The Devil Came Down To Mexico

[monster]

I mean literally worshiping death, north of the border, in all it's forms, including that wacky dead guy nailed to a piece of wood. You know, All-American Necrophilia.

The significance of Christ's death is that he conquered death... not the same thing at all, although I won't go into it because it seems off-topic. I just didn't understand where you were headed with your point, in the context of the thread topic.

[Perelandra]

The main route to American markets shifted from the Caribbean to the U.S.-Mexican border. It began as an alliance between sophisticated Colombian cartels and still-primitive Mexican gangs, but the balance of power inevitably shifted over time. Owning the supply link into the United States, the Mexicans increased their wealth and power until they absorbed more and more of the entire supply chain. Eventually, the Colombians were minimized and the Mexicans became the decisive power.

The Americans fought the battle against the Colombians primarily in the Caribbean and southern Florida. The battle against the Mexican drug lords must be fought in the U.S.-Mexican borderland. And while the fight against the Colombians did not involve major disruptions to other economic patterns, the fight against the Mexican cartels involves potentially huge disruptions. In addition, the battle is going to be fought in a region that is already tense because of the immigration issue, and at least partly on U.S. soil.

The cartel's supply chain is embedded in the huge legal bilateral trade between the United States and Mexico. Remember that Mexico exports $198 billion to the United States and - according to the Mexican Economy Ministry - $1.6 billion to Japan and $1.7 billion to China, its next biggest markets. Mexico is just behind Canada as a U.S. trading partner and is a huge market running both ways. Disrupting the drug trade cannot be done without disrupting this other trade. With that much trade going on, you are not going to find the drugs. It isn't going to happen.

Police action, or action within each country's legal procedures and protections, will not succeed. The cartels' ability to evade, corrupt and absorb the losses is simply too great. Another solution is to allow easy access to the drug market for other producers, flooding the market, reducing the cost and eliminating the economic incentive and technical advantage of the cartel. That would mean legalizing drugs. That is simply not going to happen in the United States. It is a political impossibility.

This leaves the option of treating the issue as a military rather than police action. That would mean attacking the cartels as if they were a military force rather than a criminal group. It would mean that procedural rules would not be in place, and that the cartels would be treated as an enemy army. Leaving aside the complexities of U.S.-Mexican relations, cartels flourish by being hard to distinguish from the general population. This strategy not only would turn the cartels into a guerrilla force, it would treat northern Mexico as hostile occupied territory. Don't even think of that possibility, absent a draft under which college-age Americans from upper-middle-class families would be sent to patrol Mexico - and be killed and wounded. The United States does not need a Gaza Strip on its southern border, so this won't happen.

The current efforts by the Mexican government might impede the various gangs, but they won't break the cartel system. The supply chain along the border is simply too diffuse and too plastic. It shifts too easily under pressure. The border can't be sealed, and the level of economic activity shields smuggling too well. Farmers in Mexico can't be persuaded to stop growing illegal drugs for the same reason that Bolivians and Afghans can't. Market demand is too high and alternatives too bleak. The Mexican supply chain is too robust - and too profitable - to break easily.

The likely course is a multigenerational pattern of instability along the border. More important, there will be a substantial transfer of wealth from the United States to Mexico in return for an intrinsically low-cost consumable product - drugs. This will be one of the sources of capital that will build the Mexican economy, which today is 14th largest in the world. The accumulation of drug money is and will continue finding its way into the Mexican economy, creating a pool of investment capital. The children and grandchildren of the Zetas will be running banks, running for president, building art museums and telling amusing anecdotes about how grandpa made his money running blow into Nuevo Laredo.

It will also destabilize the U.S. Southwest while grandpa makes his pile. As is frequently the case, it is a problem for which there are no good solutions, or for which the solution is one without real support.

Link

[geogeo]

[quote="8bitagent"]I seriously get this image that Ciudad Juarez is like the most evil violent plagued over the top crazy city in the world...something that resembles something out of a post apocalyptic movie.

Is there any new documentaries on that area? I mean I don't recall even Haiti's main cities being that violent per square mile. Maybe rivaling Ciudad Juarez is 2006 era Badhdad, but that was car bombs.

