BajaNomad - Contrary to popular belief, Mexico winning cartel war

Contrary to popular belief, Mexico winning cartel war

BajaNews - 7-2-2011 at 08:02 AM

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/762687...

By RICARDO AINSLIE
June 25, 2011

The Mexican government, finally, is gaining the upper hand in a drug war that has turned much of the border region and parts of interior Mexico into war zones. President Felipe Calderón's campaign against the cartels is now three-and-a-half years old and the death toll is nearing 40,000. After a series of visits to Ciudad Juarez, the war's epicenter, and interviews with federal law enforcement and intelligence officials in Mexico City, I see convincing evidence that the government has dramatically weakened the drug cartels, an essential step if the country is to restore peace.

The strategy of "disarticulating" the cartels has been largely successful. The command-and-control structure of the cartels has been decimated and the cartels are severely fractured. Twenty-one of the 37 individuals on Mexico's most wanted list have either been apprehended or killed. Of the five original cartels, two of them, the Juarez Cartel and the Tijuana Cartel, are mere shadows of their once powerful selves. The Gulf Cartel has split into two warring factions. Last week, Mexican federal police captured Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas (better known as El Chango, or The Monkey), the leader of La Familia, one of the country's most powerful criminal gangs. La Familia's brutality against its rivals led Calderón to launch his crackdown on organized crime. The Sinaloa Cartel, under the leadership of the mythic "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, has always operated more as a federation of closely allied organizations with Guzmán as the figurehead. The Beltrán Leyva organization broke off from "El Chapo" in 2008 and has been at war with him ever since. Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, a powerful leader within the Sinaloa Cartel, was killed last year and his successor, Martin Beltran Coronel, has been arrested. And there is evidence of ruptures between groups in Durango, the heart of Guzmán's territory. The cartels have been eviscerated by a combination of federal operations and internecine conflict.

A factor making it increasingly difficult for the cartels to operate is that they are being hunted by a variety of Mexican military and law enforcement agencies. The Mexican army and marines operate independently. The Mexican federal police force has quintupled in size to 33,000 officers (and U.S. sources describe their cooperation with American law enforcement as unprecedented). Finally, there is the smaller Agencia Federal de Investigación. Each of these entities is pursuing the cartels, sometimes collaboratively, sometimes independently, and each has taken down important cartel capos.

Another important variable is that it has also become much more difficult and costly for cartels to ensure control and protection. Prior to 2000, in PRI-controlled, pre-democracy Mexico, what was decreed at the top levels of government was enforced all the way down to the poorest municipalities. That made corruption efficient. Well-placed bribes at the top controlled everything up and down the line.

Today's playing field is much more complex, given that there are so many actors. For example, even though the Beltrán Leyva cartel was paying the head of the organized crime unit in the Mexican Attorney General's Office $450,000 a month to provide information about investigations and operations, Mexican army special forces arrested Alfredo Beltrán Leyva in January 2008. His brother, Arturo Beltrán Leyva was subsequently killed in December 2009 by the Mexican marines. There are simply too many players tracking down the cartels and the latter can't pay everyone off. Mexico's fledgling democratization has also increased the cartels' cost of doing business. Once a country where a single party controlled everything, today Mexico's three most influential political parties control governorships and municipalities, making it more cumbersome and expensive for the cartels to control local and regional institutions.

Together, the decimation of the cartels, the strengthening of federal law enforcement institutions, and Mexico's increasing democratization bode well for Mexico's future. However, for the present, taking down cartel operatives and unprecedented seizures of cash, weapons and drugs have had no appreciable impact on the one metric that matters most to the Mexican public: the level of violence. The vast majority of deaths are due to gang-on-gang disputes related to the local retail drug business. This violence is more akin to the Bloods and the Crips killing one another off in the streets of South Central than it is a cartel war per se. The fracturing of the cartels has also resulted in a proliferation of criminal bands engaging in ordinary street crime, including the lucrative kidnapping and extortion business. This crime is taking an enormous toll on citizens, which is why Calderón's popularity is sagging, notwithstanding his government's success against the cartels.

