Mexico becoming a failed state?

[pahwraith]

what do you mean "becoming"?

That's what I think everytime I read the thread title, I say that as someone that was born in Mexico and has 95% of his family living there.

At least Oaxaca and Yucatan are still relatively nice places to visit.

[Blacksmith]

Is the ATF still approving cross border gun sales to the drug gangs or did they quit doing that? It certainly won't help things down there.

[Rev]

Is the ATF still approving cross border gun sales to the drug gangs or did they quit doing that? It certainly won't help things down there.

Judging by the fallout, probably not.

[dogbane]

what do you mean "becoming"?

That's what I think everytime I read the thread title, I say that as someone that was born in Mexico and has 95% of his family living there.

At least Oaxaca and Yucatan are still relatively nice places to visit.

I love Oaxaca. I only went once, but it made a lasting impression on me. It's one place I would still visit, even during its sporadic periods of unrest.

[Blacksmith]

You know I am just not feeling it fail. Mexico has one of the world's largest economies.

They have had a stable government for nearly 100 years.

True they have lots of problems. It would still take a major stressor to upset the apple cart.

[Rugger]

You know I am just not feeling it fail. Mexico has one of the world's largest economies.

They have had a stable government for nearly 100 years.

True they have lots of problems. It would still take a major stressor to upset the apple cart.

I don't really know what to tell you. I grew up on the border, and I'm temporarily back down here working. Mexicans on this side won't go across unless they absolutely have to. The Texas Highway Patrol and Texas Rangers have issued a travel warning advising people to not go across the border, and it hasn't been lifted for the past 5 years. All military bases in close proximity to the border issued orders that personnel (including civil service employees) are not allowed to enter Mexico, at all.

On the failing part: Read some of the articles that have been posted on here. ENTIRE police forces have been dismissed to be replaced by military. Law enforcement officials that attempt to follow the law and root out corruption are beheaded, along with their WIVES and CHILDREN. The combined number of cartel hired guns are ~estimated~ to outnumber the entire Mexican military.

I don't mean to be an ass, but your statement, as I understand it, is laughable. I literally laughed out loud when I read it. The severity of the situation is kept out of the news because of political and economic reasons, which we can't get into here. If you were to come down here and see for yourself what's going on, read/hear the local news, and talk to people that actually live on the border, I think you'd walk away with an entirely different outlook.

[Blacksmith]

I have lived on the border. Four years in El Paso. Back when young ladies were disappearing at an alarming rate and the cross border auto theft rate gave El Paso the highest rate of auto theft in the US. I was last down there a few months ago.

The murder rate in Mexico, while high is significantly lower than in:

Honduras
El Salvador
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Venezuela
Belize
Guatemala
Jamaica
Bahamas
Colombia
Dominican Republic
Trinidad and Tobago
Brazil
Dominica
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Panama
Guyana

Of those countries I would say that Columbia or Venezuela have a much bigger chance of going crossways.

On the failing part: Read some of the articles that have been posted on here. ENTIRE police forces have been dismissed to be replaced by military.

This is not exactly new. System wide police corruption is a story as old as Mexico itself.

The severity of the situation is kept out of the news because of political and economic reasons, which we can't get into here. If you were to come down here and see for yourself what's going on, read/hear the local news, and talk to people that actually live on the border, I think you'd walk away with an entirely different outlook.

The bad press and more free information is what is forcing the central government into action. I can bring up literally thousands of news articles and videos on the situation down there. Blogs and all kinds of alternate news sources too. There isn't exactly a media black out on the goings on down there.

[Blacksmith]

Mexicans on this side won't go across unless they absolutely have to.

Yes. That has been the case for many, many years.

All military bases in close proximity to the border issued orders that personnel (including civil service employees) are not allowed to enter Mexico, at all.

Not entirely true. The order for civil service is for the border area only. Civil servants can still go to other areas in Mexico. I could go into the political/ economic reasons why they would not want them to go down there but I won't. Military commanders are well known for their reactionary, risk adverse way of handling external threats (typically by banning the activity). When a soldier dies they get held responsible.

In 2010, 9.5 million Americans visited Mexico. Of those 111 were killed. How many of those were involved in the drug trade is not noted but my guess is more than a few.

[Rev]

Bad business to kill Americans for multiple reasons

[Polie]

There are more and more incidents of pussy naro's coming into the US and attacking citizens and police. Wait until some soccer mom gets blasted away for something to happen and people start actually caring. Sad, but no one (the average young iphone/facebook American) gives a rats ass. It seems like people don't care and are to callus.

[PackLemming]

There are more and more incidents of pussy naro's coming into the US and attacking citizens and police. Wait until some soccer mom gets blasted away for something to happen and people start actually caring. Sad, but no one (the average young iphone/facebook American) gives a rats ass. It seems like people don't care and are to callus.