Dream on. Juarez isn't even in the running. Try Honduras, with world's highest murder and violent crime rate, 3 times that of Iraq, and way above Sierra Leone, world' number two. Central America is far more violent than Mexico, even the Mexican border towns, but it is constructed differently in our media, it has a distinct narrative. The Mexican border HAS to be this festering zone of Death to enable America to feel safe and superior, all cocooned and warmy-like. Getting the picture? Homeland Security? Y'all are suffering from a major mindfuck if you think that the ultraviolence on the Mexican border is in any way worse than in numerous places around the world. As for the Juarez killings, there probably is a deep state agenda there, to make sure the narrative stays strong.

Mexico is the new Ghetto, the new Inner City, the new South Side (of whatever city) We've got a Black president, so we need a new Enemy to hate and fear.

Oh, and that scary Day of the Dead. Gee!

Mexico didn't even HAVE major youth gangs until they got all the Salva Truchas fleeing Central America from the anti-tattoo laws a few years back. Chiapas didn't know what it was in for! And THOSE youth gangs? Formed in L.A. With deep state ties up the wazoo. The kids in Teguz, they "rehabilitate" them just enough to off plainclothes DEA officers. Are "you" listening?

[8bitagent]

I mean literally worshiping death, north of the border, in all it's forms, including that wacky dead guy nailed to a piece of wood. You know, All-American Necrophilia.

Yep. I often say, if Christ in the story was killed by a gun, would the Christians wear guns? Christians don't even know about the occult origins of the cross, nor hexagram star of David

True, especially given the fact that they literally worship Death... that has to have something to do with the evil going on.

Yeah I remember making a thread about that a couple years ago.
Makes sense, if death is all some of these folks know.

[monster]

True, especially given the fact that they literally worship Death... that has to have something to do with the evil going on.

Yeah I remember making a thread about that a couple years ago.
Makes sense, if death is all some of these folks know.

Careful what you wish for, I guess.

[SonicG]

True, especially given the fact that they literally worship Death... that has to have something to do with the evil going on.

Yeah I remember making a thread about that a couple years ago.
Makes sense, if death is all some of these folks know.

Careful what you wish for, I guess.

Um, no. I tried to make an argument in the Halloween thread that the Day of the Dead celebration and associated imagery - candy skulls, etc. show a more healthy conception of death than the Protestant one. That is, it shows a coming to grips with the all-important act that death while may temporarily sadden the living, it is in fact a vital and necessary element in the continued propagation of life. Much like a wake, the graveyard became a place of celebration with your passed relatives - you honor them not with vacuous lowers but with the foods and alcohol they actually like! I would argue that this type of thinking is still present in western esoteric christianity...

Anyhow, I lived in Mexico in the early 90s and it was not then nearly as bad as what was happening in Colombia or even other So. and Central American countries. hings took a turn or the worse after the massive devaluation in 1994 when Salinas reign of error ended and NAfTA came into effect. Violence that a typical first-worlder can only imagine infests basically all parts of the third world.

Oh, and the Porfirio Diaz quote was the opposite:
"Pobre México. Tan lejos de Dios, tan cerca de Estados Unidos."
"Poor Mexico. So far from God, so close to the USA."

[vigilant]

barracuda wrote:
I mean literally worshiping death, north of the border, in all it's forms, including that wacky dead guy nailed to a piece of wood. You know, All-American Necrophilia.

You mean Jeebus was crazy, and nailt his own sef to a piece of wood? I didn't be knowin that...i'm crushed...

[barracuda]

Yeah. That would be God nailing God to God.

[ShinShinKid]

Thanks for the quote correction...it's been a while since I read up on the Porfiriato.

Day of the dead celebrations are a syncretic device used by priests to keep the natives happy. Cofradias are all over the place below the border.

[monster]

True, especially given the fact that they literally worship Death... that has to have something to do with the evil going on.

Yeah I remember making a thread about that a couple years ago.
Makes sense, if death is all some of these folks know.

Careful what you wish for, I guess.

Um, no. I tried to make an argument in the Halloween thread that the Day of the Dead celebration and associated imagery

I'm talking specifically about Santa Muerte, though, not the Mexican version of Halloween. They worship Santa Muerte 365 days a year, not just that one day. By "they" I mean the narcotraficantes, the ones who have descended into almost ritualistic mutilation. I'm saying there's a connection.

