Legalize Drugs. Defund the cartels....Even legalizing Pot would take 60% of the money away from them.
What,s the solution for our neighbor south of the border?
by jam 30 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
-
-
dgp
Sam Whiskey: Last time I checked, YOU GUYS were complaining that WE are taking your two halves...
By the way, what do you think about the rest of my post? Just curious.
-
Nickolas
A well trained, elite squadron of ruthless men made up of the best the US and Mexico has to offer, commanded by the finest military and strategy brains of each country and under the joint direction of the presidents of both countries who are advised by intelligence operations dedicated 100% to the objective. These men would be exhaustively trained in covert operations, would have limited family associations (and would be unidentifiable in any case) and would be paid like football stars (no plato o plomo exposure). They would play by no rules and they would take no prisoners except those they wish to waterboard for information. They would systematically kill every individual identified as associated with the drug cartels, focusing on enforcers, strategists and leadership. Cooperation with the drug cartels either side of the border would be harshly punished (Plata? Luego de plomo!) . There would be great upheaval and collateral damage but ultimately it would become a question of resources. The country would continue to bleed for years but it would also be reborn. If it maintains its current direction it will die anyway.
In order to distill the effort down to the hardcore elements driving the situation in Mexico, I expect the US will also indeed need to decriminalise cannabis, if not make it legal. The US will need to tax and regulate it and control it like it did alcohol after the failed experiment of prohibition. But there are too many rich and influential people in the US who live in a sort of la-la-land who will do their utmost and make absolutely certain that decriminalisation or legalisation does not happen. Their reasons may be noble or they may be selfish, because it is hard to imagine how the widespread use of a psychoactive substance by its poplulation would improve the country's prospects of maintaining its position in the world, particularly against rapidly emerging countries in which the recreational use of drugs is not as prevalent. But there will be solutions to this, too, and those who cannot or will not see them are as much to blame for the violence in Mexico as the cartels themselves.
-
dgp
Nickolas, I respect you a lot, but I think you are missing the big picture. It is not as easy as you seem to think. The solution can't be military. For as long as there is a large group of people who want to do drugs, someone will supply them.
Suppose you're a policeman in Mexico or Central America. You have a wife and kids. And you're sent to do undercover work. Do you think that, sooner or later, this policeman would realize that they could literally slice him to pieces for the sake of someone in the United States who wants to do drugs anyways? Someone who would perhaps look down on you and would call you greaser or beaner or whatever if you were to move to the United States?
What would you do, if you were this man?
There was this police chief in Tijuana who was made an offer he couldn't refuse. The cartel offered him one million dollars a month for playing dumb. He could even get a little amount of drugs here and there, as a token, to save face. The alternative was death. He chose not to be on the cartel's payroll. One fine day, this man went to mass, and he thought it was allright if he didn't take any bodyguards with him. He had been there for half an hour when the cartel came. He was shot 44 times.
From this side of the border, it is very clear that the United States could do a lot within its own borders. Why it doesn't seem to do much, well, that is the big question. We sort of have an answer, but it's one that's not very much politically correct in the United States. Drugs are as much a problem in the United States as they are in Mexico or Central America, if not worse, but for some reason Americans don't want to go to the root cause.
-
designs
The root cause is people like to get achieve altered states of consciousness. If Rose Hips did what Cocoa Leaves do you'd see $5 baggies being sold.
The other part is certain people just like to make their living off of stealing goods any goods and selling them.
-
Nickolas
Yes. You have the solution, dgp. All you have to do is stop Americans from doing drugs. Why didn't anyone think of that before?
-
dgp
I accept the criticism, Nickolas, because you are right. It's not as easy as "just don't do drugs". But the blame does not lie only "south of the border" either. And sending a squad won't solve the thing. The Zetas were originally elite soldiers. The Guatemalan Kaibiles who have defected to the Zetas were also members of a very small elite. Who says that your guys just can't be bought?
Mexican president Calderón complained that they have seized 120,000 weapons (http://www.informador.com.mx/primera/2011/319222/6/felipe-calderon-presume-120-mil-armas-incautadas-en-cinco-anos.htm. He has also claimed that much of those weapons come from the US. He has given a figure of up to 90% as coming from the US. Perhaps he is exaggerating, but, according to this note (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-4893905-503543.html) "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Mexico, said Wednesday that America's inability to prevent weapons being smuggled across the border is causing the deaths of Mexican police officers, soldiers and civilians." I added the bold.