Im with you on this trip through space. You are not forgotten.

[Rugger]

I'm currently working in Eagle Pass, TX. This weekend a close friend, that is a local LEO, told me that late last week they found two guys dumped in the canal several miles north of Eagle Pass, right on the main road. This is a busy road and I drive it every day. They had been sodomized, throats cut, and shot in the head. I haven't heard if they were citizens or not, but they were dumped several miles into the U.S. Unless you want to make the argument that these two guys were tortured/killed in Mexico, and then smuggled across the border and past customs agents just to drop them on this side, this is happening in my current backyard. My parents literally live less than an hour from where the bodies were discovered. The sad part is that stuff like this has gotten to be old news down here.

Stuff like this really makes you think about your EDC and what you carry in your car, which thank goodness, in Texas the Castle Doctrine extends to your vehicle. Anybody know anything about up-armoring a Corolla?

[phil_in_cs]

Lots of dead "John Does" in the valley that never make the newspapers.

Stuff like this really makes you think about your EDC and what you carry in your car, which thank goodness, in Texas the Castle Doctrine extends to your vehicle. Anybody know anything about up-armoring a Corolla?

http://news.yahoo.com/duponts-armored-c ... 58702.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/world ... wanted=all

[762Coyote]

I'm currently working in Eagle Pass, TX. This weekend a close friend, that is a local LEO, told me that late last week they found two guys dumped in the canal several miles north of Eagle Pass, right on the main road. This is a busy road and I drive it every day. They had been sodomized, throats cut, and shot in the head. I haven't heard if they were citizens or not, but they were dumped several miles into the U.S. Unless you want to make the argument that these two guys were tortured/killed in Mexico, and then smuggled across the border and past customs agents just to drop them on this side, this is happening in my current backyard. My parents literally live less than an hour from where the bodies were discovered. The sad part is that stuff like this has gotten to be old news down here.

Stuff like this really makes you think about your EDC and what you carry in your car, which thank goodness, in Texas the Castle Doctrine extends to your vehicle. Anybody know anything about up-armoring a Corolla?

That's funny, you and I were just talking about armoring my ranger the other day. We can do the corolla too!

[TacAir]

Lots of dead "John Does" in the valley that never make the newspapers.

Stuff like this really makes you think about your EDC and what you carry in your car, which thank goodness, in Texas the Castle Doctrine extends to your vehicle. Anybody know anything about up-armoring a Corolla?

http://news.yahoo.com/duponts-armored-c ... 58702.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/world ... wanted=all

Interesting statement in the second article

“If the government can’t keep me safe,” Ms. Amara said, “then I have to go out and look for that security on my own.”

As far as the odd Juan Doe - it's when the report covers the dead in job lots that get the attention - which in and of itself shows how badly things have turned in Mexico.

Mass murders make big news, unless it’s Mexico

"But the numbers alone separate our experience from Mexico. Since 2005, approximately 40,000 people have died tragically – many have died horribly – in Mexico’s drug war. Some of those victims were police officers, soldiers, politicians and legitimate businessmen, all singled out for their defiance against the drug cartels. They were kidnapped, killed, bombed and shot."


When I went to check the number of gang related murders in the US, surprise!

"At a recent gang conference, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention leadership pointed out it should not be assumed that "indicators of general crime and indicators of gang crime go hand-in-hand." For example, Los Angeles recorded 1,077 homicides in 1993 and 587 homicides in 2001, "just over half the total from 1993. But the number of gang-related homicides in 2001 was exactly the same as it was in 1993: 346 gang homicides." Unfortunately, "our best national indicators of crime do not provide information specifically about gang crime" (Opening Remarks for the National Youth Gang Symposium, 2002). Regardless of whether gang crime has decreased, increased, or remained constant, gangs remain a problem in many areas throughout the nation. "

I wonder why that is?
It's almost like some folks at the DoJ are unwilling (or too scared) to publish real numbers on gang-related murders, though I suppose part of the problem can be that some or even many local cops/pols are loathe to classify a killing as 'gang-related'

[Blacksmith]

It's almost like some folks at the DoJ are unwilling (or too scared) to publish real numbers on gang-related murders, though I suppose part of the problem can be that some or even many local cops/pols are loathe to classify a killing as 'gang-related'

This is much more simple than it looks. If crime is going down than why would you need more police? Why would the police need more resources?

[dogbane]

MEXICO CITY — The top three contenders for Mexico’s presidency have all promised a major shift in the country’s drug war strategy, placing a higher priority on reducing the violence in Mexico than on using arrests and seizures to block the flow of drugs to the United States.