[8bitagent]

They worship Santa Muerte 365 days a year, not just that one day. By "they" I mean the narcotraficantes, the ones who have descended into almost ritualistic mutilation. I'm saying there's a connection.

It reminds me of how so many of the mass killing/raping death squads and militias in modern African genocide and conflict cannibalize people and sacrifice children as part of some sort of extreme occult death worship thing they got going, aided by "witch doctors"...little do they know they are simply the pawns of transnational Western/European corporate interests.

[SonicG]

Santa Muerte- ah ok. Could be a negative feedback loop for sure. Living that life means they are close to death everyday...but it is important to remember that there is basically an unbroken line between narcos, federales and politicians. I'm not trying to play the stereotype of everyone in Mexico being corrupt but it is a sad system, same old story, of rich bankers sending young poor men off to die...

[American Dream]

Mexican Drug War Dispatch: The Life and Death of Kingpin Don Arturo Beltran Leyva

By Pancho Montana, eXiled Online
Posted on December 28, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/story/144843/

On December 16th in the town of Cuernavaca, Mexican armed forced cornered and killed Don Arturo Beltran Leyva, the country’s most powerful drug boss and one of the top three capos of the trade. Some people still don’t believe he is dead, some do, but all agree that it’s going to unleash a shitstorm. He’s a mythical figure among his people, but Americans have no idea who he is. So allow me the honor to introduce you to the man and the legend of Don Arturo Beltran Leyva.

In Mexico, if you call someone “Don,” it means you respect him to the extreme, and even fear him. You’d be more than justified in using the title when referring to the “jefe de jefes” of the Mexican drug trade. Don Arturo Beltra Levya was without exaggeration the most powerful boss in the country. He had more power than Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the drug cartel boss who was listed as Fobes’ #701 richest man of 2009. In Mexico, you won’t hear anyone referring to him as “Don Joaquin.”

Don Arturo died as he lived: immersed in extreme violence.

He was born on September 21, 1961 in the mythic “cradle of capos,” Badiraguato, Sinaloa. He was a poppy farmer and initiated the Forbes-listed “El Chapo” (”Shorty”) into the business of drug trafficking. Over time, Don Arturo worked his way up to becoming one of the most wanted men on the planet, his power and influence extending from Colombia all the way up into the Continental United States.

He was king of his domain: paying off government officials tasked with capturing him and bribing the highest ranking military officials. Many anti-drug czars in the PGR (which is Mexico’s version of the FBI), the SSP (our Department of Defense) and even the SIEDO (an anti-narco intelligence service of sorts) were on the take. And anyone who wasn’t and stood in his way was executed.

Most of Sinaloa, Sonora and Durango—the tri-state region known as the Golden Triangle—was his. So was the entire state of Guerrero, especially the tourist-friendly zone of Acapulco, where he kept the streets safe and clean by killing off junkies, petty thieves, kidnappers, robbers and all other kinds of “undesirables.” He even ordered all tienditas to be protected by armed guards so clients wouldn’t be robbed by junkies after buying something. (They should do that at the top stairs of La Indepe here in Monterrey, where junkies swarm you like Somalis on a UN food delivery truck.)

People feared him more than the Devil himself. And like the Devil, Don Arturo had many names: “El Barbas” (”the Beard”), “El Botas Blancas” (”White Boots”) or “La Muerte” (”Death”). And he always traveled in a badass bullet-proof SUV called “El Satanica.”

Don Arturo grew in notoriety even more last year, after he became convinced that his brother’s arrest was a result of the betrayal of his one-time friend and apprentice, “El Chapo,” and proceeded to wage all out war against his former allies. That’s how the most violent chapter of the current drug war started, and then spread in a trail of blood and bullet casings to Morelos, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Mexico State (Edomex) and Mexico City. Hell, they even fought for control of the Mexico City’s international airport, which caused some of the baggage handlers started to loose their heads, literally.

In the last couple of months his life, Don Arturo started fiercely hunting his rivals. It was a characterized by its extreme gore and violence: dozens of decapitated and dismembered bodies signed with “Jefe de Jefes”.



The manhunt that finally brought the Don down lasted six days, beginning with the information that he would be attending a three-day Christmas party thrown by his sicarios in Tepoztlan, Morelos (close to Cuernavaca. The entertainment included several norteño bands and the services of 24 high class prostitutes flown in from Acapulco. The navy made their move while the party was raging, but he evaded them thanks the defensive capabilities of his many bodyguards. The Marines only managed to kill three hombres and capture 23 women (sadly one of the hookers died on the line of duty).