Today, Mexico is actually fighting two different wars: the war against the cartels, which is under the purview of federal authorities, and an explosion of ordinary street crime, much of which is under the purview of state and local police forces. The Mexican government is clearly winning the cartel war; it is local crime that has become the country's biggest challenge. Even as it succeeds in dismantling national and transnational drug trafficking networks, Mexico will continue to have a significant crime problem until state and local law enforcement are strengthened, judicial reforms are implemented and the social conditions that are breeding grounds for criminality improve.

--

Ainslie teaches at the University of Texas at Austin and is author of the forthcoming "The Savior of Juarez: Mexico at the Time of the Great Drug War" (University of Texas Press). He has spent the last two years exploring the impact of the violence on Ciudad Juarez, as well as interviewing Mexican policymakers, including several current and former members of President Felipe Calderón's security cabinet. Last year, Ainslie was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on Mexico's war against the drug cartels.

Good News

MrBillM - 7-2-2011 at 08:50 AM

I also heard that Alice made it back OK from OZ.

Along with Toto.

And she's starting a "Magic Slippers" IPO.

Woooosh - 7-2-2011 at 09:31 AM

It's an editorial, not news. But I sure hope things are really better than they seem on the street. Of course, the tourist zones are 100% safe and the violence is concentrated in a few areas.
:saint:

The cartels posted this after her editorial:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/01/ap/latinamerica/ma...

:wow:

[Edited on 7-2-2011 by Woooosh]

JESSE - 7-2-2011 at 09:59 AM

UTTER NONSENSE.

toneart - 7-2-2011 at 10:04 AM

Maybe they should throw more money at it. I haven't noticed the graft going away since The PRI. :no:

Great inroads of entrails!

What a beautiful war! If you throw a war they will all come. :smug:

Packoderm - 7-2-2011 at 10:58 AM

Gosh, if this is victory, I'd hate to see what defeat looks like. I think it's just like any "War on (fill in the blank)." It's meant to go on and on and is an easy excuse for government intrusion on the people. 40,000 people? Wow. I wonder what the casualty count is in the European theater of the drug war and especially at ground zero in Amsterdam. I also wonder what the drug overdose death count (the whole rationale for the war in the first place) would be if the so called war went unopposed. Maybe a couple hundred?

BajaGringo - 7-2-2011 at 02:35 PM

Quote:

The strategy of "disarticulating" the cartels has been largely successful. The command-and-control structure of the cartels has been decimated and the cartels are severely fractured. Twenty-one of the 37 individuals on Mexico's most wanted list have either been apprehended or killed. Of the five original cartels, two of them, the Juarez Cartel and the Tijuana Cartel, are mere shadows of their once powerful selves. The Gulf Cartel has split into two warring factions.

The problem with that analogy is that for every one of these "jefes" they take down, there are ten waiting in the wings to quickly move into their place; the replacements more ruthless than those that preceded them. Where they are able to dismantle a cartel in an area enough where they lose power, the void is simply filled by a competitor.

This war will not be measured or won by body count but by a serious reduction in the volume of dope moving north across the border, which has simply not happened (yet).

And it won't as long as the demand remains high...

[Edited on 7-2-2011 by BajaGringo]

DENNIS - 7-2-2011 at 08:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JESSE
UTTER NONSENSE.

Udder nonsense. Milk it for what it's worth.

tjBill - 7-4-2011 at 02:43 PM

I found that article quite negative. In the secod to last paragraph, it says,

"The fracturing of the cartels has also resulted in a proliferation of criminal bands engaging in ordinary street crime, including the lucrative kidnapping and extortion business. This crime is taking an enormous toll on citizens, which is why Calderón's popularity is sagging, notwithstanding his government's success against the cartels."

Woooosh - 7-4-2011 at 03:08 PM

There are a lot of lemons and you can only make so much Lemonade.

