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| Big trouble down Mexico way - Sol Sanders |
| 2010-04-06 |
| Alas! The old cliches about Mexico are coming home again. Veteran New York Times newsman Scottie Reston once said that "Americans will do anything for Latin America -- except read about it." When four people connected with the U.S. consulate in Juarez were gunned down in March, three of them American citizens, it didn't dominate the headlines here. The murders came on the heels of 79 Americans killed in Mexico in 2009. How to account for this refusal to appreciate a primary security problem escalating along our 1,500-mile southern border? In the mid-1980s, when I was returning from decades in Asia, it didn't take any special perspicacity to recognize the classic problems of "underdevelopment" were present right here, not in distant parts of Africa and Asia. Mexico and the U.S., then as now, shared the only land border between a modern industrialized economy and the Third World. The book I wrote then -- the title hyped but certainly appropriate now, "Mexico: Chaos on Our Doorstep" -- only needs statistical updating to apply to the situation today. That other classic Mexico cliche also bears repeating just now. Porfirio Diaz, the late 19th-century dictator, observed, "Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States." There is no denying that we provide the world's largest market for "recreational drugs" -- conservative estimates put Mexico's total drug smuggling in 2009 at between $25 billion and $40 billion, more than the country's No. 1 export, oil. There is evidence that smugglers also supply the illicit weaponry from the U.S. that fuels a hideous war among crime "cartels" battling for control of the traffic inside Mexico (and increasingly on this side of the border) and against the government. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #21 Fascinating, Asian Man. Keep on this, and tell us more. |
| Posted by: lex 2010-04-06 21:51 |
| #20 It's obamas fault I am now a drug user since i find myself popping a xanax every time i turn on the news I use cheap bourbon. I would prefer the good stuff if I could afford it. |
| Posted by: Beldar Threreling9726 2010-04-06 21:11 |
| #19 How do you know, Secret Asian Man? What are the indicators? Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 Well, there is the cockiness, the rambling, the alternating between what appears to euphoria...then irritation, his thin skin and the clincher for me was the weird nose picking thing at the Health Care Summit. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt vis-a-vis coke abuse, but when I saw that, I knew right then. That infinitesimally brief expression he got when he realized what he was doing spoke volumes. Barry be a coke head. |
| Posted by: Secret Asian Man 2010-04-06 18:43 |
| #18 #13 ebbang coke heads are usuallreal cocky.It's obamas fault I am now a drug user since i find myself popping a xanax every time i turn on the news |
| Posted by: chris 2010-04-06 18:21 |
| #17 Classic case of outlaws having guns when guns are outlawed. OTOH, if you were an ordinary, law abiding Mexican you might want an AR-15 or a shotgun or anything else you could get your hands on just for self-defense. Some of these narco terrorists might not be so cocky if they had to take the odd pot shot from an armed citizenry. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2010-04-06 18:01 |
| #16 Sorry my html pointer got screwed up. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-04-06 16:58 |
| #15 From the NRA-ILA site: Mexican guns here! Contrary to the notion that the cartels depend on semi-automatic rifles bought illegally in the United States, the cartel conducted its attacks with a variety of weapons that cannot be legally bought anywhere in our country. As the Los Angeles Times reported, "In coordinated attacks, gunmen in armored cars and equipped with grenade launchers fought army troops this week. . . . The army said it confiscated armored cars, grenade launchers, about 100 military-grade grenades, [and] explosive devices" in addition to a large quantity of ammunition. Contrast that reality with the fiction perpetuated by politicians on both sides of the border. NRA members certainly recall that soon after President Obama took office last year, Attorney General Eric Holder stated his support for an "assault weapon" ban as the solution to Mexico's drug violence. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.), the sponsor of the federal "assault weapon" ban in 1993, soon called upon President Obama to support the Inter-American Convention Against Illegal Arms Trafficking, claiming, "According to the Mexican government, about 90 percent of the weapons they seize from Mexican drug cartels came into the country illegally from the United States." Newspapers around the country fell for the ruse hook, line and sinker, parroting the 90 percent claim, as well as the utterly absurd, mathematically impossible claim that 2,000 guns cross from the U.S. into Mexico each day. Mexican guns here!>/a> Contrary to the notion that the cartels depend on semi-automatic rifles bought illegally in the United States, the cartel conducted its attacks with a variety of weapons that cannot be legally bought anywhere in our country. As the Los Angeles Times reported, "In coordinated attacks, gunmen in armored cars and equipped with grenade launchers fought army troops this week. . . . The army said it confiscated armored cars, grenade launchers, about 100 military-grade grenades, [and] explosive devices" in addition to a large quantity of ammunition. Contrast that reality with the fiction perpetuated by politicians on both sides of the border. NRA members certainly recall that soon after President Obama took office last year, Attorney General Eric Holder stated his support for an "assault weapon" ban as the solution to Mexico's drug violence. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.), the sponsor of the federal "assault weapon" ban in 1993, soon called upon President Obama to support the Inter-American Convention Against Illegal Arms Trafficking, claiming, "According to the Mexican government, about 90 percent of the weapons they seize from Mexican drug cartels came into the country illegally from the United States." Newspapers around the country fell for the ruse hook, line and sinker, parroting the 90 percent claim, as well as the utterly absurd, mathematically impossible claim that 2,000 guns cross from the U.S. into Mexico each day. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-04-06 16:57 |
