Mexico Ambassador Equates Cartels to Capitalists

Can you see what the Ambassador has done here?  He has equated the Cartels with Capitalists.

Mexico ambassador: Our cartel leaders are businessmen, not terrorists

ByTod Robberson / Editorial Writer

trobberson@dallasnews.com | Bio

10:48 AM on Tue., Apr. 12, 2011 | Permalink

wanted so badly to include some other photos with this blog item. Our files are full of the most gruesome photos imaginable. There are dismembered corpses dumped on the sidewalk. There's one of a mother and her child dead on the floor, their bodies bloodied and pockmarked by bullets. This one is the least offensive I could find while still making the point that Mexico's drug cartels are terrorist organizations.

In a letter to the editor today, Mexico's ambassador, Arturo Sarukhan, comes to the defense of these mass murdering, torturing, dismembering, bombing, beheading, kidnapping and drug trafficking organizations, arguing that they are businessmen, not terrorists. Folks, we have a first here. You will not, until now, have seen any top Mexican official actually defending the cartels to this extent. But Sarukhan, taking issue with our editorial last week in defense of a bill before Congress to put Mexico's six biggest cartels on the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, strongly disagrees.

Yes, they are very violent criminal organizations, he says. But "they pursue a single goal. They want to maximize their profits and do what most business do: hostile takeovers and pursue mergers and acquisitions."

Again, in their defense, he says they have "no political motivation or agenda whatsoever beyond their attempt to defend their illegal business."

So, when they kill dozens of mayors, police chiefs, soldiers, journalists, newspaper editors, businessmen, mothers, children, American visitors, immigrants, farmers, truck drivers, musicians, dancers, teachers, etc., etc., etc., we are to believe this is just business? Part of a new mergers-and-acquisitions strategy? And when they hang signs from overpasses, along with a body to punctuate their point, warning that this is their territory, not the government's, there's no political message there?

Perhaps the ambassador should read up a bit on these entrepreneurial business groups to see what they're really up to. There's any number of articles, in English or Spanish, describing their political motives. Here's something I found from a 2009 piece by John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, two guys who know the difference between terrorists and businessmen:

Unlike Pablo Escobar's Colombian reign of terror in the 1990s, the Mexican cartels are engaged in serious insurgent campaigns. Armed with military infantry weapons, their gunmen use complex small-unit tactics that differ from the usual "pray and spray" methods beloved by criminals. Cartels run training camps for assassins on the border. They attempt to agitate the populace against the Mexican military through political subversion. And they control towns and neighborhoods that the military tries to retake through force.

Mexico's cartels are evolving distinct political aims. La Familia is exemplary in this regard. Using social services and infrastructure protection as levers in rural areas and small towns, they are building a social base. In urban areas, they are funding political patron-client relationships to extend their reach. Reinforced by corruption, propaganda, political marches and demonstrations, as well as social media such as "narcocorridos," such activity helps to shape the future conflict.

This is no longer about drug policy. This is about fighting terrorists. And they are present right across the border in Mexico, and we need to call them what they are

US Ambassador to Mexico Resigns After Telling the Truth

I read BorderLand Beat fairly regularly and if you're at all interested in the actual situation on our borders and inside Mexico, I suggest that you do as well.  For example, while reading BorderLand Beat yesterday, I learned that the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico had resigned.  Hadn't heard anything about this on any news.  It seems he resigned after some wikileaks exposed his complaints about inefficiency and infighting among Mexican security forces - ie, he resigned after telling the truth.

Secretary of State Clinton said Pascual resigned "based upon his personal desire to ensure the strong relationship between our two countries and to avert issues" raised by President Felipe Calderon without identifying the issues or when they were raised.  Perhaps Calderon raised these "issues" when he met with Obama two weeks ago.

Calderon is on record as complaining about US meddling in Mexican domestic policy!  Meddling???  The wikileak quoted U.S officials describing "widespread corruption" in Mexican security agencies (TRUE) and "a dysfuntionally low level of collaboration" (TRUE), described the Mexican army as "slow" (TRUE) and "risk averse" (TRUE), and concluded that only 2% of people arrested in Cuidad Juarez (the most violent city in Mexico, wracked by drug-cartel-related killings) were charged with a crime.

Meddling??  Seriously, let's STOP all that nasty meddling, bring our surging numbers of law enforcement people operating inside Mexico home and use them to enforce our national border!   And while we're at that, shut down all monetary transfers to Mexico - every last penny.  Calderone can handle his internal problems on his own.  Enforcing our border will keep his problems out of our country.

If you think I just said that Calderone and the Mexican people that they can go pound sand and deal with their own problems, you're right.  I'm fed up with operating our own country as if it were the welfare agency for Mexico's browner population.  That's right, I said it, the Mexicans of primarily European descent don't care at all about their browner citizens of obviously more tribal descent and are quite happy to export them here and rake in $20 Billion a year from them. 

14 decapitated bodies found in Acapulco

We've all heard about the attack on Representative Giffords (D-AZ 8), her staff, and her constituents.  I specifically point out her constituents because there appears to be little focus on them and, from all reports the shooter specifically targeted them after shooting the Representative.  The 9 year old little girl who was murdered was one of 50 children born in the United States of America on September 11, 2001.

In other news, the grisly murders continue in Mexico. A dozen mayors across Mexico were murdered in 2010.

14 decapitated bodies found in Mexico resort city

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) - Police found the bodies of 15 slain men, 14 of them headless, on a street outside a shopping center in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco on Saturday.

The victims, all of whom appeared to be in their 20s, were discovered in an area not frequented by tourists.

Handwritten signs left with the bodies were signed by "El Chapo's People"—a reference to the Sinaloa cartel, headed by drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman—said Fernando Monreal Leyva, director of investigative police for Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located.

The narco-messages indicated the Sinaloa cartel killed them for trying to intrude on the gang's turf and extort residents.

Mexico's drug cartels have increasingly taken to beheading their victims in a grisly show of force, but Saturday's discovery was the largest single group of decapitation victims found in recent years.

In 2008, a group of 12 decapitated bodies were piled outside the Yucatan state capital of Merida. The same year, 9 headless men were discovered in the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo.

Acapulco has been the site of fierce battles between drug gangs, and this weekend got off to a bloody start with 27 people killed there from Friday evening to early Saturday, Leyva said.

The dead included two police officers cut down on a main bayside avenue in front of tourists and locals; six people who were shot dead and stuffed in a taxi, their hands and feet bound; and four others elsewhere in the city.

"We are coordinating with federal forces and local police to reinforce security in Acapulco and investigating to try to establish the motive and perpetrators of these incidents," Monreal said.

At least 30,196 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against cartels in late 2006.

Also Saturday, authorities said a small-town mayor was found dead in northern Mexico.

Saul Vara Rivera, mayor of the municipality of Zaragoza, was reported missing by family members Wednesday, Coahuila state prosecutors said in a statement. His bullet-ridden body was discovered Friday in neighboring Nuevo Leon state.

