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Brian

Oct 22, 2009, 8:59 AM

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Project Coronado

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This article details the largest US government operation against a Mexican drug cartel within it's own border. It mentions that La Familia is responsible for hundreds of murders since President Calderon began his crackdown in Mexico. What it fails to mention is that many of those homicides have been police officers who were targetted as payback and to intimidate the government. This was a huge operation and I doubt that La Familia will change it's strategy just because it occurred within the United States. I am sure all officers are now on high alert and are aware of the likelihood of ambushes such as have happened in Mexico. The American public will probably react with surprise since they have not been paying attention to what is happening to it's southern neighbor. It has been almost ten years since the release of the movie Traffic in which the protagonist utters the words "I think the United States needs to pay attention to Tijuana now!"

http://www.latimes.com/...ct23,0,2644454.story

Brian

(This post was edited by Rolly on Oct 22, 2009, 9:50 AM)

Hound Dog

Oct 22, 2009, 10:25 AM

Post #2 of 8 (1607 views)

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Re: [Brian] Project Coronado

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It has been almost ten years since the release of the movie Traffic in which the protagonist utters the words "I think the United States needs to pay attention to Tijuana now!"

Well, Brian, I read that L.A. Times article you posted and have seen the movie TRAFFIC maybe six or seven times and, as best my memory serves me, one of the main themes of TRAFFIC is the criminal complicity of the dysfunctional U.S. society and its corrupt political and law enforcement systems that not only contribute to the moral decline of the U.S. but the compromising of social and political stability in Mexico as well as Central America and Afghanistan and a thousand other places and you are writing to at least one reader who was born and raised in the Deep South of the United States which in the 1940s and 1950s when I was a kid was completely corrupted by its European community as it practiced overt racial discrimination against its African community and simultaneously pretended to project its moral superiority in its loudly proclaimed love of its deity and crusade against the sins of alcohol consumption so when I see this phony law enforcement campaign against the cartels which does nothing more than shift power bases so their sons and daughters can still wallow in drugs supplied by the cartels ad nauseum then I am reminded of the white sheriff pouring booze confiscated from some unconnected country black bootlegger who failed to pay his mordida on time down the sewer in front of city hall just in time to make the local weekly wiper and please the gentry and the local preacher´s union, I feel sick to my stomach because I know this is going nowhere. All empty actions to justify that paycheck and make those artificially elevated folks feel they had done their job but the Dawg knows better and he knew then where to get his booze and smoke down the street while this same sanctimonious sheriff kicked butt over in the African American community so I can see through this without even looking. Welcome to 1956 folks. Same old same old.

(This post was edited by Hound Dog on Oct 22, 2009, 10:27 AM)

La Isla

Oct 22, 2009, 10:29 AM

Post #3 of 8 (1602 views)

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Re: [Brian] Project Coronado

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Well, Brian, I was just about to post a link to this breaking story, but you beat me to it! Rather than merely alerting the American public to the problems Mexico has long been facing from the narcotraficantes, I fear that the main reaction of the average gringo to this development will be that in addition to flooding their borders with illegal immigrants who are taking jobs from Americans, Mexico is now overrunning the country with drug cartel mafiosi.

For anyone interested in a Spanish-language version of the story, here's a link to the story that appeared in today's El Universal: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/635000.html.

(This post was edited by Rolly on Oct 22, 2009, 10:36 AM)

Hound Dog

Oct 22, 2009, 10:37 AM

Post #4 of 8 (1590 views)

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Re: [La Isla] Project Coronado

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Well, Brian, I was just about to post a link to this breaking story, but you beat me to it! Rather than merely alerting the American public to the problems Mexico has long been facing from the narcotraficantes, I fear that the main reaction of the average gringo to this development will be that in addition to flooding their borders with illegal immigrants who are taking jobs from Americans, Mexico is now overrunning the country with drug cartel mafiosi.

Isla:

I cannot imagine a more appropriate outcome than to see the octopus with its tentacles in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America sucking up some of the detritus along with the nutrients.

La Isla

Oct 22, 2009, 10:56 AM

Post #5 of 8 (1578 views)

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Re: [Hound Dog] Project Coronado

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Well, Brian, I was just about to post a link to this breaking story, but you beat me to it! Rather than merely alerting the American public to the problems Mexico has long been facing from the narcotraficantes, I fear that the main reaction of the average gringo to this development will be that in addition to flooding their borders with illegal immigrants who are taking jobs from Americans, Mexico is now overrunning the country with drug cartel mafiosi.

Isla:

I cannot imagine a more appropriate outcome than to see the octopus with its tentacles in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America sucking up some of the detritus along with the nutrients.

Hound Dog:

Couldn´t have said it better myself! And that's not just a figure of speech - you write rings around my more pedestrian writing style, which is a figure of speech.

richmx2

Oct 22, 2009, 7:14 PM

Post #6 of 8 (1533 views)

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Re: [Hound Dog] Project Coronado

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Why do you consider Traffic", the Hollywood movie, in any way a "documentary" or even accurate portrait of the U.S.-Mexican drug trade when it's just a knockoff of a BBC miniseries, Traffick", about Pakistani heroin coming into Great Britain?

I know it's not a popular position on this site, but until the United States takes its own drug problem seriously (and the U.S. is the consumer of a quarter of the world's narcotics, according to the CIA World Factbook and other reliable sources), and as long as the wealthy countries are expecting countries like Mexico, Colombia and Pakistan to fight proxy wars for THEIR problem, this is going to continue... and it's a GOOD thing that the consumer countries are being forced to deal with the problem on their own territory. Frankly, I don't see the U.S. and other consumer nations taking their problem seriously until severed heads start showing up in THEIR television studios.

I don't see consumption as Mexico's problem (even with the alarming doubling of narcotics use during the Calderón years by Mexican users, it's still a infintessimal fraction of the percentage of users in the rich countries... and if you look at where the Mexican users are, it's a concentrated problem near the U.S: border). There is no real reason Mexico should concern itself with U.S. policy. No one banned the sale of alcohol when the United States banned its importation -- as it was some great Mexican and Canadian fortunes were made in what was basically selling contraband. If Mexico can't simply legitimize the sale and production of the crap the U.S. so desperately wants, it could simply stop fighting the traders... and let the U.S. do what it wants.

http://mexfiles.net
http://editorialmazatlan.com

La Isla

Oct 22, 2009, 7:21 PM

Post #7 of 8 (1527 views)

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Re: [richmx2] Project Coronado

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I know it's not a popular position on this site, but until the United States takes its own drug problem seriously ...., and as long as the wealthy countries are expecting countries like Mexico, Colombia and Pakistan to fight proxy wars for THEIR problem, this is going to continue...

I agree with your position, richmx2, on this problem! It's a simple case of supply-and-demand. As long as there's demand in consumer countries for drugs, the narcotraficantes in countries like Mexico will be happy to supply them.

ken_in_dfw

Oct 22, 2009, 9:24 PM

Post #8 of 8 (1508 views)

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Re: [La Isla] Project Coronado

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I think the angle you all are missing in this development is not that the US is creating a massive market for drug traffickers, that's in the same category as "Sun rises in the east."

The real news can be found when one asks why La Familia has suddenly found it necessary to set up shop NOB. When you peek behind those covers, you will find that there are two reasons:

1) Mexican and US law enforcement have become more effective at preventing shipments from crossing the border, or, more pointedly, at increasing the costs to ship goods undetected across the border, and
2) US producers of marijuana, crack and amphetamines have been cutting into La Familia's market share

Mexican producers are doing what they are best at: adapting. And the end result may make for messier living - and dying - here in El Norte.

Ken