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Who Is Behind the 25,000 Deaths In Mexico?

Obama turns a blind eye to Mexico's cartel violence

One thing is clear to me concerning President Obama's 5-10-11 speech on immigration reform in El Paso, Texas: Obama puts campaign rhetoric and economic interests above human life and rights.

What a slap in the face to Mexican and American citizens on both sides of the border! President Obama campaigns directly across from Ciudad Juarez, ground zero of the narco war in Mexico, and says nothing of the 40,000 dead or cartel corruption that rules Mexico.

So here is a plan of intervention. Both governments have lost their minds, and it is up to us to stop them.

Who Is Behind the 25,000 Deaths In Mexico?

Blame the cartels

Anyone who attemps to claim, like Charles Bowden and Molly Malloy, that one organization responsible for the almost 30,000 deaths in Mexico has failed to capture the present state of affairs in Ciudad Juarez and other parts of Mexico.

Juarez is in a state of war of all against all, à la Thomas Hobbes, with ordinary Juarenses leaving (at least 300,000), closing their businesses, sending their families to El Paso, and living in constant, unmitigated fear. It is a modern war zone, and the prime actors consist of the Juárez Cartel, La Linea, and the Aztecas, versus the Sinaloa Cartel, with the Mexicles and their other supporters. The cartels fight directly and through proxies in the police and military. They are fighting over what Mexicans call "the plaza" or the trafficking routes into the narco networks in the US.

Other players are the myriad and corrupt Mexican police forces, the military and various vigilante groups organized by the main players. The situation is such that car theft rings, kidnapping rings, bank robbers and petty criminals of all kinds run free. Lately the Juárez Cartel has attempted to gain hometown support by executing or turning over kidnappers, murdering those who kill civilians, and claiming to be the cartel that doesn't kill women and children. Other cartels have followed suit, killing those who kill civilians, especially when their crimes draw world attention, in an effort to show Mexicans that, left to do their own business, the cartels will maintain law and order for ordinary citizens (unlike the government).

The military aren't dying because they largely stay out of it, whether because they are paid to, or are trafficking themselves, or because they see no reason to die in a war against narcos. Is there evidence that they have clumsily targeted ordinary citizens? Of course. Been trigger happy at checkpoints? Of course. Targeted criminals for slaughter? Yes. Committed rape and robbery against civilians? Yes. Does that represent the majority of deaths and assaults? No.

At heart, this is a cartel war, and the cartels all over Mexico are fighting for control over their own territory and new territory, challenging each other, declaring war on old allies, and splitting into new cartels that join the fray. It is an anarchistic war which will end when new partnerships are formed and territory is either convincingly won or lost. Some cartels may be obliterated (the Juárez cartel is losing) and newer, stronger cartels may emerge from the pieces.

Is it worse because Calderón, with the urging of the US, launched a state-sponsored war against the cartels? Yes, but the cartel wars started before Calderón was elected. He simply added new actors to the conflict; he did not start it. The only actors who can end it are the cartels themselves.

Slight correction

Mr. Bowden knows his subject well and has personal experience with this part of Mexico. Yet to say that most of these 25,000 deaths are of innocent people is wholly inaccurate if not pure demagoguery. I am a little dismayed by this because he is a responsible journalist. First of all, Mr. Bowden presents absolutely no proof to back his statement. Secondly, if one were to take that statement to its logical conclusion, the obvious question would be, You mean the majority of these 25,000 were people were innocent bystanders caught in crossfires? Hardly. The cartels do not commit murders in a vacuum. It is fallacious to think so.

Murder City

I saw Mr. Bowden on C-Span a couple of weeks ago talking about his book Murder City. I downloaded the book, and it certainly put a human face on the violence along the border. CNNI and the BBC have reported on the problem, but they didn't have the depth of Mr. Bowden's book. He covered the drug aspect of the Mexican "economy" very well, but I would be interested in hearing more detail about Mexican workers in the "American" industries that have to the Mexican side of the border.

I do think some of the violence has spilled over the border, though more related to the drug trade and not migrant workers. Besides the rancher in Arizona, we recently had a young girl kidnapped and murdered in Riverside, which was somewhat similar to incidents in Mexico reported in Mr. Bowden's book. A green SUV was involved. The Arizona law is I think, in part, related to the narco violence along the border.

There is a proposition in the next election that may legalize marijuana in California, which might take the profit out of the illegal importation of that drug. Regulation, along with education, and not prohibition is the only way to deal with the illegal drug trade.