There were no immediate arrests.

At least a dozen mayors were killed nationwide last year in acts of intimidation attributed to drug gangs.

Cartel Killing Clowns in Mexico

The cartels are now killing clowns.  No one is safe.

Clowns Killed in Alleged Drug Gang Hit in Mexico

(AFP) - Two street clowns were found dead in southeastern Mexico along with messages allegedly from a drug gang accusing them of working as army informers, their families said Tuesday.

Another 15 people were reported killed in the northern border state of Chihuahua overnight, including a woman who was beheaded, amid rampant drug violence across Mexico which killed more than 12,000 people last year alone.

The clowns were found in bright costumes and makeup on a roadside Sunday in the city of Villahermosa, bearing signs of torture and a message accusing them of being army informers, their families said.

The Tabasco state attorney general's office said they were found with a message attributing the crime to the Zetas drug gang, which is known to be active in the area.

Police meanwhile found a female head wrapped in a jacket in a park in the Chihuahua town of Jimenez, in the most gruesome of 15 murders uncovered overnight, the state attorney general's office said.

Eleven of the deaths occurred in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, which has Mexico's highest murder rate.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in violence related to the drug trade across Mexico since December 2006, when the government launched a major military offensive against organized crime.

Mexican Drug War interrupted and delayed Voyage of The Dawn Treader

It may be obvious by the links to my photo albums that I'm a big Lord of the Rings fan - seriously, it's a real geek who goes on a Lord of the Rings Movie Location Tour (with Red Carpet Tours).  Before my elementary school teacher introduced The Lord of the Rings, he introduced The Hobbit.  Before that, The Chronicles of Narnia.  And I discovered Harry Potter in the last couple of years.  The most recent movie for these stories is The Voyage of The Dawn Treader.  Being the geeky fangirl that I am, I like to watch the extra stuff and the interviews and such.  In doing so, I came across something very interesting.  Very interesting indeed here.

The filming of The Voyage of The Dawn Treader was delayed and moved due to the Mexican Drug War.  They were to film at Rosarita Studios (built for Titanic and used for Master and Commander).  Unfortunately, the drug war interfered and they moved to safer havens in Australia.  The violence of the drug war damages more than just the border areas or limited locales within Mexico.  Mexico is our neighbor and I want them to be prosperous, secure, and happy - a state of being which would naturally make Mexico a desirable neighbor.

Listen to what  the director, Mr. Apted, and the star, Ben Barnes say. in the video below.. "Worse than Bahgdad" ... "Thousands of dead every weekend" .... "Headless bodies in the street" ... "terrrifying" ... They would have had to stay in military style compounds for their own safety.  There were gun emplacements on the streets.  They would have needed 24 hour body guards.  Two of the three stars of this film are underage children!

He is wrong when he says that people didn't know much about it, even in America.  We know here in the Southwestern United States of America, Mr. Apted. We've been screaming it from the rooftops!  It's our government which denies the carnage and the danger.  And the Mexican government, of course.

If the vid won't play, you can watch it here.



It's a strange intersection of my interests.  You won't find that everywhere!

WikiLeaks on Mexicos Drug Cartel Violence

While President Obama, DHS Secretary Napalitano, and Secretary of State Clinton have said all this year that our border was more secure than ever, they knew that Mexico was less secure and more in danger of literally falling apart than ever.  All the while they, and the administrations and previous Congress(es), have refused to build a fence.

Mexico is on the brink and our government has known it all along including while they were demonizing and suing Arizona for attempting to enforce federal law.  Immigration is the only category of federal law which states, counties, cities, etc are not allowed to enforce - or is it that only Arizona is not allowed to enforce because we are the only ones trying to do so?

US has lost faith in Mexico's ability to win drugs war, WikiLeaks cables show
American diplomats paint scathing picture of Mexican army, branding it as unfit to combat drug traffickers

The US has lost confidence in the Mexican army's ability to win the country's drugs war, branding it slow, clumsy and no match for "sophisticated" narco-traffickers.

Classified diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks also reveal a growing sense of alarm within Mexico's government that time is running out in the battle against organised crime and that it could "lose" entire regions.

The memos detail blunders in the fight against drug cartels and a desperate search for a new strategy to save President Felipe Calderón's administration from a bloodsoaked fiasco.

The assessments, made in a cable to Washington earlier this year, are bleak contrast to Mexican insistence that the state is prevailing in a war declared by Calderón in 2006. Four years later drug-related violence has killed more than 28,000 people and brought cities such as Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana to the brink of anarchy, with mayors, police chiefs and ordinary people gunned down with impunity and beheadings shockingly common.

Geronimo Gutierrez Fernandez, the undersecretary for governance, told US diplomats that "pervasive, debilitating fear" had infected even relatively safe parts of the country. "He expressed a real concern with 'losing' certain regions."

US diplomats painted a scathing picture of Mexico's armed forces, singling out the army as bureaucratic, parochial, outdated and unfit to combat drug trafficking organisations (DTOs).

"Mexican security institutions are often locked in a zero-sum competition in which one agency's success is viewed as another's failure, information is closely guarded, and joint operations are all but unheard of. Official corruption is widespread, leading to a compartmentalized siege mentality among 'clean' law enforcement leaders and their lieutenants."

The cable laments that only 2% of those detained for organised crime-related offences were brought to trial and said the army was "incapable" of processing information and evidence for judicial cases. "It has taken a serious beating on human rights issues from international and domestic human rights organizations, who argue with considerable basis, in fact that the military is ill-equipped for a domestic policing role."

It was a stinging verdict on the decision of Calderón, a White House ally, to deploy tens of thousands of troops, especially in Ciudad Juárez where narcos ran rings around them.

"The DTOs are sophisticated players: they can wait out a military deployment; they have an almost unlimited human resource pool to draw from in the marginalised neighborhoods; and they can fan complaints about human rights violations to undermine any progress the military might make with hearts and minds."

The diplomats also criticised the "dysfunctionally low level of collaboration" between Mexican military and civilian authorities along the border.

They praised Mexico's navy as a nimbler force which took down the drug lord Arturo Beltrán Leyva but even that risked a downside of making the army, the navy's institutional rival, more defensive and risk-averse.

The classified cables reveal the depth of US concern about its neighbour and partly explain why in September Hillary Clinton compared Mexico to insurgency-plagued 1980s Colombia and floated the possibility of US troops intervening. Mexican officials indignantly rejected the secretary of state's comments.

Privately, Gutierrez Fernandez admitted to US officials that Mexico bungled the early phase of the Mérida Initiative, a security pact between the US, Mexico and central America, by focusing too much on equipment rather than competent personnel and institutions.

"Gutierrez went on to say, however, that he now realizes there is not even time for the institution building to take hold in the remaining years of the Calderon administration." If there was no tangible success within 18 months the next government would have difficulty sustaining the drugs war, said the minister.

