Law enforcement officials announced criminal drug-trafficking charges Thursday against 43 people in the United States and Mexico, including suspected leaders of prominent cartels in a country that has been plagued with gun violence.
[...]
The indictments "demonstrate our unwavering commitment to root out the leaders of these criminal enterprises wherever they may be found," said U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
Awesome. All the evil doers have been defeated. No more drug abuse and no more drug trade violence now, right?
Let's call up George W. Bush and see if we can borrow his banner:
In all seriousness, this is very BAD news for the people of Mexico. All it means is that several very lucrative job openings have been created in a multi-billion dollar industry, and the job application process involves lots of bloodshed.
Trying to stop cartel violence by arresting cartel leaders is like trying to save the Titanic by punching more holes in it.
Need more proof that the drug war isn't working? Watch the above video of 20 Mexican drug cartel members dressed as police freeing 53 inmates from a Mexico jail. The cartel members arrived in 10 vehicles and a helicopter. Yes, they have fucking helicopters. And submarines. How many of the drug dealers and users that we put behind bars in the U.S. have helicopters and an underwater armada?
It's no secret that the drug war is such a failure in the US that we aren't even able to keep drugs out of our prisons, nevermind our schools. In Mexico, it seems that arresting and jailing drug cartel members does little to stop their operations; they continue their work from a jail cell.
“When we keep a criminal in a Mexican prison, we run the risk that one way or another they are going to keep in contact with their criminal network,” Leopoldo Velarde, who heads extraditions for the federal attorney general’s office, said. “The idea is to stop criminals, not just jail them.”
Well, that is the idea isn't it? I'm not old enough to remember watching the whole Pablo Escobar ordeal. I've read extensively about the Search Bloc and his death. And hey, that stopped Colombian drug cartels and the flow of cocaine to the US right? Wait, it didn't.
So we could wage an all our war with the Mexican drug cartels. We could kill all of those bastards and put our hard earned tax dollars into more military resources. We could sacrifice the lives of US soldiers and Mexican civilians can suffer 10x as much as they are now. And once we arrest, jail, or kill the cartel leaders, we can watch as new ones form and take over the violent trade as if we were never even there.
Derek Copp, a student at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, was shot in the chest during a drug raid where police admit, only a small amount of marijuana was found. Copp, who was unarmed and alone in his apartment, was shot in the chest when he reportedly lifted his hand to sheild his eyes from an officer's flashlight.
SSDP chapters at Grand Valley State University, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, and Michigan State University protested the shootings and spread the word about the need for more sensible policies. Watch the video above to see SSDP members like Jonathan Beagly and Chris Chiles in action!
Thankfully, Derek is alive and recovering and is at home trying to get back to his studies. During a press conference after the shooting, Derek said "This isn't going to change who I am. I'm still the same person." "That's me. I'm Derek. That's all I can be."
To help Derek during this difficult time, SSDP is accepting donations to help cover some of Derek's medical or legal costs. You can make a donation at http://www.ssdp.org/derek
Rosalio Reta and his friend, Gabriel Cardona, were members of a three-person cell of American teenagers working as cartel hit men in the United States, according to prosecutors.
...In interviews with CNN, Laredo police detectives and prosecutors told how Cardona and Reta were recruited by the cartel to be assassins after they began hitting the cantinas and clubs just across the border. [CNN]
The Mexican drug cartel, fueled by the constant demand for illicit drugs and armed with guns supplied by America has unsurprisingly been recruiting American teenagers to fight their bloody battles, starting as early as 13 years old.
Both teenagers received six-month military-style training on a Mexican ranch. Investigators say Cardona and Reta were paid $500 a week each as a retainer, to sit and wait for the call to kill. Then they were paid up to $50,000 and 2 kilos of cocaine for carrying out a hit.
The teenagers lived in several safe houses around Laredo and drove around town in a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz.
So let’s get this straight. They have our guns, they have our money, they supply us with our drugs, they control our border, and now they have more power over our kids than parents ever would. I doubt you’d find a parent out there who’d be willing to pay their child $500 a week for sitting around, though at this point, maybe they should start looking into it.
I hate to be repetitive in my posts, but how are people not panicking? Do they not understand the idea of cause and effect, or do they need their North American geography refreshed?
There are sleeper cells in the U.S.," said Detective Garcia. "They're here, they're here in the United States.
Think about it, what else could the cartel sell that would give them so much easy money and an overwhelming amount of control? Chocolate candy bars? I don’t think so. Everyone wants drugs. No matter how many “Just Say No” campaigns we may feed our tax dollars into, we will not be able to turn American into a “drug free” nation. Instead, we need to legalize, regulate, control, and educate the public about the real harms drugs can cause and how to use responsibly if they’re going to use.
The solution is right in front of us, but some of us are too scared to even talk about it. Unfortunately at this point, there's so much more to be scared about than the word "legalization".
I think people put it best when they say we'll need to end the drug war soon enough out of pure necessity. Take, for instance, this video of what's going on in Mexico:
Yet, when asked on Fox News why the people in Mexico are protesting the army that was sent out to supposedly help them, Senator Dan Patrick of Texas replies,
"Well, we believe Bill, that it's the drug cartels who paid the people to protest."
Ignorant? Pathetic? Too horrified to face the truth? Who knows. What we do know is that if Mexico doesn't legalize and regulate drugs soon and take away the drug cartel's major source of power, there will be no way out.
The National Drug Intelligence Center has already concluded in itsNational Drug Threat Assessment 2009 that "Mexico drug trafficking organizations represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States."
Lawmakers in Texas are currently worrying about a flood of Mexican refugees attempting to escape the violence pouring into their state, but nobody really seems to know what to do.
"This violence is happening because the [Felipe] Calderon administration is doing the right thing by cracking down on powerful drug cartels," Kudwa said in a statement. "The cartels are, predictably, fighting back to protect their lucrative criminal livelihood..."[Fox News]
How can people continue to blatantly overlook the solution and honestly believe that the violent tactics being used are the "right thing" to do? Obviously these tactics are failing everyone except for the drug cartels. Obviously we need to come up with a better plan. Obviously, we need to talk legalization.
