Sunday, February 1, 2009

Mexican Drug Cartels Biggest U.S. Crime Threat


21 months ago: This undated image provided by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department shows weapons confiscated during a series of arrests of top members of the Mexican Mafia in the Coachella Valley, a desert east of Los Angeles, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office. Thirteen members of one of Southern California's most feared gangs, including a 75-year old woman who allegedly collected "taxes" from other gangs in the Mexican Mafia were arrested and hit with a flurry of narcotics and money laundering charges, according to court papers unsealed Friday, April 27, 2007.
Providing yet another solid argument to secure the southern border, a new government report details how Mexican drug trafficking organizations have for years represented the greatest crime threat to the United States.
The sophisticated and violent Mexican cartels have established varied transportation routes, advanced communication capabilities and strong gang affiliations to control the U.S. drug market, generating tens of billions of dollars in illicit proceeds annually.
Mexican Drug Cartels Using Terrorist Beheading Tactics
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City has long expressed concern about the growing wave of violence along the northern border, where people are gunned down with automatic weapons almost daily, and dozens of Americans have been kidnapped held for ransom and some killed. Americans Being Kidnapped, Held and killed in Mexico Authorities say more than 3,500 people have died in Mexican drug violence in the last year.
But U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza recently extended warnings to say Americans should use extreme caution when traveling anywhere in Mexico."The bottom line is that we simply cannot allow drug traffickers to place in jeopardy the lives of our citizens and the safety of our communities," Garza said in a statement Sept. 14.Drug related killings in Mexico that have included beheadings which have occurred in Guerrero, home to the Pacific resort of Acapulco, Tijuana, Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and in Calderon's native Michoacan state, in central Mexico west of the capital.Masked gunmen burst into a seedy nightclub in the Michoacan city of Uruapan, fired guns in the air and rolled five severed human heads onto the dance floor.The gunmen left scrawled notes on pieces of cardboard, a tactic that has suddenly become common in Michoacan and elsewhere. The notes made reference to "the Family," while other beheadings in Acapulco and elsewhere have referenced the letter "Z," suggesting the involvement of "Las Zetas," a group of former elite Mexican soldiers now working as hit men for the Gulf drug cartel. They're known as "Los Zetas
Investigators say Michoacan is a base for powerful cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine smugglers with ties to some of the countries largest and most-violent drug gangs.The U.S. and Mexican border cities have jumped in gang-related killings since the beginning of the year. The Mexican government has described the violence as revenge for President Felipe Calderón's year-old crackdown on organized crime that sent thousands of soldiers and federal police into violence-plagued Mexican cities bordering the United States.The government reports that Mexican drug cartels and gangs operating along the Southwest border are more sophisticated and dangerous than any other organized criminal enterprise. The Mexican cartels, and the smuggling rings and gangs they leverage, wield substantial control over the routes into the United States and pose substantial challenges to U.S. law enforcement to secure the Southwest border. The cartels operate along the border with military grade weapons, technology and intelligence and their own respective paramilitary enforcers.Recently Mexican troops where sent to CD. Juarez Mexico across from El Paso Texas to stop the drug related violence. This latest Mexican troop movement places more than 30,000 Mexican troops combating the Mexican cartels throughout the country. This operation, dubbed Operación Conjunta Chihuahua, by the Mexican army is expected to provoke a violent response from Mexican drug cartels, officials said.
The drug violence in Mexico rivals death tolls in Iraq.
On Nov. 3, the day before Americans elected Barack Obama president, drug cartel henchmen murdered 58 people in Mexico. It was the highest number killed in one day since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006. By comparison, on average 26 people -- Americans and Iraqis combined -- died daily in Iraq in 2008. Mexico's casualty list on Nov. 3 included a man beheaded in Ciudad Juarez whose bloody corpse was suspended along an overpass for hours. No one had the courage to remove the body until dark.The death toll from terrorist attacks in Mumbai two weeks ago, although horrible, approaches the average weekly body count in Mexico's war. Three weeks ago in Juarez, which is just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, telephone messages and banners threatened teachers that if they failed to pay protection money to cartels, their students would suffer brutal consequences. Local authorities responded by assigning 350 teenage police cadets to the city's 900 schools. If organized criminals wish to extract tribute from teachers, businessmen, tourists or anyone else, there is nothing the Mexican government can do to stop them. For its part, the United States has become numb to this norm.
Please People Contact your Government
and get them To get the National Guard down to our borders.
We shouldn't have to tolerate these killings.
Vance Keaton Phoenix AZ

2 comments:

  1. Dear Mr. Keaton
    I totally agree with what you are doing here You Sir are a total complete American with your heart in the right place, I sincerely thank you for your efforts. Too bad these liberals that are causing these problems arent waking up to smell the coffee.
    Soon they will want to give these Mexican Cartel Members "American Rights" and they do with all terrorists. Why arent we just going to our borders locked and loaded and killing terrorists? This is a huge question!
    Move Over Mrs Clinton and Mr. Holder...The Americans are coming.
    Thank You Vance
    Grace Tellison Dallas Texas

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  2. Mr gun owner: i agree with the staement on closing the border but what if it is alittle to late, with 1/2 of the population is mexicans, we are in hot water and who shoots are police officers mexicans we not only need to put our foot down but also too take them back to mexico and not let them back in. I read the last police officer who was shoot by a mexican who was deported 6 times and he came right back Yes Vance we indeed do have a problem
    Dan.

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