Gutierrez and Jorge Tello Péon, the national security system coordinator, said despite setbacks Mexico would "stay the course" and asked the Americans to aid a new strategy focusing on the most violent cities.

"If we could turn around Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and one other city such as Culiacán, it would solve 60% of the violence, and send a signal to the Mexican people that the war can be won," reported the cable. It urged Washington to back the strategy.

The US diplomats noted that Mexico's president had recognised the failure of army deployments and replaced troops with federal police. "Calderón has openly admitted to having a tough year … and contacts have told (political officers) that he has seemed 'down' in meetings."

Last month, in an interview with the BBC, Calderón insisted that as long as the US remained the biggest consumer of drugs in the world, the terror wrought by the drug cartels in Mexico would continue.

"They [the Americans] have a clear responsibility in this because they are providing the market for the drug dealers and the criminals," President Calderón said. "They need to do a lot more in terms of reducing the consumption of drugs and to stop the flow of weapons towards Mexico.

It's called a fence.  A fence!  You put up a fence and restrict the flow of everything in both directions.  Anyone, like the former Governor of Arizona and current head of DHS, Napolitano, who says well, they'll just get a bigger ladder is either an idiot or something who wants the chaos here.  I wonder if, in the face of a leak in the Hoover Dam, if she would say, well, it'll just spring a bigger leak someplace else.

I firmly believe that no fence will ever be built by this country unless we begin to endure a murder rate close to that of Mexico.  That is an extremely high price to pay.  Those of us with weaspons have a slight chance of protecting ourselves but many of these murders are random and from a distance since they are just letting the locals know that their government cannot protect them.

War Stories on the Border: The Third Front

I got home from the annual Thanksgiving trip to visit the last remaining members of the generation preceding mine on the paternal side of the family yesterday.  Back pain keeps me awake now so sometime during the night I woke and turned on FNC and was able to watch a bit of Oliver North's War Stories (which isn't on often enough, if you ask me!).  This episode was all about our Southern Border.  It was quite good and well worth your time.  There was a bit about the border patrol telling the crew to get out of a certain area and they seemed rather threatening to me.  So, there you have it - the border patrol throwing American citizens out of American territory.  I don't think that is their mandate.

'War Stories on the Border: The Third Front'

With an onslaught of gruesome images and a death toll that rises daily, our 2,000-mile long southwest border truly has become a third front.

More than 29,000 people have been killed in Mexico since 2006. Our southern neighbors are living in a bloodbath created by vicious drug cartels battling to dominate smuggling routes into America worth upwards of $50 billion. Beheadings and mass murders are now an everyday, grim reality. Narco-terrorists have already infiltrated over 230 U.S. cities.

Oliver North and his "War Stories" team traveled to the states bordering this frontline to bring you the real story behind the war for the border.

From California's Pacific coast to the deserts of Arizona and the banks of the Rio Grande in Texas, we met with everyday Americans who say they're under siege and a Mexican journalist who was kidnapped and tortured by brutal drug lords vowing to kill him.

We joined federal agents as they hunted down cartel operatives living deep inside America. And, unbelievable as it may seem, visited parts of our country that are so dangerous, they're off limits to American citizens.

Photo Essay, part 1 and part 2

Video Preview here and here.

Later, I found this article about it:

BorderSheriffs.com’s Larry Dever and Paul Babeu featured on “War Stories with Oliver North”
Sunday, November 28th, 2010
NEWS RELEASE

When Fox News special correspondent Lt. Col. Oliver North set his sights on covering the border security crisis, he turned to Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu for perspective.

A documentary entitled “War Stories on the Border: The Third Front” outlines the dangers of drug violence in Mexico and the threat it poses in the United States.

This is how the producers of the show describe the situation in Mexico: “More than 29,000 people have been killed in Mexico since 2006. Our southern neighbors are living in a bloodbath created by vicious drug cartels battling to dominate smuggling routes into America worth upwards of $50 billion.”

The documentary featured Dever, who has been sheriff of the border county since 1996, and Babeu, who has made it a priority to address the illegal immigration problem.

Sheriff Dever said, “So much of the coverage we see on illegal immigration is tarnished by the open borders crowd who fail to understand this is about national security not politics. This documentary has given the nation a vivid picture of the dangers we face.”

Babeu’s Pinal County county lies between the border and the urban areas that are attractive to drug and human smugglers. As a result, the citizens he serves are threatened by the perils of living in an area that serves as a corridor for dangerous smugglers.

Sheriff Babeu said, “It was a pleasure to assist in the making of this documentary and bring the dangers we face in Arizona to a national audience.”

BorderSheriffs.com was formed to defend law enforcement against lawsuits attempting to prevent enforcement of Arizona’s SB1070. The organization was also formed to give law enforcement a much-needed voice on the issue.

What Happens When The Cartels Take Over A Modern City

From Bordland Beat...

A glimpse of the future of San Diego, Tucson, El Paso... ?

Monterrey, Mexico's Wealthiest City, Succumbs To Drug War

...drug violence has painted Monterrey with the look and feel of the gritty border 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the north as two former allies, the Gulf and Zetas gangs, fight for control of Mexico's third-largest – and wealthiest – city.

The deterioration happened nearly overnight, laying bare issues that plague the entire country: a lack of credible policing and the Mexican habit of looking the other way at the drug trade as long as it was orderly and peaceful. (This is what so-called legalization advocates fail to recognize, imo - Kirls)

"To a certain extent, we saw ourselves as a privileged city and very isolated from Mexico's problems," said Blanca Trevino, Monterrey-based president and CEO of Softtek, the largest information technology consulting firm in Latin America. "The violence hit us because we were not accustomed to having it and therefore to handling it. Now we live in a sort of psychosis."

The Mexican government announced Wednesday it is ordering a significant boost in military troops and federal police in the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas and neighboring Nuevo Leon, home to Monterrey.

The two states are under the heaviest attack since the cartel split earlier this year. Both have witnessed increasingly horrific violence spilling into daily life and claiming civilians, while politicians and journalists are either silenced or killed.

Earlier this month, residents fleeing gunbattles in Tamaulipas' once-picturesque town of Ciudad Mier ended up in Mexico's first drug-war refugee shelter in a nearby town, only to duck bullets from a gunbattle there.

Monterrey was used to being Mexico's definition of opportunity. The city of 4 million "regios" – a nickname for Monterrey residents that means "people of the regal mountains" – represented the future as money poured into northern Mexico from free trade and the opening of scores of assembly plants.

The city's many CEOs drove their own luxury cars unaccompanied to the trendiest Japanese restaurant or the top spot for roasted goat, the state's specialty, in the wealthy enclave of San Pedro Garza Garcia.

Some drug lords and their families retreated to the safety of Monterrey as well. In the home of the country's industrial heavyweights, including the world's third-largest cement maker, Cemex, and bottling giant Femsa, they could easily blend in with executives showing off their wealth.

