Mexican cartel massacre: 9 Americans, including 6 children murdered

[HCM]

In the compendium of factors that influence cartel violence, there's a very strong inverse correlation between illegal border crossings and cartel violence. Correlation is not causation, and there's no single identifiable factor, blah blah.

With the recession in 2008, illegal border crossing slowed to a trickle and cartel violence skyrocketed, there are other factors. Currently, using border crossing apprehensions as an indicator of total illegal crossings, illegal crossings are down, and violence is through the roof.

Not many people question why the Mexican government is so intent on exporting it's productive workforce, a main ingredient in improving their economic situation. What's even worse than not having the workforce to improve their economy is having a glut of uneducated, unemployed military age males sitting around with little prospect in life. Our demand for cheap labor serves as a platform for a broad military strategy to reduce the cartel's recruiting pool. That's a system that benefited both sides of the border for a long time.

Trump has had a lot of success just letting federal law enforcement do their jobs and putting political pressure on Central American governments. Stemming the flow of immigration isn't the problem, it's that a system was developed long ago that became dependent on moving bodies to fight a war, and no new strategy was put in place.

That is an interesting theory but people have been heading for opportunities in El Norte since at least World War II.

It does bring up another point though. We talk about the cartels as “drug cartels” But that is only one part of their business. Their real business is smuggling routes. They control the route and anything that travels on those routes north or south gets “taxed” Drugs, people, guns, money, avocados, whatever.

When illegal border crossings are up there is plenty of money for everyone because illegal immigrants or just another commodity for the cartels to move. We see criminal groups on this side of the border hitting each others stash houses and kidnapping immigrants to ransom them back to their families. They are literally a commodity to these people.

[HCM]

The Narcos and other Mormons are not the only ones involved in violent clashes with the LeBaron clan. They are also involved in a long running and violent clash with neighboring ranchers and farmers over water rates.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/...JGaXePuQjw2KnY

[TheNewbie]

I was in Mexico in the early part of the year, in Mexico City. I saw a convoy of Mexican Marines.

To their credit, they looked professional, competent and like a legit force. Their weapon handling also looked good, and they practiced good trigger finger discipline.


The Mexicans have the people to fight the war, but the problem is much deeper. You could eliminate the cartels tomorrow, and in a few years they would be back. I love Mexico, but there is a culture of corruption there, and until that is fixed, I don't believe you will have any long term solutions.

[MickAK]

Ok, I keep seeing this posted in regards to this issue and I feel obligated to comment.

Avocados and cocaine have very different profit margins. They are not remotely equivalent in regards to this issue. Neither is human trafficking, or any other business cartels are involved in. The existence of the cartels is based on the extreme profits to be had in the narcotics trade. Any other opinion is fanciful and not based in fact.

[runcible]

There are some extremely strong opinions expressed here, obverse to those espoused by some who work in fields that are professionally mindful of this whole rigamarole; and that seems interesting.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

....and this is part of the problem according to people I know who have family in Mexico. Similar to how drug dealers in black communities often do toy handouts and turkey giveaways around the holidays, the cartels do enough "good" that a lot of people look to them as heroes. You take people who have literally almost nothing, with a govt who does nothing for them, and have someone come along and provide some basic necessities and it's not hard to see how their loyalty can be bought.

Not sure if this idea is even interesting to anyone but the question this thread puts me in mind of is this: what is difference between a cartel and a legitimate government?

If there are regions where the cartels are, essentially, governing, and the people in those areas are loyal to the cartels more so than the state of Mexico I wonder what the difference actually is - obviously one can't discern a state actor based on benevolence, since there are plenty of governments which butcher their citizens. Canada itself was originally more a system of organization for resource extraction than anything else so having a state based on a particular industry doesn't seem like too much of a stretch.

The legitimacy of a government seems to stem from its ability to project force more than anything else so I think in the areas where the cartels have unchallenged supremacy of force, thinking of them less as a criminal organization and more as a rogue state makes quite a bit of sense. Interestingly as they shift from organized crime rings to governing bodies invested in the infrastructure of an area (even if only for parasitical reasons) they actually may make a "war on drugs" more feasible than it ever used to be.

I mean really, if we actually wanted to get rid of the cartels, the big project would be building up the nation-state of Mexico. Granted I'm not super thrilled about the West's track record on nation-building and we have a lot of recent, frustrating experience with it so I'm not saying it's a good idea. It's just interesting that the elements of winning the war on drugs would actually probably align quite well with the elements of winning an actual war, and I think this is only true because the growth of the cartels has turned them into the kind of entity that we could conceivably target, destroy, and replace on an institutional level.

It also makes me think about the unnerving parallels between a parasitical criminal organization, and a parasitical governing body - and governance is necessarily parasitical, given its primary source of funding. Essentially, unless the government is willing to constrain itself to the rule of law, and willing to suffer the division of powers such that the laws cannot be easily altered or prosecutions cannot easily be politically influenced, then I don't know that there is a fundamental difference between them.


Thankfully neither Canada nor the US has seen any political interference in prosecution or legislation so no point in us all going and checking on the contents of our safes and stockpiles or anything.

[Totem Polar]

Not sure if this idea is even interesting to anyone but the question this thread puts me in mind of is this: what is difference between a cartel and a legitimate government?

If there are regions where the cartels are, essentially, governing, and the people in those areas are loyal to the cartels more so than the state of Mexico I wonder what the difference actually is - obviously one can't discern a state actor based on benevolence, since there are plenty of governments which butcher their citizens. Canada itself was originally more a system of organization for resource extraction than anything else so having a state based on a particular industry doesn't seem like too much of a stretch.

Yup, and the US was founded on resource trafficking as well; Massachusetts bay, Plymouth, Jamestown, etc. were business companies long before they ever became townships, states or blue-leaning progressive hellholes. Total resource extraction bolstered by private, non-governmental force projection.

Thankfully neither Canada nor the US has seen any political interference in prosecution or legislation so no point in us all going and checking on the contents of our safes and stockpiles or anything.

FTW, the whole post. Of the number of things to like about you, thinking about a given topic from a long ways outside the box is right up there.

[GardoneVT]

Not sure if this idea is even interesting to anyone but the question this thread puts me in mind of is this: what is difference between a cartel and a legitimate government?
.

I was gonna post a long statement about government structure & legitimacy, but here’s a better way to put it. Disagree with the US government and you have options to be heard. You can vote, you can protest, you can counter legislation by contacting reps and even run for office yourself .

Disagree with the local Cartel and you’ll be savagely killed...after your family and pets are tortured to death in ways that would make an ISIL enforcer puke up his meal.

[OlongJohnson]

As our favorite hater of all people equally pointed out, there are governments recognized as legitimate and official by the UN that rule in much the same manner as the cartels.

[Totem Polar]

I was gonna post a long statement about government structure & legitimacy, but here’s a better way to put it. Disagree with the US government and you have options to be heard. You can vote, you can protest, you can counter legislation by contacting reps and even run for office yourself .

Disagree with the local Cartel and you’ll be savagely killed...after your family and pets are tortured to death in ways that would make an ISIL enforcer puke up his meal.

You just identified the difference between the American gov’t (and a number of similar western nations) and cartels. That metric isn’t so successful when applied to other legitimate nation states. Disagree with the Saudis as a reporter, and see how far apart the govt and cartels are.