Some people claim that "90%" of those weapons come from the US. Maybe not. Stratfor Intelligence says otherwise. They claim that only 17% of the weapons that make it into Mexico come from the US. But the note below does say, however, is this:
But Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, called the "90 percent" issue a red herring and said that it should not detract from the effort to stop gun trafficking into Mexico.
"Let's do what we can with what we know," he said. "We know that one hell of a lot of firearms come from the United States because our gun market is wide open."
Again, I added the bold. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come#ixzz1WqrDfwp2
I don't remember the name of the Chinese guy who was arrested in Mexico with 250 million dollars in cash. His business was buying precursors for designer drugs. Those 250 million were intended to be used as bribe money, which means the sums of money actually involved in the trade are much, much higher. Those amounts of money come from the consuming countries, primarily the US. How come no one finds out?
In his book "El Cartel", the late Mexican journalist Jesús Blancornelas, himself a target of the Tijuana cartel, said that at one time the US consul in Tijuana hired a driver to take the children to school in "that side" of the border. A personal friend of the consul had recommended someone to work as a driver. The man was using the American consul's car to smuggle cocaine into California. Yes, he was arrested. The question is, did the consul know about this? And, if he didn't know, just how good were the Americans at policing their own?
The personal friend of the consul turned out to be a narcojunior. A junior who had entered the trade just so he would feel powerful. Money he already had.
Here's a link for anyone to check the book, just in case (Spanish only)
I agree that this problem can't be seen as "let's get Americans do the easy thing and quit drugs", just as I think this shouldn't be understood as "those incompetents blew it and we have to fix their own country for them" when much of the reason why such a mess even exists is there comes from "north of the border".
I imagine that my talking like this does not earn much sympathies in a forum populated by Americans. But this is a hell of a good place to think outside of the box, I believe. When I hear that some American says that they can "fix" a country, I think of how notoriously incompetent at fixing countries America is. Witness Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan. Or, think Wall Street. I think America itself is in very bad need of fixing. From this side of the border, we wonder if any of your politicians is up to the task. Were you not playing brinkmanship not so long ago, on a certain Tuesday?
-
FreeAtLast1914
Our government, controlled by wealthy, powerful lobbyists, love having a third-world nation on their border. It gives them ready access to millions of people willing to work for next to nothing. Jobless rate? They could care less, as long as their coffers continue to fill.
Why would this government help them? There's no profit in it.
-
No Room For George
Declare their people who cross the border political refugees like we do the Cubans, and then put sanctions on Mexico. Then let the political refugees overwhelm the U.S. Southwest and let them dictate US foreign policy towards Mexico. What Florida feels is good for the rest of the country, should be sufficient enough to wink our eye at the wall and let the US Southwest dictate what direction this country goes as well.
-
dgp
This is why Mexico is also making record Meth labs
Wrong. The problem lies"north of the border". Canada is the mecca for that kind of drugs.
Canada’s production of ecstasy supplies its domestic market and is also the principle source of ecstasy for the United States and, to a lesser extent, the Asia-Pacific Region. Ecstasy in Canada is produced in sophisticated laboratories, primarily located in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.
Canada-based Asian organized crime groups dominate most U.S.-bound ecstasy smuggling. Organized crime groups with ties to China dominate the production and distribution of ecstasy, often selling the tablets in the United States for two or three times the domestic price in Canada. They receive significant precursor shipments from Asia, which are then used in the manufacturing of ecstasy. Canada-based South Asian organized crime groups and networks of individuals with ancestral links to Vietnam are also actively involved in cross-border smuggling of ecstasy to the United States. In the United States, ecstasy distribution is controlled by a large number of diverse criminal groups. According to a large body of law enforcement reporting, Asian, African American, Albanian, and Hispanic criminal organizations, as well as Outlaw motorcycle gangs, are all involved in the distribution of ecstasy in the United States.
This was published by the Canadian government itself.
http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/le/oc/jbtra-eng.aspx
Question. Is anyone even thinking of sending American soldiers "north of the border"? Would Canadians agree to that?