Then-leader of the Gulf cartel, Juan Garcia Abrego, was arrested in the nearby town of Juarez in 1996. Two years later, a U.S. sting led to criminal charges of money laundering against employees at three Monterrey-based Mexican banks.

Despite sporadic violence and the known presence of drug traffickers, the city enjoyed a tranquility that gave it a provincial feel.

That started to change four years ago, when the Sinaloa cartel began battling the Gulf cartel for a piece of Monterrey's lucrative domestic drug market. The violence subsided after the cartels reportedly agreed to share the turf.

With the Gulf-Zeta split, the downfall was swift – "extremely so," in the words of U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual – for a city with huge American interests that in some ways identifies more closely with the U.S. than Mexico.

"It's part of the risk of accommodating or allowing criminal groups to be able to live and operate quote `safely' in an area for the sake of peace," Pascual told The Associated Press. "But then this rupture occurs and turns into a massive battle."

As in much of Mexico, there was no viable law enforcement to counter the onslaught. The Zetas control the local police, Pascual said. Other police forces aligned with the Gulf cartel in the fight against them.

About half of the 750 police officers in Monterrey have been fired on suspicion of links to organized crime.

"Rather than becoming part of the solution, they become part of the problem," Pascual said. "When criminal groups want to contest one another for territory, if you don't have strong local law enforcement capable of immediately reacting and putting that down, then the violence has the capacity to continue."

More than 500 people have died in drug violence in the first 10 months of the year, compared to 56 slayings for all of 2009, according to tallies kept by the city's El Norte newspaper.

Residents are used to having their daily routines interrupted by carjackings and "narcobloqueos" – roadblocks with stolen vehicles designed to keep police and soldiers at bay as the cartels do their business.

They drive simple cars and avoid night clubs and bars and go to parties with their pajamas, ready to spend the night in case it's too dangerous to venture home.

In March, two students at the prestigious Monterrey Tech University, Mexico's equivalent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died when they were caught in a gunfight between soldiers and gunmen outside the campus.

Five months later, the U.S. State Department ordered diplomats to remove their children from the area after a shooting outside the American Foundation School, a private school attended by many Americans and the children of some of Monterrey's wealthiest families. Two security guards working for the Femsa bottling company died in the gunbattle.

The city's businesspeople are now becoming the targets of extortion and kidnappings as drug traffickers look for other ways to make money. Common criminals also take advantage of the chaos. Now almost everyone knows someone who has been a victim of a crime.

The traditional weekend shopping trips to McAllen or Laredo, Texas, have stopped – it's too risky to drive along highways patrolled by gunmen. Those who still travel to South Padre Island, where the rich own weekend condos, do it by airplane.

The business community published a letter in national newspapers as far back as August demanding President Felipe Calderon and Nuevo Leon Gov. Rodrigo Medina send more troops. Now it will get its wish, though the government didn't detail how many would be sent, citing security.

But Aldo Fasci Zuazua thinks regios can make the difference. The former state public safety secretary and assistant attorney general is helping to lead a peace movement to galvanize people to stand up to the cartels.

"In Italy, in Colombia, things calmed down among the cartels, among the mafia, when people took to the streets and said, `Enough!'" he said.

Borderland Beat has a very interesting article up describing the take-down of Gulf Cartel boss Tony Tormenta.  Over 600 Mexican Navy Marines, 3 helicopters,and 17 armooured vehicles were needed to take this freak out of the gene pool.  While this operation caused chaos and fear among the population of Matamoros including the disruption of cell phone service, it was necessary to take this nut out and to let the rest of these crazies know what their fate will be.  This is a war and collatoral damage (civilian casualties) always occur in war.  Mexico must continue to take control of its own territory.  Mexicans must have a level of safety which will allow them to live normal lives with their families and friends, do business in a secure environment all governed by the rule of law.  The corruption in all levels of the Mexican government better be rooted out too or this will all be for naught.

You potheads and supporters of legalizing pot share in the responsibility for all this bloodshed.  If pot is legalized, it will flow across the border inamounts which will make that 130 tons (260,000 pounds) found recently look like a drop in the bucket. You think local growers will be able to stand against the cartels? Hell, the government of Mexico can barely stand.

More than 600 Soldiers Surrounded the Cartel Boss "Tony Tormenta"

A total of 660 members of the Navy of Mexico participated in the operation yesterday which resulted in the death of Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, alias "Tony Tormenta", a high ranking kingpin of the Gulf Drug Cartel.

The Secretary of the Navy said in a statement that a total of 660 military marines were deployed in the operation, and of these, 150 were in the first circle of action, supported by three helicopters and 17 armored vehicles.

In the gunfight four gunmen were killed that allegedly belonged to the inner circle of protection to "Tony Tormenta." Also killed were three marines while four others were wounded, said the Navy said in a statement.

A source explained that Mexican authorities had been following the trail of "Tony Tormenta" for the last six months and on Friday they received his location in a downtown neighborhood of Matamoros, a city bordering the United States, but when the first group of marines arrived, they were met with automatic gunfire and grenades.

This conflict unleashed a fierce gun battle which lasted for more than two hours, until the capo "Tony Tormenta", a native of Matamoros and at the age 48, finally fell.

Friday's daylong gunfights throughout Matamoros between cartel hit men and Mexican soldiers and marines plunged the city into chaos and panic, witnesses said, as armed men plowed through streets on the backs of pickup trucks.

Residents rushed in helter-skelter traffic to get home; many remained trapped in their offices. Cellphone service went down, further stoking fears as bursts of high-caliber weaponry could be heard for hours. International bridges into Texas were closed for a time.

Most of the fighting barely made a ripple in national news here in Mexico because local reporters in Tamaulipas, out of fear or corruption, have been trained to ignore cartel activities. Only when a journalist for a Matamoros newspaper was killed in the gun battle did the news begin to trickle out.

A source said that "Tony Tormenta" was one of the leaders to take control of the Gulf cartel in 2003, which has its influence on the east coast of Mexico, after his brother, Osiel Cardenas Guillen was arrested in Mexico and extradited to the United States.

The Mexican government considers the death of the Gulf cartel kingpin as a "significant" step in dismantling organized criminal groups "that have caused a lot of suffering to the people of our country," said the national security spokesman, Alejandro Poire.

In a press release read to the media, Poire congratulated the members of the Armed Forces who participated in the operation and expressed his deep condolences over the death of the soldiers "killed in the line of duty."

The Gulf cartel and the Zetas, once allies, have been disputing for the last couple of years in a bloody war for control of drug trafficking turf, which has left a bloodbath in its aftermath.

So far this year more than 10,000 people have been killed related to organized crime.

