Drugs, Murder and Mexico

in the face of widespread tunneling, I am not sure exactly what the "BUILD A BIGGER WALL" ppl think they will be achieving

the thing abt the war on drugs in general and like many other wars is that the enemy will always be more dedicated and creative than we are, because its a bigger deal to them

But you see the wall will also go down a hundred miles too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHjKBjM1ngw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r65sGnwf5bk

Not sure if this will reach you guys as a full article or in part, but today's WSJ has a lengthy piece on the repercussions of targeting bloggers.

just google it then click through

wonder how many tunnels there are in total... ALIEN ANT FARM!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jlucr_XJ30&feature=related

xpost Those girls may have gotten to the top, but they didn't swing over and get down to the bottom again. No border crossing, no credibility.

Real quick: icey p much otm about what I was saying: I really don't have time to go into what it was that led me to misrepresent icey"s analysis so badly but def one reason was me trying to be clever and another was that I was rushing to go to work; I wish I wouldve left that whole thing off. LL otm about it being floppant, though more in the vein of flippantly dismissing the nuances in icey's take rather tham about the situation. But it still sounded way bad and LL being my friend, I believe her 'nonono' was more to soften the blow of the dawning realization that I justed outed myself as a crass moron rather than condoning that phrase as a valid take on anything icey said.

Anyways I hope don't re-derail this thread. I just wanted to apologize to the both of you aned to everybody. Have a good night!

no harm done -- icey is not incorrect in finding me annoying, and the only thing that kinda stung genuinely was when he said that people were being "nice" to me
i sent him a webmail with an olive branch in it
we're all good afaic

anyway the song i posted is pretty good and it is about ants
what an exhausting day

That icey jab was off tm and I resent the suggestion that I have been nice to anyone, at all, ever. Suggest wrong.

lol

floppant, son

Oh man is there ever a movie in this

phew, every time I see this thread pop up in bookmarks, my stomach sinks like a pit

"Mexican" hero-een Music

heard this on the radio yesterday about veracruz
mata-zetas are either
a) vigilantes sick of relying on govt/military to protect them
b) sinaloan cartel members getting mad and getting even
c) something else
d) who knows
e) wtf at dumping *more* bodies in the street

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/26/141727973/drug-violence-swamps-a-once-peaceful-mexican-city

Matching bottles of mineral water are lined up in front of each of them.

that part was notable, wasn't it

i also liked the lengthy description of what the seafood woman sold

On the eve of a convention for Mexican prosecutors

Pretty audacious idea in itself.

I keep reading their name as Meta-Zetas, which in terms of "violent gang" is kind of accurate.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Online-hackers-threaten-to-expose-cartel-secrets-2242068.php

lol? :\

Wow.

Apparently a politician's hacked website:

http://gustavorosario.com/

http://sdpnoticias.com/nota/216899/Anonymous_hackea_sitio_de_presunto_funcionario_involucrado_con_el_narco

all i'm seeing here is a rash of (coverage of) vigilante efforts in the wake of years of government and military boobery
does anyone who studies this conflict think this is going to amount to anything? (serious q)

apparently they did it
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/05/us-mexico-drugs-hackers-idUSTRE7A408C20111105

hm, that is a somewhat misleading post -- "they" = zetas, "did it" = released hostage and threatened to kill 10 people for every name released, should any names ever be released

In a post written in Spanish on the group's Latin American blog, the members said they had called off the action after the Zetas met a demand to release a kidnapped group member, and that: "We can say that, while bruised, he is alive and well."

The hacker group said the person was freed with a note warning that if information were released, the cartel would make the kidnapped member's family suffer, and kill 10 people for each exposed name.

Anonymous members previously threatened by video to release names and addresses of taxi drivers, journalists and police officers who they said acted as "loyal servants" to the cartel to see if that would prompt arrests.

They said they were "fed up" with the cartel's actions, particularly the alleged kidnapping. For much of the week, people claiming to be Anonymous members have gone back and forth saying the hacker action was canceled or would go ahead.

Anonymous, a loosely knit group that has attacked financial and government websites around the world, had in September claimed responsibility for orchestrating the shutdown of several Mexican government ministries, but did not give a reason for that action.

