The war which is called by the media the Mexican Drug War is without a doubt one of the most terrible conflicts of our time. It has a huge impact on the US and even has consequences and implications for Europe, Asia and North Africa. I prefer to call it a civil war cause "War on Drugs" or "Drug War" doesnt fit to it very precisely and plays down the scale of this conflict. 1. Drug routes were maybe the most important factor in the origin of these conflicts, but meanwhile its an all out underworld war. Drug routes may play a big role in it, maybe the most important, but its also about kidnapping, extortion, forcing women into prostitution, oil theft, robbing migrants on their travel to the US, etc. 2. Giving the scale of these conflicts, hundredthousands of veryfied deaths since its beginning, maybe a multitude of that as missing persons, civilians abused beyond all limits, inner-Mexican refugees as well those trying to pass the border to the US, cartels with tenthousands of soldiers in their rows up to Navy Seal level and armed with army weapons, I dont think the term drug war applies on it anymore. I am aware that these wars are limited to certain areas from time to time, that the situation in Mexico City is completely different from Michoacan, that an area like the Golden Triangle unrivaled in the Iron fist of Sinaloa cartel factions is more peaceful than areas in which cartels fight it out, but after all the trace of death, destruction and horror justifies to handle this topic as a civil war. Here is a thread for news, discussions and analysis of this bloody war.
Whichever scenario may be closest to the truth, I must admit when you read a lot of this war, murders are so usual, you are not impressed anymore to read stuff like that. It happens so often, daily base. Its shaking when you try to even consider the perspective of the victims or their loved ones. So many lifes in ruins, which is stuff you read over quickly. Up to now politics seems to be helpless or oftentimes too deeply involved into organized crime. Conservative governments failed as miserably as the current left-wing-populists like Obrador does.
Mexico had three chances to become a stable nation and/or global power. Two of them ended in executions and the third ended in exile. Mexico is now laying in the bed it made for itself.
Do you mean one of them with Maximilian I.? Which threee chances do you mean? I mean, there must be a way out of this misery however the terrible status quo was reached, right?
Emperador Augustin de Iturbide - shot Emperador Maximiliano de Habsburgo - shot Presidente Porfirio Diaz - exiled
I am not too familiar with these topics. Only the episode with Maximilian I heard of. He wanted to bring reforms in the Napoleonic sense, but was seen as a colonist, thus fought by many Mexicans, fought and executed. I dont know enough about it to judge if Mexican history would have taken a better turn if he succeeded. However, this is all long time ago. I dont think the civil war was predestined from that on, do you?
Old Mexican saying "Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.". I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but historically our dealings with our neighbors in this hemisphere have fell far, FAR short of the "ideals" we espouse. Read Marine General Smedley D. Butler's "War is a Racket".....America's always giving lip-service to "Democracy", but only as far as it serves our purposes, otherwise we'll support the vilest of petty tyrants....I'm just pointing out that which is easily found, if one dares look.
This critic may be true for some problems and regions in Latin America, but I dont think it hits the point when it comes to Mexico and this ongoing war between crime syndicates which ruins parts of the country. the US have a huge impact on the war, but I would say its rather the lust of the Americans consuments for drugs, which is the biggest problem. The second is that while the drug flow from Mexico to the US is vital, the weapons go the other way.
The cartel wars (as many others) could be easily dealt with, BUT....it would require SS or Stalinist "methods", something few have the stomach for.... you have a cancer...you eliminate it by any means necessary.
Yes sure, Benito Mussolini did wiped out the Sicilian Mafia when he was in charge. Here, even if we leave out the discussions if justifiable, Mexico would have to build up an army free of the influence of the cartels with the power to easily overwhelm them. I doubt the Mexican local and federate police forces treat cartel members so different from the SS or Stalin, the problem is, the do it most often just because they are on the payrole of a hostile cartel. You must build up a clean police or military force. Many police men and women have the choice either earning a multitude of their usual loan or getting killed.
It would likely require a Hitler or Mussolini type to rise to power in Mexico given the top to bottom, almost institutionalized corruption. That, or one cartel leader somehow unites the others and the whole country becomes a gigantic criminal enterprise. At any rate I've had a bad premonition for years that some day out of sheer necessity we're going to need to have a military intervention, it's getting to be like we have Afghanistan and the Taliban on our doorstep.
Just one example how cartels determine more and more politics A (former) Zeta plaza boss is interrogated by hostile sicarios and tells about the procedures (most propably minutes before they end his life).