Mass Grave in Acapulco

Americans who think they are safe vacationing in Mexico because they are just visitors / tourists and not connected to smuggling need to understand that mistakes happen.  Akin to the random shooting of a child asleep in their bed in Compton in a gang hit but on a much larger, more hideous and ruthless scale.  A month ago, 20 men were kidnapped in Acapulco and never heard from again.  Investigators think they have located them - in a mass grave in Acapulco; possible victims of a case of mistaken identity.  Think it can't happen to you?  Think again.  And, frankly, if you are an American of Mexican descent or look like you might be, I believe you are in far more danger of these mistaken identity murders in Mexico.  There are plenty of other beautiful places to vacation in the USA and other areas of the world.  How about Alaska or Hawaii?  If you insist on a Latin inspired locale, then why not Puerto Rico?  If you simply must leave the country, then Australia and New Zealand are far more preferable than the ever increasing death toll of Mexico which currently stands at 10,000 so far in 2010.

Mistake may have led to mass grave deaths in Mexico

MEXICO CITY - Investigators finished removing 18 bodies from a mass grave near Acapulco on Thursday amid speculation that the victims may have been killed by mistake.

Prosecutors and police said forensic teams had not yet identified the bodies, but it was possible they had uncovered the remains of 20 men from the western state of Michoacan who were kidnapped a month ago in Acapulco and have not been seen since.

Authorities were led to the site by a video posted on YouTube by a drug-trafficking organization and by anonymous calls to police. The video shows two men answering questions from an off-camera interrogator and apparently being forced to confess that they killed the men from Michoacan and buried them near the village of Tunzingo south of Acapulco.

In the video, the two men on camera say the killing was over lucrative drug sales and trafficking routes in the area.

According to reporters at the scene, the bodies of two men resembling those on the video were found beside the mass grave near a sign reading: "The people they killed are buried here.''

A group calling itself CIDA, an acronym that officials say means Independent Cartel of Acapulco, claimed responsibility for the video and the information that led authorities to the grave site.

The families of the men say they were mechanics who had saved up for a weekend fling in the resort city and had nothing to do with drug trafficking. Investigations by police also suggest that the men had no criminal records or ties.

Mexican drug cartels and shadowy groups of narco-vigilantes have begun to post incriminating videos of forced confessions on the Internet, subsuming the role of the state - and sometimes judge, jury and executioner.

"This is a strategy they have learned from the Islamic terrorist organizations and brought to Mexico," said Martin Barron Cruz, a researcher at the National Institute of Criminal Science in Mexico City.

He said the Internet offers the criminal groups an anonymous tool, without rules, and a powerful medium for propaganda. It not only allows the warring groups to blame one another - rightly or wrongly - for crimes, but it also challenges the authority of the state by making the criminals the instruments of vigilante justice.

Barron suggested that the drug mafias are aping techniques used by the Mexican government, which scores public relations points by parading suspects before the cameras - even if many of those arrested are never formally charged and their cases fall apart.

In recent weeks, criminal gangs have posted videos of men being forced to say that an assassination squad is operating under the control of a prison warden - who was later fired - and posted accusations by the brother of the former attorney general in the northern state of Chihuahua. In that video, top prosecutor Patricia Gonzalez is accused, along with the governor and a military general, of working for the local cartel and orchestrating political murders.

The newspaper El Diario in Ciudad Juarez reported Thursday that Mario Gonzalez, the brother of the ex-prosecutor, was found dead and had been buried alongside three or four unidentified bodies north of Chihuahua City.

The bodies found near Acapulco were badly decomposed and in a shallow grave in a coconut grove, said Enrique Gil Mercado, a special state prosecutor. The families of the missing men are heading toward the city to help with the identifications.

Sources in the Mexican military told the Milenio news organization that evidence suggested the bodies were those of the missing men from Michoacan, though that could not be confirmed.

DHS Now Says Their Memo Was a False Alarm

ou puhlease!  we live in a a freaking banana republic already!

DHS Memo Proves Cartel Involved in Officer Shooting April 2010

Remember the Pinal County Sheriffs Deupty who was shot in out in the desert while tracking smugglers? And how he was maligned by local idiots? Well, well, well. A DHS memo was sent to several law enforcement entities around Arizona in May which corroborates his story. So, the Federal Government never said a word to defend this fine officer, Sheriff Babeu, or the people of Arizona who have been crying out for help in protecting their homes and property and their own lives from the invasion force of the drug cartels.

Jim Sharpe of KFYI started off his show this morning with this topic, comes back to it at about 12:00 minutes into the recording, and Sheriff Babeu joined him at about 20:35 minutes into the recording.  Sheriff Babeu confirms that he received the memo and that it's real.  Of course, it was "law enforcement sensitive" so Sheriff Babeu was restricted from using it to defend his officer.  Babeu also points out that the 911 commission said that the government should share information as quickly as they can even if it's not 100% accurate.  Clearly, the Obama regime is not cooperating; but we knew that.  Listen to Sheriff Babeu from 20:35 through the end of the recording.  Babeu is going after them with snipers.

250000 illegals have been apprehended using this area as an illegal alien and drug smuggler superhighway; 400000 roaming around free.  The memo says there are 23 hilltops with scouts.  In some cases, these scouts have radios with rolling encryption - ie, they cannot be tracked.

In the memo, the intel shows that the cartel was involved in the ambush of the officer.  All the while the federal government and DHS sat on this information.    If you weren't convinced before, you should be now... DHS is lead by a liar, President Obama is a liar.

So, the Director of DHS, also the former Governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano sits there and lies saying the border is as secure as it has ever been all the while knowing that it actually far less secure than it has ever been and parts of Arizona are now under the control of the cartels and they are actually at war with each other fighting over our American land.  And they put up signs facing north to tell us to keep out!!!!!

Note that Puerto Penasco is the quaint little beach community where a large number of Zonies own condos and drive down every weekend.  I repeat that if you set foot in Mexico, you're insane.

DHS Memo: Drug Cartels Plot To Send Asssassins To AZ

PINAL COUNTY, Ariz. -- Mexican drug cartels have plotted to send assassins into Arizona to murder bandits who are stealing drugs from the cartels, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by CBS 5 News.

A CBS 5 News law enforcement source said the memo was sent to several law enforcement agencies in May.

The memo said, "We just received information from a proven credible confidential source who reported that a meeting was held in Puerto Penasco in which every smuggling organization who utilizes the Vekol Valley was told to attend. This included rival groups within the Guzman cartel."

The Guzman cartel is one of the most powerful and dangerous cartels in Mexico.

The Vekol Valley is a known drug smuggling corridor in Pinal County and is also where Pinal Deputy Louie Puroll claims to have been ambushed by armed smugglers on April 30, according to Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

"It was decided to send a group of 15, very well equipped and armed sicarios (hired assassins) complete with bullet proof vests, into the Vekol Valley," according to the memo.

The cartels would then "send groups of 'simulated backpackers' carrying empty boxes covered with burlap into the Vekol Valley to draw out the bandits." Once identified, according to the memo, "the sicarios will take out the bandits."

After CBS 5 News told Babeu that it knew about the memo, he confirmed his agency was one of several Arizona law enforcement agencies that received the memo in May.