A few days later, the Navy located Don Arturo in a luxury apartment/upscale shopping mall complex, hiding out with 5 of his bodyguards. According to the government, they obtained the intel from a man (a sicario most likely) they found in a hospital getting his gunshot wounds bandaged up. But that’s their word, I’m more inclined to believe that the goddamn musicians gave him up, let’s hope they don’t lose their heads over this.



Once they located the Don, they surrounded the complex with enough firepower to turn to whole block into rubble. For hours, the area was filled with the sound of constant automatic fire, interrupted only by grenade explosions and the shouts of Marines telling the entrenched narcos to surrender.

It was a weird scene for such an upscale neighborhood inhabited by the rich and the powerful. Hell, even the Governor lived a couple hundred meters away from the apartment complex being shelled Lebanon-style.

But the Don had nowhere to go. More than a hundred Marines guarded the complex, and sixty more had rappelled down onto the roof from choppers. The narcos were outnumbered maybe 100 to 1, but they still kept the Marines at bay for several hours. One by one, Don Arturo’s protection ring fell dead. One even preferred to jump from a window to his death rather than be captured. It was a crazed way to go, doing a bonzai jump out a window in the middle of firefight. The Marines didn’t leave shit to chance, though, shooting him in the back mid-air. And I don’t think this would count as mercy-killing.

As the hours went by and the capo ran out of grenades, he made a mad dash for the elevator hoping to make it to the basement where “La Satanica” waited warming its engine. With an R-15 in hand, he opened the front door, intending to shoot his way through the Marines. But the Don didn’t make it very far. The Marines shot him full of holes right at the entrance to his apartment, blowing a huge hole in shoulder. He fell to the ground with about 30 grenade pins all around his body. It was a grizzly scene, and strikingly similar to that last bit in Scarface.



The Don was found with $40,000 dollars, and various religious objects: a protection cocktail of sorts that included a golden rosary, two Chinese talismans (a dragon and a serpent) and a velvet bag of santeria. Many narcos (including a few of my friends) believe in these kinds of things, even if they aren’t religions not practitioners. They do it just to be safe. They’ll use anything that might give them an edge.

On the table they found bowls of fruit, a plate of ham & eggs with guacamole, a bag of good-looking weed, what looked like about 2 ounces of pure cocaine straight from the FARC fields, and an unmistakable (to me at least) package of good´ol rivotrils (aka roofies) to calm the nerves, keep a steady head and banish the fear.

In his bedroom, which was full of bullet holes, the Marines found brand new Hugo Boss clothes, some still with the price tags, a bible, many family pictures, images of the Virgen de Guadalupe, and some badass green crocodile-skin boots.

“They could have lived, because from the beginning we told him to surrender and he didn’t accept it. He fought to the death,” said a Marine who participated in the raid.

Don Arturo was photographed with his pants below his knees and his body covered in both Mexican and American bills. The Marines did this to “discredit” him and make an example of him, I guess. (This already is creating problems for the Government, which is being accused of exhibiting the body of the drug lord as a propaganda trophy.) They were acting all tough, but everyone was still shit-scared about the possibility that a backup squadron of sicarios would attempt to rescue the body of “el jefe de jefes.” So even after they killed him, something like 500 additional units arrived to guard the bodies!

The body was claimed by his 3 sisters so he can receive a proper burial, probably in his birthplace in Sinaloa. Expect a big-ass mausoleum worthy of a goddamn Persian Shah.

The only question that stands after this events is: why did they REALLY kill him? Some would say it was a result of President Calderon´s war on drugs, others would say that he wasn’t captured alive because of the names of government people he could reveal. Which is all true, but the real question is WHO benefits from his death? Not the Mexican people; it was well known that he was the only narco that the government could “deal” with, even the Mexican armed forces come out losers. Power will shift and restructure, and like tectonic plates shifting and settling, it’s gonna cause a lot of tremors. There might even be a volcanic eruption or two.

