12 Federal Mexican Police Killed in Ambush

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTSecondNews

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MEXICO CITY—Twelve federal policemen were killed in an ambush Monday in a state racked by drug violence about three hours west of the capital.

Mexican federal police said the slain officers were ambushed in the center of Zitácuaro in the western state of Michoacán. An unknown number of officers were wounded.

In a separate incident, 28 inmates, most believed to belong to an organized-crime group known as the Zetas, were killed in a prison riot in the Pacific coast city of Mazatlán in the state of Sinaloa.

Monday's events signal that Mexico's cycle of drug violence is intensifying a month before key elections in eight states.

At least 70 people were killed, including 19 patients at a drug rehabilitation center in the border state of Chihuahua, on Friday—a day deemed by local media as the most violent yet since President Felipe Calderón sent troops and federal police to battle drug cartels shortly after becoming president in December 2006.

A spokesman for the federal police said the identity of the gunmen who attacked the police officers in Michoacán wasn't yet known. "We are investigating," he said.

But analysts said the gunmen who killed the police officers are most likely members of La Familia, a powerful drug gang based in Michoacán, which has been engaged in a bloody war with rival groups as well as federal troops and police dispatched by Mr. Calderón to the state 3½ years ago.

"It's a dramatic statement to the lengths that La Familia is willing to go in order to defend its turf and routes against rivals and a stepped-up campaign by the Calderón government, which is deeply embarrassed over the grip that the Familia has over Michoacán," said Bruce Bagley, an expert on the Mexican drug trade at the University of Miami.

Minerva Bautista, Michoacán's public-security minister, told a local radio station that during Monday's ambush, gunmen blocked the highway the police were traveling on with heavy trucks.

Ms. Bautista herself barely escaped alive from a similar ambush in April, during which four police officers were killed.

Violence in the marijuana- and poppy-growing state of Michoacán has spiked as the state has become a battlefield for Mexican organized-crime groups fighting for control of the drug trade, including methamphetamine labs that have sprouted all over the state, which is known, among other things, as a refuge for Monarch butterflies.

La Familia has been fighting for control of its turf against other gangs, including the Zetas, onetime enforcers for the so-called Gulf cartel who have since broken with their previous employers.

La Familia employs extreme cruelty, with a fondness for decapitating victims, and has an evangelical, sect-like fervor. It wields vast political control in Michoacán, where it portrays itself as a Robin Hood-like defender of the people of the state against encroaching criminal groups.

Last year, Mexico detained 27 state and local Michoacán officials, including 10 mayors, many for questioning on their ties to the drug gang. Since then, most have been released.

More than 23,000 people have died since Mr. Calderón first cracked down on the country's powerful drug cartels.

The gangs have been fighting each other for control of routes to U.S. markets as well as fast-growing domestic markets, ones Mr. Bagley and others analysts say may be worth as much as $29 billion. Since then, the drug gangs have also expanded into other illegal businesses such as extortion, kidnapping and alien trafficking.

On Monday, Mexican television showed images of a burned-out bus in which the police officers were riding when they were attacked.

The police statement said police had killed a number of the gunmen in the battle, but the bodies of the slain had been removed by their colleagues.

"Federal police are continuing a search by land and air for the assailants," the statement said.

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The gangs have been fighting each other for control of routes to U.S. markets as well as fast-growing domestic markets, ones Mr. Bagley and others analysts say may be worth as much as $29 billion. Since then, the drug gangs have also expanded into other illegal businesses such as extortion, kidnapping and alien trafficking.

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Let me get this straight. Mexico is fighting this war to get rid of the drug cartels, right? That doesn't seem to be working, and furthermore, as quoted above, it seems that this war is causing them to diversify their their "interests".

Bravo... let's keep fighting. More dead, with negative results seems to be the way to go. We'll win eventually though I guess. I mean all drug related wars/operations of the past have been met with total success! :idea2: :laugh4:

What would you have them do?

The massive elephant in the room here is the USA has a massive appetite for drugs and that aint gonna change anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

What would you have them do?

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Not fight the cartels, and legalize drugs. The police could then focus on the real problems like kidnapping, human trafficking... etc.

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Originally Posted by Ice

Not fight the cartels, and legalize drugs. The police could then focus on the real problems like kidnapping, human trafficking... etc.

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In other words: Give up and legalize slavery. After all, the cartels would still fight over human trafficking.

Good plan! :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

In other words: Give up and legalize slavery. After all, the cartels would still fight over human trafficking.

Good plan! :thumbsup:

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I see where there seems to be confusion. I meant stop fighting the cartels over drugs, and fight ANYONE who is into human trafficking, kidnapping, etc.

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Originally Posted by Ice

I see where there seems to be confusion. I meant stop fighting the cartels over drugs, and fight ANYONE who is into human trafficking, kidnapping, etc.

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Huh; and I was hoping plant sorghum this year.

While I can understand making an effort to legitimizing "soft" drugs, giving up is not an option. The same arrument was used whenever something bad happened in Colombia. Now everyone is whining about Mexico. The more things change...

You want to legalize cocaine.......

Hoe about we legalize walking over the border it would solve the immigration problem right?

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

Huh; and I was hoping plant sorghum this year.

While I can understand making an effort to legitimizing "soft" drugs, giving up is not an option. The same arrument was used whenever something bad happened in Colombia. Now everyone is whining about Mexico. The more things change...