The candidates, while vowing to continue to fight drug trafficking, say they intend to eventually withdraw the Mexican Army from the drug fight. They are concerned that it has proved unfit for police work and has contributed to the high death toll, which has exceeded 50,000 since the departing president, Felipe Calderón, made the military a cornerstone of his battle against drug traffickers more than five years ago.

The front-runner, Enrique Peña Nieto, does not emphasize stopping drug shipments or capturing drug kingpins as he enters the final weeks of campaigning for the July 1 election. Lately he has suggested that while Mexico should continue to work with the United States government against organized crime, it should not “subordinate to the strategies of other countries.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/world ... .html?_r=1

[TacAir]

Drug related deaths are bad now - and prescriptions drugs are now a major part of the mix --

"Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found.

Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention"

and have been climbing

(2009 - causes of death - emergency room visits) "In 2009, 1.2 million emergency department (ED) visits (an increase of 98.4% since 2004) were related to misuse or abuse of pharmaceuticals, compared with 1.0 million ED visits related to use of illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine. (IOW, emergency rooms were hit 2.2 millions times, in 2009 alone, for drug abuse related visits. It sucks to work ERs)

and a chart showing problems in general with hospital reported/ related drug issues -

2000-2010 - death and serious patient outcomes from FDA approved drugs
"These data describe the outcome of the patient as defined in U.S. reporting regulations (21 CFR 310.305, 314.80, 314.98, 600.80) and Forms FDA 3500 and 3500A (the MedWatch forms). Serious means that one or more of the following outcomes were documented in the report: death, hospitalization, life-threatening, disability, congenital anomaly and/or other serious outcome. Documenting one or more of these outcomes in a report does not necessarily mean that the suspect product(s) named in the report was the cause of these outcomes."

(Editor's Note: These data show "deaths" totaling 452,780 and "serious outcomes" equaling 2,816,297 occurred during the eleven years from 2000 to 2010 as tabulated from the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System for prescription drugs.)

Comparing the five years (2001-2005) with the five years (2006-2010) finds that the number of deaths grew by +66.7% for the second time frame as compared to first. For the same comparative spans, serious patient leaped by almost three quarters (+77.5%).

(Charts here) the site is anti-drug-war slanted, but cites (with links to) published FedGov data.

No matter how you want to slice it, if Mexico lets up on its attempt on stemming the flow of illegal drugs, things will only get (a lot) worse. And gangs seem to be the major conduit of drugs into the US, I can only guess gang-related violence will climb, on both sides of the border.

[dogbane]

It's worth noting that with the exception of cannabis and lately methamphetamine and a small amount of opiates, hardly any of those drugs are actually produced in Mexico.

[Blacksmith]

It's worth noting that with the exception of cannabis and lately methamphetamine and a small amount of opiates, hardly any of those drugs are actually produced in Mexico.

Yeah except for the two most widely used drugs in the US they hardly make anything. I hear they are driving the US meth makers out of business as it easier and cheaper to make in Mexico due to the lack of regulation on precursors and cheaper labor costs. That Globalization/ NAFTA stuff is just murder on the US economy.

[dogbane]

It's worth noting that with the exception of cannabis and lately methamphetamine and a small amount of opiates, hardly any of those drugs are actually produced in Mexico.

Yeah except for the two most widely used drugs in the US they hardly make anything. I hear they are driving the US meth makers out of business as it easier and cheaper to make in Mexico due to the lack of regulation on precursors and cheaper labor costs. That Globalization/ NAFTA stuff is just murder on the US economy.

Too bad I can't respond to that on this forum.

[Bishop Drake]

Yeah except for the two most widely used drugs in the US they hardly make anything. I hear they are driving the US meth makers out of business as it easier and cheaper to make in Mexico due to the lack of regulation on precursors and cheaper labor costs. That Globalization/ NAFTA stuff is just murder on the US economy.

That's not inflamatory at all..... Do you bait here often?

[Blacksmith]

Yeah except for the two most widely used drugs in the US they hardly make anything. I hear they are driving the US meth makers out of business as it easier and cheaper to make in Mexico due to the lack of regulation on precursors and cheaper labor costs. That Globalization/ NAFTA stuff is just murder on the US economy.

That's not inflamatory at all..... Do you bait here often?

Just the facts....

http://digitaltexan.net/2012/state/mexi ... 9hsAPWZh_o

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/dea/p ... uction.htm

http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/d ... is-booming

[DarkAxel]

It's worth noting that with the exception of cannabis and lately methamphetamine and a small amount of opiates, hardly any of those drugs are actually produced in Mexico.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the Mexican Cartels move Coke and Heroin for the South American Cartels?