cartel buy and large volumes of handgun selling has to be reported to ATF immediatly-and they look into them. Gunshows are just not a meaningful source of weapons for ANY criminal activity, much less something this organized. Gunshows are mostly a bunch of geeks with an interest in guns showing off their prized possesions, licensed gun stores selling there product to interested legal buyers and people sellign cheap junk (gun accessories) to gullible buyers. It is really an interesting slice of Americana.
posted by bartonlong at 4:56 PM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

A professional, motivated, and well led army is NOT to be challenged by a bunch of thugs, regardless of how well funded or tough they appear. It is just a different league.

Tell it to those guys over in Afghanistan. Eight years they've been holding off the US military.
posted by mattbucher at 5:43 PM on March 15, 2010

These gangs absolutely rule northern Mexico, they own it. No telling how deeply they've gotten into the military but know for a fact that they are in it deep; are they in deep enough to control tanks and jets? I don't know -- do you? They are fighting one another today but wolves fight to the death amongst themselves but turn as one against a dog. The US would be that dog, a big, fat, dumb lap-dog, not at all used to fighting in it's own backyard. Want to bring a fight to the US, want some of your very own war-zones on the southern US borders?

I believe the Iraqi army had tanks and jets.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:44 PM on March 15, 2010

These gangs absolutely rule northern Mexico, they own it. No telling how deeply they've gotten into the military but know for a fact that they are in it deep; are they in deep enough to control tanks and jets? I don't know -- do you? They are fighting one another today but wolves fight to the death amongst themselves but turn as one against a dog. The US would be that dog, a big, fat, dumb lap-dog, not at all used to fighting in it's own backyard. Want to bring a fight to the US, want some of your very own war-zones on the southern US borders?


This kind of paranoia is exactly the kind of thing that convinced the dumber among us that Iraq could Nuke the U.S. unless we stopped them.

But military intervention is impractical, can you imagine the civilian casualties if we "cleaned" Juarez?

And I don't think legalizing weed would have much of an impact on the money maker that is cocaine.

This IS a Mexican problem, I also blame NAFTA.
posted by Max Power at 5:58 PM on March 15, 2010

I think dancestoblue is being a bit apocalyptic. A massive US military response here would more likely cause a change in strategy by the drug gangs versus a full-on gun-to-gun confrontation.

That said, we may wish to review these border incidents from 2006, where either drug convoys disguised as the Mexican army, or compromised army units themselves, were in dicey situations with US border patrols.
posted by dhartung at 6:21 PM on March 15, 2010

Justinian, Mexico has already decriminalised drugs. See my MeFi post on it here. The previous president reportedly tried to do the same thing, but was coerced by GWB to think again. Apparently, Calderon and Obama have different views than their predecessors on this matter.
posted by Cobalt at 7:29 PM on March 15, 2010

bartonlong, I guess you didn't read the part where 87 percent of firearms seized in Mexico come from the US, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

I'm baffled at arrogance of the people who argue for the "invasion" of Mexico as an option. I never know if the people who talk of this are just clueless or just very very ignorant.
posted by Omon Ra at 9:15 PM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I guess what always blows my mind is that the cocaine industry in the US is like a multi-billion dollar business. I personally just don't understand it. Both coke and crack seem such horrible, horrible things to put into your body.

I'm a pretty strong believe in the legalization of pot, for two reasons. First, because making it legal would allow a vast majority of "illegal drug users" to never be in contact with drug dealers again. But the other reason is, I mean, come on. It's pot. Very nearly harmless, and actually relatively easy to grow out in the open. If it were legal, its cost would be dwarfed by the cost of a package of organic basil.

For a while in my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, the local police were so successful at shutting down local pot dealers that cocaine was both easier and cheaper to come by. That's horrific.
posted by Deathalicious at 9:37 PM on March 15, 2010

And I don't think legalizing weed would have much of an impact on the money maker that is cocaine.

I don't smoke pot (although I've tried it once or twice). I've never once purchased it. I have no idea where you'd get it. But if I needed to get my hands on it, I'd probably end up talking to a drug dealer. It it were legal, I'd go to my local co-op to get it.