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I'm not talking about giving up. Just because I believe in the legalization of most drugs does mean I support the cartels committing other crimes. Legalizing one of their main cash crops will take a ton of money from their pockets, and place it in legitmate business/ the government's pocket. This will be a major blow, and coupled with more police focusing on their other crimes, I believe we can halt a lot of this other non sense.

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Originally Posted by Ice

I'm not talking about giving up. Just because I believe in the legalization of most drugs does mean I support the cartels committing other crimes. Legalizing one of their main cash crops will take a ton of money from their pockets, and place it in legitmate business/ the government's pocket. This will be a major blow, and coupled with more police focusing on their other crimes, I believe we can halt a lot of this other non sense.

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You're not factoring in the endemic corruption South of the Rio Grande. Legal or not, the current powers-that-be in the drug trade will attempt to retain their interests. Moreover, they'll continue to smuggle drugs even if they are legal -- as with the sale of cigarettes in the USA. Would this benefit the consumer by providing a lower cost product? Probably. Would it negate crime? Not hardly. The heydey of the Mafia in the USA came AFTER the legalization of booze.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

You're not factoring in the endemic corruption South of the Rio Grande. Legal or not, the current powers-that-be in the drug trade will attempt to retain their interests. Moreover, they'll continue to smuggle drugs even if they are legal -- as with the sale of cigarettes in the USA. Would this benefit the consumer by providing a lower cost product? Probably. Would it negate crime? Not hardly. The heydey of the Mafia in the USA came AFTER the legalization of booze.

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Using their most popular drug, cannabis, as an example, I just don't think the Mafia would have much success. It's not a hard choice if I'm going to go to my local 7-11 and buy high quality cannabis, or the shady guy down the street who has disgusting, chemical filled Mexican Cannabis. Even if it was cheaper. Same goes for a variety of other drugs. You can't really compare this to a standardized product such as cigerettes.

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Originally Posted by Ice

Not fight the cartels, and legalize drugs. The police could then focus on the real problems like kidnapping, human trafficking... etc.

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While that may be a viable option to reduce drug related crime in the long term, in the present, these cartels are challenging state sovereignty and that behavior cannot stand in a functioning civil society. Regardless of their reasons, they are essentially engaging in armed insurrection and the Mexican government has no choice but to take action.

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Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

While that may be a viable option to reduce drug related crime in the long term, in the present, these cartels are challenging state sovereignty and that behavior cannot stand in a functioning civil society. Regardless of their reasons, they are essentially engaging in armed insurrection and the Mexican government has no choice but to take action.

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This armed insurrection got heated when the government actively went after them. The current violence is a direct result of the drug war.

But that is not the point: war on drugs or no war on drugs, these are criminal gangs who usurp the authority of the Mexican state and singlehandedly redefine Mexican law on what they consider their turf.
The closest understandable analogy is of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

But that is not the point: war on drugs or no war on drugs, these are criminal gangs who usurp the authority of the Mexican state and singlehandedly redefine Mexican law on what they consider their turf.
The closest understandable analogy is of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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Which is why I pointed up the corruption issue. The government itself has a poor track record of squelching such crime when so much of of the government is for rent. Legalize weed and you cut out one product...but does anybody think these gangs/cartels will simply die on the vine? They'll shift industries and the problem will still persist.

These aren't just gangs making some cash with drugs, these are states within a state. Legalizing drugs isn't going to change that, women, arms, gambling..

How much is the US illegal drug market worth to Mexican supply chain? We all know it's in the $billions. Take that money and buy weapons and workers willing to use those weapons. Then get those workers to defend that market/supply chain.

Now try and convince me that we can stop the supply chain by killing a few workers or arresting a handful of managers or directors. The money will just keep rolling south, and the drugs will just keep rolling north. All the while the prohibitionists will stand like Canute in the middle declaring that they really can stop the tide.

Why not take a couple of container ships, fill them up with high quality cocaine and sail them up to California. "Oh ****!" say the Mexican cartels. "How come we have a few million rather than billions of dollars this year? Sorry boys - we don't need too many recruits this year".

Perfectly sound from an economic perspective, but it is already way too late. These are militia's that will do anything to survive. War on drugs isn't really about drugs, how will a cold turkey not escalate into violence at best and civil war at worst. We already have violence here

So when you have a species growing out of control, you are saying that removing it's food will make it worse? Maybe for a couple of weeks...

I can't see why you could want to strengthen the power of the black market by giving it a highly desireable, marketable, transportable, adulturateable and potential dangerous product.

I think it will make things worse, more savage. It's relatively harmless compared to other trades, it's really drugging the dealers

Its funny that america declared the war on drugs, not mexico; but their military is fighting a battle in its own country and not ours. They must hate us so much right now haha.

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Originally Posted by Mooks

Its funny that america declared the war on drugs, not mexico; but their military is fighting a battle in its own country and not ours. They must hate us so much right now haha.

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Oh no, they've hated us for quite some time now. At best, this is just the most recent reason.

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Originally Posted by Mooks

Its funny that america declared the war on drugs, not mexico; but their military is fighting a battle in its own country and not ours. They must hate us so much right now haha.

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Spreading American values worldwide...heh

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Originally Posted by Ice

Spreading American values worldwide...heh

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Give us what we want, when we want it, or else.

Tom Lehrer's famous "Send the Marines" encapsulates America's continuing view on world diplomacy given half a chance.

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by Idaho

Give us what we want, when we want it, or else.

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LOL, Winning Friends and Influencing People since 1776.

O'course credit where due: we did learn at the knees of the Kings of Koercion .