Rio
Ten dead in police operations in Rio shantytowns
At least ten people were killed on Wednesday morning during a series of operations carried out by the Rio police in the city’s shantytowns.
The operations aimed at catching the criminals involved in a crime spree which has been devastating Rio’s metro area since last weekend. Multiple incidents occurred in different parts of Rio, with criminals setting cars and buses on fire. […]
The police’s public relations officer, Lieutenant Colonel Lima Castro, told a local TV station that it is possible that two rival criminal gangs have teamed up to carry out the attacks.
According to Castro, local crime lord Nem, who dominates the drug trafficking industry in the city’s largest shantytown, Rocinha, may be the mastermind behind the crime spree.
Brazil police battle Rio de Janeiro gang violence
For three days, suspected gang members have been blocking roads, burning cars and shooting at police stations.
Military police have been deployed in 17 different slum districts.
Rio’s governor says the violence is retaliation by drugs gangs who have been driven out of some areas by a police pacification programme. […]
The authorities are convinced that the attacks are being orchestrated by drugs gangs in retaliation for being forced out of their traditional strongholds in some slum districts by police pacification units.
“Without doubt these attacks are related to the reconquest of territory and the new policy of public security in Rio de Janeiro,” Mr Cabral said.
“We are not going to retreat in this policy. We are going to push forward, pacifying communities and bringing peace to the population.”
Never retreat. Never surrender. No matter how many die and how futile the effort, we will continue to fight the drug war until we achieve peace through death.
Because the alternative, regulating drugs that are already used thereby depriving criminal gangs of their livelihood and saving the lives of the innocent, is unthinkable and not part of our vocabulary.
The DEA has announced they are Banning chemicals that are used to make fake pot. So in essence they have just made fake pot worth more money now. Kids will now be getting busted for it, lives destroyed. Yet big Pharm is still allowed to produce a pill that does the same thing.
YOU PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK ! !
Mark my words, MMJ despenseries WILL be getting raided !!
By prohibiting the drugs they give another product to the black market.
Is the DEA trying to stop the flow of untaxed dollars to the cartels or making sure they get more?
Maybe the cartels and banksters are business partners?
I’m curious, would the deployment of military police on US soil to fight drug gangs violate the Posse Comitatus Act?
You are getting close strayan but shut up.
Agree with your main point. Not sure I’d want warriors with this many scalps regulating people’s free exchange and use of plants, though.
Meanwhile in Mexico:
The survey shows 49 percent of respondents consider the crackdown has failed, compared with just 33 percent who think it has succeeded. Last time the Mitofsky polling agency conducted the same survey, in March, the results were almost the opposite, with 47 percent of those polled considering the drug war a success, while 36 percent thought it a failure.
How long, and how many thousands more killed, will it take the Brazilians to reach the same obvious conclusion?
That the Brazilian drug cartels have been able to shoot down a helicopter tells you a lot about their capabilities. And their nerve.
And…isn’t it interesting that nowadays you don’t hear the DrugWarriors peeing-and-moaning about how they wanted to fight the DrugWar like a ‘real’ war? Now that they are, they are getting their asses whipped.
They thought it would be a cakewalk; in the past they could terrorize most people who weren’t cartel members, and get away with it. Now they’re finding out that the cartels are another matter entirely; they do shoot back. And they rarely miss.
““We are not going to retreat in this policy. We are going to push forward, pacifying communities and bringing peace to the population.â€
War, anyone?
“Pacifying communities”. That has to be one of the most ominous dictatorial word constructs I’ve ever read or heard.
Yes, it is, Kaptinemo.
“And…isn’t it interesting that nowadays you don’t hear the DrugWarriors peeing-and-moaning about how they wanted to fight the DrugWar like a ‘real’ war? Now that they are, they are getting their asses whipped.
They thought it would be a cakewalk; in the past they could terrorize most people who weren’t cartel members, and get away with it. Now they’re finding out that the cartels are another matter entirely; they do shoot back. And they rarely miss.”
The five hundred pound gorilla sitting in the living room has turned into a fully armed, (in a country where the people are not free to keep and bear arms, at that), and murderously dangerous Guerrilla.
Sadly, adding even more blood spatter to the living room.