| #14 I told my stepkids how they smuggle drugs up someones butt to get them across the border then fish them out of the toilet on the other side. It'll be some time before those kids think of drugs without the crap connotation. Hopefully long enough. The reaction I got from the kids was priceless and it makes me wonder why schools don't emphasize this sort of thing. Heck, they can google it and find out I'm telling the truth. I didn't specify which drugs, however. Best to let them think its all drugs for now. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2010-04-06 14:51 |
| #13 How do you know, Secret Asian Man? What are the indicators? |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2010-04-06 14:27 |
| #12 Some of Obama's weird behavior makes me think he's using coke now & then. Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 As a former coke head (over 25 years ago) I can assure you he is a user. I pray to God everynight to deliver us from this evil POS, before huge numbers of us get killed. |
| Posted by: Secret Asian Man 2010-04-06 13:35 |
| #11 Some of Obama's weird behavior makes me think he's using coke now & then. Posted by Anguper Hupomosing Watching and listening to The Annointed One is admittedly quite unpleasant, but Ive wondered the exact same thing Hupo. Very strange performances some of them. Harvard University and the teleprompter can't be blamed for ALL his run-on lecturing and verbal blunderings. Besides, leopards seldom change their spots. I think there will be books written about this scoundrel long, long after we're gone. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-04-06 12:18 |
| #10 A $200m per year contract with Xe would put a stop to this border foolishness in... about 48 hours, mebe less. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-04-06 12:09 |
| #9 There is no way in hell this bitch is on the up and up and anybody who would give her a job has to be just as bad. Some of Obama's weird behavior makes me think he's using coke now & then. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-04-06 12:07 |
| #8 I mean, if you have kids you can bet that someday somebody is gonna wave a joint in their faces and ask them if they want a hit. "C'mon," they'll say, "just a puff can't hurt you." They'll be older and cooler and very persuasive. Then it'll be lines of cocaine on a mirror or a little taste of smack. I'm talking about kids, mind you, twelve years old and maybe even younger. They don't always have the experience, wisdom or maturity to resist that kind of temptation. Don't you wish you had a government that would do something about it instead of a bunch of crooked bastards who are just as bad as the ones running Mexico? Janet Napolitano looked the other way when she was governor of Arizona and she's looking the other way now. There is no way in hell this bitch is on the up and up and anybody who would give her a job has to be just as bad. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2010-04-06 12:05 |
| #7 conservative estimates put Mexico's total drug smuggling in 2009 at between $25 billion and $40 billion So somebody is making a helluva lot of money. Am I the only one who suspects the corrupting influence of all this money might have something to do with the lack of government action and MSM coverage? |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2010-04-06 11:50 |
| #6 I check the online versions of the El Paso Times and the Brownsville Herald, both give better coverage of events south of the border than the rest of the MSM does, put together. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-04-06 11:36 |
| #5 You have to ask yourself, as a drug lord would you prefer an American made semi-auto rifle that costs $1500 or a fully automatic AK-47 that costs $400? What would you prefer to face a military or other drug lords with? Simple logical logistics and supply point to other suppliers than the US. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2010-04-06 11:04 |
| #4 Saved me the trouble, Ricky. As you say, "sheesh"! I mean, it's not as though drug cartels in Latin America have any other way of getting firearms than to go through the hoops of illegally acquiring them in the US - I mean, what better options would they have? What's especially impressive is how they acquire weapons in the US that are not for sale, and use them extensively in their little wars. Surely our Second Amendment must be responsible for this little bit of evil sorcery?? |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2010-04-06 10:53 |
| #3 yes that 90% canard is thrown around by people who should know better but it serves a political agenda ...not a functional one. |
| Posted by: Hamerhead 2010-04-06 09:49 |
| #2 "Americans will do anything for Latin America -- except read about it." Not that the Euro-American centric MSM would cover it anyways except when Ronnie was awash in the Contra affair. About the only place someone who's interested in news from south of the border on a routine basis can get it is from Univision et al. The border has been intentionally buried by the tranzie MSM because of their narrative not because there is not 'news'. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2010-04-06 09:08 |
| #1 Thereis evidence that smugglers also supply the illicit weaponry from the U.S. that fuels a hideous war among crime "cartels" battling for control of the traffic inside Mexico (and increasingly on this side of the border) and against the government. Sheesh. Even in an otherwise reasonable and informative article, this journo can't resist the urge to keep pushing this proven bald-faced lie. |
| Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2010-04-06 09:05 |