Barrett Brown, a Texas hacker who posted details about the planned action, said via his Twitter account: "I will be continuing the fight against the cartels."

Brown said via a post on Pastebin he would avoid revealing names that would trigger the ire of the Zetas but still intended to send information to the German newspaper Der Spiegel for confirmation.

"In the meanwhile, I will be going after other cartels with the assistance of those who have come forward with new information and offers of assistance," he said.

my students went from comatose to talking over each other when we started talking about this yesterday btw.

Talking about the Anonymous threat or the whole situation?

seems increasingly likely that the entire anonymous story was bullshit from the start

how you mean?

i mean has any single thing that barrett brown said been corroborated by any other person, reputable or not?

its like when your friend is all "oh my canadian girlfriend isnt visiting anymore, we broke up"

like remember when anonymous had 40,000 emails from news corp/the sun? what happened to those?

Wasn't it LulzSec who had them, and did they get pinched?

yeah sorry it was "lulzsec." iirc only some of them got arrested, there were wild claims of the emails being hosted on a server in china, still no word

Gang sends message with blogger beheading

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/world/americas/top-mexican-official-among-8-dead-in-helicopter-crash.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/us/us-mexico-tunnel-leads-to-tons-of-marijuana.html

am I bad for thinking that they should have burned the marijuana in the tunnel and made the world's most awesome hotbox

Meanwhile, in Chicago... (just posting this in case it escaped anyone's eyes last week)

http://www.fbi.gov/chicago/press-releases/2012/latin-kings-nationwide-leader-augustin-zambrano-sentenced-to-60-years-in-prison-for-rico-conspiracy-and-related-gang-crimes

CHICAGO—The highest-ranking leader nationwide of the Latin Kings street gang was sentenced today to 60 years in federal prison, the statutory maximum, after being convicted at trial last April of racketeering conspiracy (RICO) and related charges involving narcotics trafficking and violence that plagued numerous neighborhoods on the city’s north, south and west sides. The defendant, Augustin Zambrano, 51, a “Corona” of the Almighty Latin King Nation, who was responsible for overseeing the illegal activities of all factions of the powerful street gang with some 10,000 members in Illinois alone, has been in federal custody since 2009 and must serve at least 85 percent of his sentence.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this rash of prison breaks? Things are looking extremely ugly in the department of law and order in Mexico these days.
Here's what the NYT has to say: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/world/americas/guards-implicated-in-mexico-prisons-deadly-gang-attack.html

Additionally, here's an argument about legalization from a more pan-Latin American (or at least Central American) perspective
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/02/should-central-america-legalize-drugs/253707/

http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/the-deadliest-place-in-mexico

^^ Bumping this good read.

That is so scary. When we traveled Mexico by train in the 70's I remember Presido,TX being pretty scary just across the border from Ojinaga, Chihuahua. All of Chihuahua at the time was more less scary. Once in Marfa, the train took off too Mexico with guards sitting on top of the train car with huge weapons. I thought that memory was a scene from a movie until my grandmother told me it was something that really happened on a trip into Mexico.

We stopped taking the train by 1979 and switched to Mexicana. The early 80's in Sinaloa felt safe despite all the Federales with shades and big weapons riding in groups of 6 on the back of small pick-up trucks.

My mom still travels to a dubious spot in Sinaloa to visit my grandmother twice a year. It may not be obvious to those around me but inside I am a nervous wreck for her, not to mention conflicted and resentful. While I know it is very hard to not see loved ones knowing the dangers and going anyway, at this point, just seems so irresponsible and asking for trouble. I wish she would stop.

Summit of the Americas kicks off today -- Guatemala is offering up a formal proposition to introduce a discussion of decriminalization. It's a step. Here's a link en esp http://noticias.lainformacion.com/policia-y-justicia/narcotrafico/guatemala-propondra-en-cumbre-comision-que-analice-despenalizacion-de-drogas_vr7Tv0Qs6Vhj9U455hOmK5/

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/03/justice/mexico-journalists-killed/index.html

Again.

this also, as mentioned briefly in the above story:

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2012/05/federal-government-asked-to-help-solve.html