"We need to be plain and clear with the American people about this information. You've already confirmed it. I'm not going to lie about it," Babeu said during an interview Thursday afternoon.

"This is no longer a law enforcement matter. This is literally a national security threat to our country," Babeu said.

"These drug cartels are working in tandem to now bring this violence here to America. And this is alarming because to this point, we haven't seen this, a coordinated response from drug cartels who nearly have toppled the Mexican government," he said.

Babeu did not give details, but said he has received several similar memos from federal law enforcement agencies about Mexican cartel activity taking place within Arizona's borders.

"All of these things are proof and evidence that we need help here," Babeu said. "That it's not just local law enforcement that needs to fight this. That we do need armed soldiers to the border to stop this. This threat is real."

DHS Alerted AZ Sheriffs That Mexican Drug Cartel Was Sending Assassins Into Arizona Valley, Then Did No More Than Set Up Signs To Warn Travelers Away

(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned Arizona law enforcement officials in May that Mexican drug cartels were deploying assassins to kill bandits highjacking their drug loads in the Vekol Valley, 70 miles inside Arizona. Then the federal government set up signs in the region to warn American citizens away from this area of U.S. sovereign territory.

That local law enforcement would be left to confront agents of a foreign cartel coming across the international border of the United States to carry out a deadly drug war on U.S. soil is further evidence that the federal government is not doing its duty to secure the border, said Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

“This is confirmed intelligence that Mexican drug cartels are now working in concert to protect their drug loads in the United States, literally, to send well-armed, military trained--even with ballistic vests--up to my county,” Babeu told CNSNews.com.

“This clearly is no longer a public safety issue,” he said. “This is a national security issue. The violence is bleeding into America and we must stop it.”

The DHS sent an e-mail on May 13, 2010 to several law enforcement agencies warning that Mexican drug cartels were deploying “sicarios” (assassins) into the western part of Pinal County, Ariz., to “take out” bandits that were robbing drug smugglers who had entered the United States from Mexico through the Arizona desert.

The e-mail was sent on May 13, 2010, and made public this Friday, Oct. 15, after local media in Arizona obtained the e-mail and questioned local law enforcement about it.

Babeu said that until now the e-mail was kept private because it was considered “law enforcement sensitive.” But Babeu, a critic of the Obama administration’s handling of immigration and border security issues, said he released it today because it constitutes further evidence that the government is not protecting Americans from the threats posed by a porous border.

“This is unacceptable for our federal government not to secure the border and not to respond to these threats,” Babeu told CNSNews.com. “How has it become in America [that] local sheriffs and law enforcement have to go up onto hillsides and pull people out of caves and take lookouts and scouts, who have binoculars, and night vision, and communication devices which are encrypted and rolling – they said so, right in the memo.”

The May 13 e-mail reads, in part: “We just received information from a proven credible confidential source who reported that last weekend, a meeting was held in Puerto Penasco in which every smuggling organization who utilized the Vekol Valley was told to attend. This included rival groups within the Guzman cartel.

“It was decided that the cartel would send a group of fifteen, very well equipped and armed sicarios complete with bullet proof vests, into the Vekol Valley” the e-mail continues. “The Cartel has a map of where the most bandit activity has been occurring. The group will walk into the valley taking four days to get into LPOP positions and communicate back to Penasco. Penasco will then send groups of simulated backpackers carrying empty boxes covered with burlap into the Vekol Valley to draw out the bandits. Once the bandits have been identified, the sicarios will take out the bandits.”

“Incidentally” the e-mail continues,” the night of the Vekol Valley shooting, we received information from a source who reported that the scouts in the valley (the Cartel has 23 scout locations with rolling encryption) were reporting that bandits had shot two sheriff’s deputies and the area was covered with cops.”

The last portion of the e-mail apparently refers to the reported ambush of Pinal County Deputy Louie Puroll, who was shot while scouting the Vekol Valley area on April 30, two weeks before DHS sent the e-mail warning of drug cartel operations in the small location.

While Vekol Valley in southwest Arizona is about 70 miles north from the U.S.-Mexico border, Puerto Penasco – the site where DHS said the drug cartels were meeting to discuss the assassination plot – is a resort town on the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, a little more than 60 miles south from the border.

Babeu said despite the federal government’s intelligence, it failed to respond to its own warning, except to install 15 billboard-sized warning notices in the Vekol Valley area cited in the DHS e-mail. (See story.)

“It is right in that exact location,” Babeu said of the signs that were erected shortly after the e-mail was sent. “That’s why they put up these signs. They knew of this and the only thing they did was put up signs warning our citizens to stay out.”

Babeu said the federal government’s border security policy has failed and action should be taken immediately to stem further violence by Mexican drug cartels on U.S. soil.

DHS did not respond to phone or e-mail requests from CNSNews.com for comment on this story and the May 13 e-mail.

Drug War With Mexican Cartels Already Here

In an earlier post, I said "Mark my words: it's only a matter of time before the grenade attacks and car bombs spill over the border."

In comments, Big Bob said "It is already here" and left a link which I've quoted below.

Big Bob is right. It arrived with little fanfare. This should have been reported in our national media. Repeatedly. Emphatically. But, of course, they are all a bunch of open borders socialists so they would never both to inform us that the war is already here.

Grenade in Texas bombing attempt linked to Mexican drug cartel

12:00 AM CST on Friday, February 13, 2009

By ANGELA KOCHERGA Belo Television akocherga@belo-dc.com Angela Kocherga is the Belo / The Dallas Morning News

chief based in El Paso.

PHOENIX – Grenades used in three recent attacks in northern Mexico and South Texas originated from the same source, U.S. investigators say, and the paramilitary group known as the Zetas is suspected of being behind the assaults.

Investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives say they have evidence linking grenades used in an October attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico, a January attack on a television station in Monterrey and a January attempted attack on a bar in Pharr, Texas. Three off-duty police officers were customers of the bar.

No serious injuries were reported in any of the attacks, but investigators say lot numbers confirmed that the grenades came from the same source.

"When you see grenades in Mexico and then a grenade in the U.S., it tells you the violent criminals do not respect the U.S.-Mexico border," said William Newell, ATF special agent in charge in Phoenix. "Now that we're seeing a growing influence of Mexican drug cartels in small towns in America, we have to realize they're here, and how much further we let that violence spread is up to us."

According to an unclassified report that ATF sent to law enforcement agencies last week, the grenades are "linked to a major recovery of firearms and grenades in a Mexican warehouse with suspected ties to a drug cartel."

ATF officials traced the grenades to a warehouse in Monterrey. The explosives were manufactured in South Korea. Investigators say they believe the cartels buy grenades on the black market in Central America, where the explosives are from past civil wars.

The group behind the attacks is believed to be the Zetas, who have terrorized the border area for years and whose reach extends into U.S. cities, according to U.S. investigators.