According to this article, it makes up around half of Mexico's trade:

Círigo said organized crime is making $13 billion a year off the drug trade. More than half of that -- $8 billion -- is derived from the marijuana business, he said.

Legalizing weed would make a difference.
posted by Deathalicious at 9:52 PM on March 15, 2010

Cobalt: That's not really what I'm talking about. Mexico decriminalized small-scale possession. I'm talking about full-blown decriminalization. Or, hell, legalization. Allowing people to carry a little bit of pot isn't the same thing.
posted by Justinian at 4:04 AM on March 16, 2010

Justinian Exactly, what is needed is full bore legalization. With quality inspections, taxes, drug manufacturing CEO's joining the chamber of commerce, etc.

When was the last time you saw Phillip Morris goons shooting at R.J. Reynolds gunmen? When was the last time a Budweiser strongman and several dozen of his best shooters attacked a Coors compound?

Legalize it and the current gang bosses become pillars of the community, pay taxes, and fight with lawyers instead of guns.

Mexico's current situation, the decriminalization of possession of small amounts, is a step in the right direction (Joe User is no longer being tossed in prison on felony possession charges and thus costing the state a crapload), but it isn't enough to stop their problem. The problem isn't the users, except in the sense that they'll pay for the goods, the problem is the producers/retailers. Drug users go and quietly shoot up, snort, whatever, and that's that. At absolute worst they might mug someone. It's the producers/retailers who are staging massive gun battles in the streets.
posted by sotonohito at 4:30 AM on March 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

bartonlong, I guess you didn't read the part where 87 percent of firearms seized in Mexico come from the US, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

I believe that number is 87% of the firearms that can be traced is only the precentage of firearms that Mexico asked the US if they were from the US. I would expect this number to be large, the Mexico Federal Police are not incompetant, just a little corrupt. Factcheck.org has an article on this at:

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/06/gao-report-us-source-for-large-portion-of-mexican-crime-guns/

I don't doubt that there is some smuggling from the US, but the kind of guns the gangs want is not the kind readily available in US in sufficient quantities, and they can be had cheaper and easier on the international market or just from Mexican government sources.

However this is really not the important part of the discussion. The important part is that the border is a war zone, and most of the nation has no idea what is going on down there on a daily basis. I moved far away from the border and am working on convincing the rest of my family to move. This was not done purely for this reason but I would be lying if I said it wasn't a factor in the plus coloumn for moving.
posted by bartonlong at 8:36 AM on March 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I personally just don't understand it. Both coke and crack seem such horrible, horrible things to put into your body.

Come on, seriously? Alcohol is a horrible horrible thing to put into your body. We tried criminalizing that. Clearly the lesson wasn't learned. Tobacco is a horrible horrible thing to put into your body. What do we try to do to discourage it? Tax the fuck out of it. I've put coke into my body. I put alcohol into my body. I put tobacco into my body. I put cheetos, pizza, lard, pepperoni, bacon, french fries and other chemicals into my body. But I DO IT IN MODERATION. Just because there are things that are horrible to put into your body doesn't mean we should outlaw things that are horrible to put into your body because IT. DOES. NOT. WORK. Tax the fuck out of it and let those of us who are either strong enough to do things in moderation or strong enough not to do it at all benefit from the tax revenue generated.
posted by spicynuts at 9:47 AM on March 16, 2010

Come on, seriously? Alcohol is a horrible horrible thing to put into your body. We tried criminalizing that.

Yeah, the drug warriors appear to have absolutely no sense of history. How can the parallels between violence at our southern border now and violence at our northern border under Prohibition escape them? The scale may be different but the motivations and such are exactly the same.
posted by Justinian at 10:21 AM on March 16, 2010

Círigo said organized crime is making $13 billion a year off the drug trade. More than half of that -- $8 billion -- is derived from the marijuana business, he said.

My bullshit detector always goes off when I read someone tossing around numbers like this when referring to a black market. Not that the dollars aren't huge, it's just all guesswork and usually inflated to make the war on drugs seem more dire and necessary than perhaps it truly is.
posted by hippybear at 12:02 PM on March 16, 2010