How Mexico's Drug War May Become Its Iraq

TIME:

The no-nonsense government ads flash onto prime-time Mexican TV between soccer games and steamy soap operas. Bullet-filled corpses are shown sprawled on the concrete; ski-masked special forces are seen storming down residential streets; and bearded bulky capos are dragged before the cameras in handcuffs. "Today these killers are behind bars," says a booming voice-over. "We work using force for your security."

Read the whole story: TIME

Comments

[el greco]

05:05 PM on 02/22/2010

Fortunately the violence is confined mostly within the gangs themselves. I remember someone drawing a comparison between crack hitting the Bronx in the 80's and Mexico's current drug war. Well, it was in reference to Fox's administration, just ignoring the violence...

I spent a semester in Guadalajara with no close-calls, but during a short trip to Tijuana last year, sure enough.. Scary!

[terminallycharged]

04:19 PM on 02/22/2010

This a very weak article. It does not address the problem of the illegal guns that arrive from the USA to Mexico neither the fact that very little is done in order to stop the flow of drug money from the USA. Also it says little about the ineffective local police forces that operates in most of Mexico which is the reason why the army is doing police work. Besides, Mexico is not Juarez, Mexico is a large country with a lot places where nothing happens. It's like saying that the USA is a failed state because the gang violence in south central LA.

[Thamisanthrope]

03:19 PM on 03/25/2010

Comparing South Central Los Angeles (which is not, and hasn't been the murder or gang capital since the 90's) to the problem in Mexico underscores your own point on how enormous the problems are in the entire Country of Mexico. I do agree the article isn't that informative, as it probably wasn't meant to be

[chuckconners]

01:53 PM on 02/22/2010

what has entertained me for years is listening to people who live 1500 miles from the mexican border, tell people living near the border what is happening here and how we should react to it. this is not just mexico's problem. this spills over into the border states in a variety of negative ways to include indentured servitude and outright conscription to bald faced slavery. there are civil rights violations happening here that would outrage china.
at the root of it though, is money. there is more money to be made sending personel, vehicles, dogs ad inf., than there is in actually eliminating the problem at its source.
suggestion: streamline drug laws regarding marijuana. use military satelites to locate coca plants( they can only grow within 10degrees +- the equator) and defoliate the fields. drop gm seed so they can still grow chocalate but not cocaine. no more cocaine no more revenue for violent people.
pot is a money maker but the real villan is cocaine.
what i would like to understand though, is how this doesnt represent terrorism. the cartells removed a mans face and stitched it onto a soccer ball. this is use of violence to terrorize and promote an agenda. this is happening literally right across the street.
in retrospect, maybe the warnings weren't from wingnuts after all.

[Emmanuel Trejo]

01:52 PM on 02/22/2010

ok mexico needs to pay attention to its poor their not taking care of thier main problem, what is their main problem you ask, well let me tall you, mexico has one of the worst income gaps in the world they ignore the poor and only give jobs to the well educated when their education systems rots. If they dont listen to their own people they will never accomplish anything for the next 20 years. I refuse to capitalize the word mexico because it doesn't deserve it.

[baba2nde]

01:40 PM on 02/22/2010

Analogy to Iraq is appropriate only if Martians invaded Mexico to trigger its bloodletting.

[Speed Bump]

05:45 PM on 02/22/2010

Thank you for saying that. I can not understand how things have to be campared
in such stupid ways. The drug Wars in Mexico have been going on a lot longer
than the Iraq war.

[FJ 1200]

12:52 PM on 02/22/2010

An entire country full of resort spaces and sandy beaches, ruined by incompetance.
Legalize and tax the drugs and the cartels will fall.
Force the Mexican gov't to change THEIR immigration and land owner laws, encouraging investment, and they won't NEED to come here for work.

[Y2KCockroach]

01:58 PM on 02/22/2010

Mexico is a complex, developing Third World nation. It is a country guided by tradition and religion, and it is confronting the obvious difficulties of transitioning from a rural economy to one that can co-exist and compete with the world's largest, most technologically-advanced economy located next door to it. It has survived a recent currency crisis, and has made enormous inroads in terms of decentralizing its economy (the World Bank reports that it currently has the highest income per capita gain in all of Latin America). Mexico is a country with rich history, heritage, and culture. Its people are gracious, proud, and hard working. And yet, for so many of you, Mexico is simply a country "full of resort spaces and sandy beaches"; and that somehow that is to define its future.

I could tell you what America is full of, but you wouldn't like to hear it........

[Catherine Craddock-Carrillo]

02:46 PM on 02/22/2010

THANK YOU.

[TStringfellow]

03:59 PM on 02/22/2010

Great response.

[Matt Hotz]

11:23 AM on 02/22/2010

When will we the United States of America be able to admit that the unraveling of Mexico is entirely our own doing and was absolutely preventable if we adapted a different (and taxable) stance in the War on Drugs?

[brklynivn]

11:22 AM on 02/22/2010

I wonder if the evangelicals here in the states are somehow supporting them. Oliver North was a major trafficker also.

[Speed Bump]

05:50 PM on 02/22/2010

Olie was doing his biz with Nicaragua.

[realitytrumpsbull]

08:51 PM on 03/17/2010

I often wonder about the evangelistas myself. I think that some of the things that pass themselves off as 'religion' in this country are actually something else entirely...

[rr52]

10:48 AM on 02/22/2010

This is a tragedy for all the working class Mexicans who enjoyed a decent lifestyle because of tourism that is sure to take a hit because of all the violence. We used to go to Mexico periodically to get out of the cold for awhile. Not anymore.

[Y2KCockroach]

12:05 PM on 02/22/2010

You are being paranoid, "rr52". The vast majority of places that tourists travel to (Cabo, Cancun, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Ixtapa, Zihuatanejo, etc.) are as safe and as welcoming as they ever were. If you were to review the number of tourist deaths attributed to the drug war, it is very, very small (less than a handful, in over five years). As in most places, if you go looking for trouble, you will find it, however, the drug war is being fought amongst rival cartels, and not between cartels and tourists. Please keep things in perspective. More Americans will travel to Mexico in the next twenty four hours than will travel to London in a year, and for the overwhelming majority of them it will be as safe as any other foreign trip that they have taken, or could take in their lifetimes.

[TStringfellow]

04:03 PM on 02/22/2010

First off, for you to assume that tourism has provided working class Mexicans with a decent lifestyle is a little off base. Tourism is an important part of the Mexican economy, but for the average worker it does little other than provide a low paying job.

Second, not going to Mexico because of the Drug War is like not going to Southern California for the same reasons. I've spent months in Mexico traveling alone and have never encountered even a whiff of drug related violence.