In this decade, the Zetas have grown from regional armed enforcers of the Gulf cartel into a formidable foe of the Mexican government, which has declared war on them and other drug cartels that now control parts of Mexican territory.

This week, a member of the Zetas was arrested in Cancún and held in the killing of an army general.

Investigators warn that the Texas grenade incident likely won't be the last.

"The violence is here," said Jim Needles, the assistant special agent in charge of the ATF office in Phoenix. "It's not just an issue for the Mexican authorities. It's also an issue for us here in the United States."

Bloody Weekend in Mexico Leaves 34 Dead

Northern Mexico seems more violent than areas of the middle east at this point. Mark my words: it's only a matter of time before the grenade attacks and car bombs spill over the border.

Mexico roiled by grenades, kidnappings in bloody weekend

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Northern Mexico was shaken by a weekend of violence, with 34 deaths blamed on drug cartels and a series of grenade attacks that injured a dozen people, officials said Sunday.

Twelve people were hurt in a late night grenade attack at a busy plaza outside Monterrey, according to officials who said it was one of four bombings to rock the industrial border city over the weekend.

Authorities said Sunday that the grenade was thrown by unidentified assailants at about 11 pm Saturday (0400 GMT Sunday) near the town hall in Guadalupe, a suburb of the bustling city near the border with the United States.

Earlier Saturday, three explosive devices were detonated, including one near the US consulate and another not far from a prosecutor's office that wounded a guard. The blasts damaged roads and nearby vehicles, said police, who have yet to identify the culprits.

Monterrey, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the US border, has been the scene of brutal violence blamed on feuding drug cartels fighting over control of trafficking routes into the lucrative US market.

Last month, the US State Department barred its personnel from taking children with them when they occupy posts at the consulate in Monterrey, citing security fears.

Officials in Mexico City in a statement expressed the government's "strongest condemnation" of the attacks and vowed to do their utmost to combat organized crime across the country.

The bombings in Monterrey took place amid a new wave of drug related killings, mostly in northern Mexico, close to the lucrative US drug market, that has claimed nearly three dozen lives over the past few days.

In the town of San Jose de la Cruz, in an isolated mountain region in the northern state of Durango, presumed rival drug gangs clashed in a bloodbath that left 14 people dead, the local prosecutor said Saturday.

In Chihuahua another 20 murders took place, nine of them in Ciudad Juarez.

Meanwhile, police intensified their search Sunday for 20 Mexican tourists kidnapped by gunmen last week in the beach resort city of Acapulco.

The tourists from Morelia in neighboring Michoacan state were abducted late Thursday and officials said their was no word as to their whereabouts or their fate.

More than 28,000 people are believed to have been killed in drug cartel-related violence in Mexico since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown.

Did the Mexican Government Find and Kill The Murderers?

Fox News is reporting that 25 drug cartel thugs were found and killed.  The Mexican Government is saying they are suspected of being the murderers of the 72 illegal immigrants found executed last month.

Keep in mind this is less than 100 FEET (not miles!) from the border with the USA.

Mexico: Soldiers kill 25 in gunbattle near border

MONTERREY, Mexico — Mexico's military says 25 suspects have been shot dead by soldiers in a gunbattle near the U.S. border.

A spokesman says soldiers were patrolling around noon Thursday in the town of General Trevino when they came under fire from gunmen on a ranch. The troops returned fire and killed at least 25 people.

The spokesman says three people believed to be kidnap victims were rescued.

Eight Dead in Cancun Bar - Gasoline Bombs

Eight people killed in gasoline bombs attack to bar in Mexico

At least eight people died early today after an attack with gasoline bombs caused a fire in a crowded bar in the Mexican resort city of Cancún, México.

According to the Diario de Yucatan (in Spanish), citing preliminary reports of Justice Attorney of the Mexican State of Quintana Roo, Francisco Alor Quesada, the attackers arrived this morning in two black luxury cars and threw the bombs Molotov cocktails into the Castillo del Mar in Cancun causing a fire. Although most customers and employees managed to get out, six female workers and two male customers were killed because of severe burns.

The reasons for the attack have not been established and authorities do not have enough information to identify those responsible. The Bar Castillo del Mar is away from the tourist hotel zone and the bar owners had often received extortion threats and proposals for “protection” that had not been accepted.

Yucatán, the northern part of the state of Quintana Roo, where the Mexican Caribbean resort of Cancún is located, has been an area disputed for months by several rival gangs among which are members of “Los Zetas” and “El Cartel del Golfo".

Last week, members of “Los Zetas” gunned down 72 illegal immigrants after they refused to pay extortion money, according to one of the survivors.

Seven major groups of drug traffickers have been identified as fighting for control of drug market traffic from Mexico into the United States. The worst of the war between the gangs has been going on since the start of the government of President Felipe Calderón in 2006 and has left over 28,000 dead in bombings, assassinations and kidnappings.

 

Cancun Bar Bombs: Another Nail in Mexico’s Tourism Coffin

 

Eight killed as bar is 'petrol-bombed' in Cancun

 

Bomb Wounds 20 in Mexican Resort City

 

And yet idiots keep truding on down to Puerto Penasco from AZ.  You're taking a big risk with your lives at the mercy of ruthless murderers.

And it isn't the first time.

More News of the 72 Murdered in Mexico

Mexican officials are trying to say that the drug cartels are having a hard time in their drug business so they are branching out into human smuggling.  I don't think that's it.  Both drug smuggling and human smuggling are lucrative.  I think they are just greedy ruthless evil people and they want to control all egress into the USA from our southern border.  And they are succeeding at the moment.

Victims of Massacre in Mexico Said to Be Migrants

MEXICO CITY — The bullet-pocked bodies of 72 people, believed to be migrants heading to the United States who resisted demands for money, have been found in a large room on a ranch in an area of northeast Mexico with surging violence, the authorities said Wednesday.

Initial reports after the victims were found Tuesday suggested that the mass of bodies was the largest of several dumping grounds, often with dozens of dead, discovered in recent months and attributed to the violence of the drug business.

But if the victims, found after a raid on a ranch in Tamaulipas State by Mexican naval units, are confirmed as migrants, their killings would provide a sharp reminder of the violence in human smuggling as well.

It was not clear if the victims, from Central and South America, were shot all at once. The police were relying on a harrowing but sketchy account from a wounded survivor, published by the newspaper Reforma and confirmed by government officials, who said several people were killed in short order after the migrants refused to pay or cooperate with the gunmen.

A law enforcement official said all were found in a large room, some sitting, some piled atop one another.

Alejandro Poiré, the government’s spokesman for security issues, said that though the investigation was just beginning, the killings seemed to be an outgrowth of pressure on drug gangs by a government crackdown.

“This act confirms that criminal organizations are looking to kidnapping and extortion because they are going through a difficult time obtaining resources and recruiting people willingly,” Mr. Poiré told reporters here.