That living room where we all sit.
Bloody, dangerous Beasts.
Nemo, It doesn’t really take that much to bring down a chopper. A lucky round from a .22 can do it. They’re difficult because they’re hard to hit. We were told to aim for engine intakes and anwhere to the rear of the usually armored passenger cabin, to get the vitals. They don’t fly too good if you upset that stuff. I don’t know ’bout the new birds though,they may be more protected. The BlackHawk was just coming out as the Huey replacement when my term was up.
There are some very natsy, violent places in and around Rio. I don’t want to be the schmuck sent in to clear it out, knowhatImean?
A Reuters page said 30 people are dead in Rio slums armored police battle. A 14 year old girl was caught in the crossfire and killed.
The BBC World Service are now reporting 30 dead, and SKY-News the addition of military forces.
Tanks Roll Into Rio Slum Amid Drug Battles
strayan, why do you think these people are pussy communists? (badda-bump) Did you get that from Sheriff Buelton? (pow)
Hey, did you know that that the drum roll that follows so many comic’s jokes is called a rimshot? It’s also the Trademark for a brand of drumsticks.
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A fair hearing in Tennessee? Why do they put such absurd things into movies? Oh well, James Garner was great as the violent criminal destroying public property and facilitating a prison escape of a dangerous, drug abusing felon.
Whoops I may have just violated COICA by mentioning Reuters. Hopefully they don’t retrofit the law. Posse Comitatus?! We don’t need no stinking Posse Comitatus. Wasn’t that thrown out the window during the Rodney King riots in ’92.
DarkCycle, I know all too well about how to bring down a chopper…particularly Mi-24 ‘Hinds’. Uncle made damn sure of that. Though we had a chance to look at them close-up, thanks to a little , uh, er, ‘technology exchange’ (translation: THEFT) of one that was brought in pieces and rebuilt and stored at a little-known AFB just outside of DC.
But my point was that the cartels have become more brazen, partly because of the escalation of violence on government’s part. It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy: the whole ostensible excuse for paramilitarizing police was the thought that the cartels would would outgun the cops.
But, in reality, it was the paramilitarized cops and the ramped-up DrugWar that led to the cartels gearing up. That was an effect, not a cause.
As a favorite SF novel I read long ago put it, “Think of it as evolution in action.” The cartels evolved due to the evolutionary pressures applied by government…and now government everywhere is facing the monsters they created with prohibition and bellicose application of it.
Bazookas and tactical light anti-aircraft weapons cost money you know. The cartel personnel don’t have the luxury of sticking the taxpayers with the bill.
Know Nothings have a huge problem in their lack of understanding of the path of least resistance. Of course there’s no criminals building machine shops in their basements in order to fabricate ordnance when they can drive to Virginia and come home armed to the teeth. Guns aren’t particularly complicated devices. It wouldn’t be that hard to start manufacturing them underground.
Just found ‘The Tank’ on Vuze. Thanks Duncan!
Duncan, my point has been that the cartels have always had the means of purchasing anything they want, from any source. But their recent challenges of government suzerainty are just that: recent. They could have done so at any time, but didn’t…not until governments ‘turned up the gas’.
The intensely, insanely lucrative nature of the business causes one to rub shoulders with Victor Bout merchant-of-death types, no matter where you go. It’s just that it wasn’t until governments began actually warring on the cartels (the ones that they don’t support, that is; look at Afghanistan and all those poppy fields left unmolested for so long) that the cartels began to arm themselves with more than small arms. And began challenging those governments.
The intelligence services have a term for this: ‘blowback’. Which is something that usually is kept far off and away from our shores and borders, but now is manifesting right on said border with Mexico…and in all the places we presently are fighting. And its’ largely the fault of governments for their lack of sense when it comes to drug prohibition.
“The cartels evolved due to the evolutionary pressures applied by government… and now government everywhere is facing the monsters they created with prohibition and bellicose application of it.”
Unfortunate the g’ments don’t see it this way, or do they? Did these hand full of g’ment officials create this on purpose? Sons of Bbbbbb’s.
Those two questions were an after thought after reading what you wrote kaptinemo. Thanks for the reminder and insight.
It’s high noon at 2200 GMT.