Bajahowodd - 7-4-2011 at 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tjBill
I found that article quite negative. In the secod to last paragraph, it says,

"The fracturing of the cartels has also resulted in a proliferation of criminal bands engaging in ordinary street crime, including the lucrative kidnapping and extortion business. This crime is taking an enormous toll on citizens, which is why Calderón's popularity is sagging, notwithstanding his government's success against the cartels."

I wasn't quite sure which post to quote on.

Fact is that demand for drugs in the US, and elsewhere has not abated, and probably won't during my lifetime.

Just seems to me that the underlying motivation of this story is political, probably funded by PRI, looking to regain the presidency.

BajaGringo - 7-4-2011 at 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bajahowodd
Just seems to me that the underlying motivation of this story is political, probably funded by PRI, looking to regain the presidency.

Based on the election results from various states across Mexico yesterday, I would say they are well on their way...

Woooosh - 7-4-2011 at 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BajaGringo

Quote:

Originally posted by Bajahowodd
Just seems to me that the underlying motivation of this story is political, probably funded by PRI, looking to regain the presidency.

Based on the election results from various states across Mexico yesterday, I would say they are well on their way...

... and I thought the "hopey changey" thing was a hard sell NOB.

bacquito - 7-4-2011 at 06:59 PM

I have read articles from our law inforcement agencies saying that Calderon has done a good job in breaking up the cartels. What we need to do is reduce the demand for illegal drugs.
Ni modo, se queda muy tranquilo Ensenada

[Edited on 7-5-2011 by bacquito]

Packoderm - 7-5-2011 at 10:45 AM

Maybe we should work on curing cancer first?

toneart - 7-5-2011 at 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bacquito
I have read articles from our law inforcement agencies saying that Calderon has done a good job in breaking up the cartels. What we need to do is reduce the demand for illegal drugs.
Ni modo, se queda muy tranquilo Ensenada

[Edited on 7-5-2011 by bacquito]

"What we need to do is reduce the demand for illegal drugs."

This is what you and Bajagringo say. You are right! That is the problem!

How do you propose to do that? Dumb kids, addicts and other idiots will find it and use it. It has been going on long before the "War on Drugs" was declared.

Users use! You can lock them up, send them to prison or put them in hospitals. It can never be stopped!!!

The moralists will continue to try but it is futile! Sorry for the distraught parents (the ones who may care), but this element of our society is lost. They might as well be dead. That is how most of them will end up, sooner than later. (I am not talking about Marijuana)!

The "War on Drugs" is an unnecessary waste of money, manpower and resources, instigated by the United States. It is propagated by politicians who want to win votes. In many districts, that does win votes. Again...it is futile!

You have both governments taking the virtuous stand. They are the good guys! On the other side you have the cartels. They are the bad guys!

So...you have Cartels, murderers, criminals, guns, money, thousands of innocent (and not so innocent) people dead, and an even greater determination to succeed and profit=VIOLENCE!

Then you have: Virtue, laws that make the drugs illegal, guns, money and armies pushing back=VIOLENCE.

Mexico has to find a way to take the profit motive out of it. They have to make deals; compromises; and get an agreement to stop the violence; on both sides. The PRI will find a way. The more conservative PAN (Calderon) will not.

Whatever the future holds, it will not be pretty. It is a sad, ugly mess. Let the users kill themselves. There is no ideal solution. If it all stops tomorrow there will still be drug casualties, but at least the VIOLENCE will have ended.:barf:

More Good Logic:

toneart - 7-5-2011 at 04:49 PM

http://www.wealthwire.com/news/economy/1397

bacquito - 7-7-2011 at 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by toneart

Quote:

Perhaps PRI will simply say to the cartels "we will not pursue you, ship all you want and let the 'gringos' worry about it". I do agree that the drug problem has been with us many, many years. I am 70 and can remember drugs being comsumed when I was 15 yrs. The problem is not resolved easily>

[Edited on 7-8-2011 by bacquito]