United States law enforcement officials have warned that drug trafficking groups have increasingly moved into the lucrative business of human smuggling, extorting fees from migrants for safe passage across the border and sometimes forcing them to carry bundles of drugs. Smugglers are also known to rob, kidnap and sometimes kill migrants on both sides of the border.

The unidentified survivor, an Ecuadorean traveling with people from Ecuador, Brazil, Honduras and El Salvador, told investigators that the migrants had entered Mexico from the south and that they were making their way to Texas when they were confronted by the gunmen in San Fernando, about 100 miles south of Brownsville, Tex.

In a statement to the police, he said the leaders of the armed group had tried to extort fees from them and, when the migrants resisted, ordered their gunmen to open fire.

Wounded in the neck by the gunfire, the survivor heard screams and pleas for mercy. Once the men retreated, the witness said, he ran from the ranch where they were being held Monday and found a military checkpoint.

The military units reached the ranch on Tuesday and engaged in a firefight in which one marine and three suspects were killed. One Mexican, a minor, was taken into custody.

The authorities said 58 men and 14 women had been killed in the room by the gunmen. It was unclear how long they had been dead or detained.

The discovery of the bodies was the largest of at least three such finds this year. In May, 55 bodies were pulled from an abandoned mine south of Mexico City, and in July, 51 bodies were discovered in a field near Monterrey, an industrial and commercial hub in northeast Mexico that had been relatively quiet until this year.

A shootout last week in Monterrey outside the American School Foundation, a private school popular with American expatriates and Mexican business executives, prompted the United States Consulate to advise families to keep their children home pending an assessment of security at the school.

More than 28,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón began a crackdown on organized crime in 2006.

In a meeting with mayors on Wednesday, Mr. Calderón said, “We’re in the middle of a criminal spiral that we have to cut.”

“I don’t know of any crime that isn’t organized,” Mr. Calderón said. “They are all very organized, and much more than the police.”

Six Mexican Police Officers Confess To Part in Santiago Mayors Murder

I keep saying that if you think it's bad on the American side of the border, take a look at Mexico. Apparently, no corner of that country is safe from the drug smugglers and no official can trust his own police.

The ordinary Mexican citizens need to find a way to rid themselves of the corruption in their own government.  Mexico could be great - it is strategically located, has valuable natural resources, and an entrepreneurial population.  Mexico could move up economically to the first world.  There is no reason, other than corruption and a rampaging drug mafia, that Mexico could not elevate itself.  But, this uncertainty, this violence... it destroys everything and everyone it touches.  The Mexican populace should not be relegated to a life of fear like this.

I hope you drug freaks are happy with the results of getting your "fix".

Mexican Police Help Murder Their Own Mayor

By IOAN GRILLO / MEXICO CITY Ioan Grillo / Mexico City – Sat Aug 21, 4:30 am ET

The murder scarred a part of Mexico that was supposed to be reasonably safe from violence and crime. Santiago is a picturesque town of waterfalls, colonial churches and holiday homes for the rich. Its mayor Edelmiro Cavazos was a blue-eyed 38-year old, educated in the United States. But it seems that no corner of the country is shielded from the relentless rain of drug-related bloodshed.

The killers came for Mayor Cavazos in the early hours of Aug. 16 when seven SUV's rolled up and men in police uniforms descended on his palatial home. Servants stood back terrified, as their boss was forced away at gunpoint. On Aug. 18, his corpse was dumped on a nearby road. There was a mercy of sorts in the manner of his killing - shot dead with two bullets in the head and one in the chest, and spared the mutilation and rape inflicted on so many other victims. The following day, hundreds of residents wept over his coffin in Santiago's central plaza, lining the stairs up to the church with candles and holding signs calling for peace. (See pictures of Culiac[a {a}]n, the home of Mexico's drug-trafficking industry.)

Then on Aug. 20, more disturbing news broke. State agents arrested six of the mayor's own police officers and said they confessed to involvement in the murder. The suspects had been working for a drug cartel that is fighting a bloody turf war with its rival throughout northeast Mexico, state prosecutors said. Another four alleged gunmen were arrested with automatic rifles and grenade launchers in their possession and accused of being involved in the plot. The revelation had very concerning implications: in Mexico's drug war, officials are now killing officials.

Cavazos - a member of President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party - was the latest in a series of politicians who have been killed or kidnapped this year. In June, a commando group of gunmen assassinated the front-running gubernatorial candidate in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas. In May, a former presidential candidate was kidnapped from his ranch in Central Mexico and is still missing. A mayoral candidate and state legislator have also been murdered. Following the latest slaying, President Calderon said that Mexico's very democracy is under threat. "The death of Edelmiro, makes us angry and obliges us to double our efforts in the struggle against these criminal cowards that attack citizens," he said.

But despite calls for national unity to face this challenge, Mexico's politicians keep slinging mud and trading mutual recriminations over who is to blame. Opposition deputies say that Calderon's policy of sending the entire army after cartels has been catastrophic, inflaming turf wars and shoot-outs. Since Calderon took office in December 2006, there have been an incredible 28,000 drug-related killings, it was recently revealed. Calderon has answered back, challenging the opposition to come up with a better idea. (See pictures of Mexico's drug wars.)

When the president called for a dialog with Congress this week to work out a national security plan, key leaders in two major parties snubbed him and said they had other engagements. An irritated Calderon then said that soldiers would stay on the streets until his last day in office in 2012. Politicians could not even manage to unify over the latest tragedy. As National Action Party militants prepared posters lamenting the death of Mayor Cavazos, the opposition accused them of political opportunism. (See pictures of Mexico City's police fighting crime.)

With Mexico's justice system failing to clear up the facts surrounding the the vast majority of killings, it is unclear exactly why politicians are being targeted. Federal agents say that gangsters are desperate after so many drug busts and arrests and are lashing back at the system in the hope the army will be sent back to the barracks. However, the government has also conceded there are cases of corruption with elected officials themselves in cahoots with drug gangs. In May, police arrested former Cancun mayor and gubernatorial candidate Greg Sanchez on racketeering and drug smuggling charges. On Aug. 19, gunmen attacked the judge in charge of Sanchez's case, killing his bodyguard. Calderon responded that Mexico should consider judges with protected identities to handle drug-related cases. Officials have also come under fire for attacking corrupt officers. Following an attack on the Public Safety Secretary of Michoacan this year, an arrested cartel member said she has been targeted for trying to shake up the state police force, threatening officers on their payroll.

There are fears that that many more officials could be in danger. Sen. Ramon Galindo, the former mayor of murder capital Ciudad Juarez, said he knew of dozens of mayors who had received threats. "It is clear that organized crime groups are not only threatening but are also doing great harm to local politicians," Galindo said. Back in Santiago, the fallen mayor's mother Rubinia Leal de Cavazos told reporters that her son had feared attacks. "I told him to watch out for traitors and to leave his job," she said, shielding her tearful eyes with sunglasses. "He never said he was scared. I hugged him and told him I loved him."