The Beltran cartel will restructure itself according to the strength of its top operators: Edgar Valdes Villarreal “La Barbie”, a Laredo Texan with talent for the killing; Mario Beltran Leyva “El General”, most likely the next in line to lead the cartel; and Sergio Villarreal “El Grande,” a two-meter-tall guy who referred to Don Arturo as apá (or dad). All itching to pull the cuernos (AK47) and make the erres (R15) roar. Let’s hope that cooler heads prevail and they don’t go pointing their guns at a Navy Admiral or something counterproductive like that.

But however the Beltran cartel achieves its corporate restructuring, the two biggest beneficiaries of Don Arturo’s demise are a) his allies, the Zetas; and b) his enemy “El Chapo.”

So buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride in 2010.

PS: The death of Arturo Beltran doesn’t serve as an example to society that you shouldn’t follow his path, because when all doors are locked and one has to choose between dying of hunger in a fucked up situation or becoming a millionaire for even a brief time, they will always choose the second option. That’s exactly the feeling that many Mexicans share: one would rather die rich than live being poor.

The King is dead, long live the King.



Pancho Montana is an eXiled Special Mexican War on Drugs Correspondent. Check out more of his stuff.

As a native of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, located in northern Mexico, Mr. Montana lives in Gulf Cartel territory. That means the streets belong to the Zetas, a paramilitary organization trained by the Yankees and hired by the Gulf Cartel to keep things civilized and business booming.

[Project Willow]

Mexican woman tells of ordeal with cross-border child traffickers

In interview with Channel 4 News, young woman says babies and young children are 'sold to order' to US nationals

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/11/mexican-woman-border-child-traffic

Nick Martin in Ciudad Juárez
guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 January 2010 17.57 GMT


A young Mexican woman who escaped from human traffickers has told US special agents how she witnessed babies and children being "sold to order" to US citizens.

America's Department of Homeland Security in Washington says the girl, known only as Maria, had "significant ~information" and possessed a "remarkable memory" of her experiences inside the gang.

In an interview with Channel 4 News, to be broadcast tonight, the teenager tells of a cross-border trade in babies and young children, where Mexican and US gangs worked together to supply a demand in the United States.

As a result of the interview, US officials and Mexican authorities have begun an investigation into the alleged trafficking.

Maria says she was 16 when she was lured into the gang by a man on the streets of the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez.

Since the 1990s, thousands of women have disappeared from the town. Hundreds of bodies bearing signs of rape and sexual mutilation have been dumped on waste ground in the city; thousands more have never returned.

In 2009, 55 teenage girls vanished in the town, which has been gripped by violence as two drug cartels fight a lethal turf war over cocaine smuggling routes into the US.

Maria, who was in hiding when she talked to Channel 4 News, said she had been given presents and promised a job in an office by the gang member but was instead drugged and raped and sold to men.

In late December, US special agents flew the teenager to the US for a full interview.

Describing what the gang did to one girl who tried to escape, she said: "They took a gallon of gasoline and started pouring it over her. One of the men told me, 'If you don't do as I say, I will do the same to you.' I wanted to look away – but they didn't' let me.

"Even though the girl was on fire, they kept hitting her. They were laughing as if they were enjoying what they were doing. They burned her alive."

Maria, which is not her real name, said the gang had held young women in a house on the Mexican border until they were sold to the US as sex slaves. But she said they also dealt in children, and told of one occasion when the gang was contacted by a woman in New York. "She said she needed a seven-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy – and she needed them in three days," Maria quoted the woman as saying.

Maria told special agents the gang would prowl the streets of poor areas looking for children.

"They stole the children," she said. "One of the gang members took a six-year-old kid. I had to look after him for three hours. He told me he wanted to see his mummy. Then I started crying. I said: 'I don't think you're ever going to see your mummy again.' All he kept saying was, 'I want to see my mummy.'" ....

More at the link.

[Alaya]

I live close to the border and I go down there a lot.

Seems like all this increased violence started when Bush and Fox, then Calderon got in bed together and decided to up the ante on the drug dealers.

Maybe the cartels would rather keep the money in Mexico instead of handing it over to the CIA?

Business is business, ya know.
Just saying.

I always felt safe down there. However, recently, there was an incident. A neighbor of mine down there was carjacked on a main highway at dusk. Run off the road and lost everything. I see this as a result of economic problems but I wonder if this will be a trend.

There is a military presence on that road so it was a very ballsy thing to do.