US Aids Mexico’s Drug Cartels

Systemic corruption due to drug war activity south of the border keeps the drug cartel fires lit and the acid vats ready for intrepid journalists who expose secrets that might derail the intricate and exploitative system perpetuating America’s drug hysteria, one that includes a quid pro quo system resembling an ad hoc business co-op with Mexico. Other than greater death tolls and profits, little has changed in the US-Mexico drug war since John Gibler provided a few gritty details in his 2011 book, To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War:

Who would believe…that the warden of a state prison would let convicted killers out at night and loan them official vehicles, automatic assault rifles, and bulletproof vests, so that they could gun down scores of innocent people in a neighboring state and then quickly hop back over the state line and into prison, behind bars, a perfect alibi? …Prison director Margarita Rojas Rodríguez…left instructions for the prisoners to be allowed back inside without a fuss. [Kindle pp. 7-8]

…impunity cannot hold without silence. Hence Mexico has become the most dangerous country in the hemisphere for journalists…whose labor requires voice…How many of those murder cases have been solved? Not one. How many of the disappeared journalists have been located? Not one. [Kindle pp. 19-20]

THIS IS WHAT THEY DO NOT WANT YOU TO SAY: The Mexican army and federal police have administered drug trafficking for decades. Drug money fills the vaults of Mexico’s banks, enters the national economy at every level, and, with traffickers’ annual profits estimated at between $30 billion and $60 billion a year, rivals oil as the largest single source of cash revenue in the country. (And Mexico is not the only place where this is so.)…The federal police forces are the main recruitment center for mid-level drug-trafficking operators. The army and the state police are the main recruitment centers for the enforcers, the paramilitary units in charge of assassinations, and the armed protection of drugs and mid- and high-level operators…people working for the various illegal narcotics businesses have directly infiltrated more than half of the municipal police forces in the country. During the seventy-one-year reign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party…the Mexican army controlled the division of territory for drug production and trafficking routes, allocating sub-divisions to local franchises, colloquially called cartels. A given territory under a cartel’s control is known as a plaza. […]

High-level federal officials in United States government know all of this and go along with the theatrics, because, among other reasons, the U.S. economy is also buoyed by the influx of drug money. The defense industries profit handsomely from arms sales to armies, police, and the drug gangs themselves; the police are addicted to asset forfeiture laws; prison guard unions are addicted to budget increases; and the criminalization of drugs has proven a durable excuse to lock people of color in prison in a country still shackled by racism. [Kindle pp. 24-26]

…when approving or covering U.S. aid to the Mexican federal government, such as the $1.4 billion Mérida Initiative. U.S. officials and the press routinely neglect to mention that the Mexican army and federal police very often are drug traffickers… [It is] estimated that the drug organizations’ control over human trafficking along the border brings them another $3 billion a year…The report calculates that drug gangs participated in 30 percent of the recent kidnappings while soldiers and police made up 22 percent of the nation’s kidnappers. [Kindle p. 30, 35]

U.S. intervention in Mexico is simultaneously a grounded historical fear-and-loathing in the population…the insistence of U.S. politicians on an ideological commitment to prohibition that seeks to veil prohibition’s use for social control…Essentially prohibition has been a technique of informal American cultural colonisation.” [Kindle p. 42, 43, 53-54]

Journalists and researchers penetrating the drug war netherworld might want to do a bit of homework first. In Mexico and across the world it’s been a record year for murders of journalists. Anthropologist Jeremy Slack’s recent book, Deported to Death, Appendix, “A Note on Researching in Violent Environments,” provides some useful survival tips.

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8 Responses to US Aids Mexico’s Drug Cartels

  1. darkcycle says:

    Thanks for this one, Servetus. Serves as a reminder why the “war on (some) drugs” is so damned durable.

  2. tsisageya says:

    US Aids Mexico’s Drug Cartels

    #1. Duh
    #2. Afghanistan
    #3. Hint: U.S. and Israel
    #4. $$$

  3. NorCalNative says:

    Truth-seeking, and especially practicing journalism within Narco States is a fast-track pathway to exiting the gene pool.

    Dead is the ultimate form of censorship.

    Looking at ideolgical pillars-of-support, how big of a role does the Catholic church play in supporting impunity and the body count of the drug war?

    • Servetus says:

      None. The Catholic Church’s Frankenstein monster (aka drug war) is out of control.

      Imagine, if you will, a cartel member putting a 9mm pistol to the head of a priest, and saying if you don’t close your migrant center at 8:30 PM, I’ll kill you. What does the priest do? He closes the migrant center at 8:30 PM, right?

  4. DdC says:

    “Marihuana leads to pacifism
    and communist brainwashing.”
    ~ Harry J. Anslinger

    ☛ Two of Rudy Giuliani’s Cronies
    Just Got Nailed for Illegally Buying Political Access
    — and Lying About It

    ☛ Former Rep. Pete Sessions
    met with indicted Guiliani associates,
    accepted donations
    thread

    Karma…

    ☛ This Man Is The Reason Congress
    Can’t Vote On Marijuana Anymore
    2018
    https://t.co/rZKWQ9n7HF?amp=1
    The full U.S. House of Representatives hasn’t voted on any marijuana amendments since 2016, and it’s largely because of one man. In his capacity as chairman of the House Rules Committee, Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX)

    ☛ Cannabis Legislation’s Biggest Enemy
    Sessions, Wants To Return To Congress

    https://t.co/xvfSQx6Cv4?amp=1

    A former GOP congressman who consistently blocked marijuana reform efforts for years before losing a reelection battle in 2018 is running for Congress again, this time in a more conservative Texas district.

    ☛ Where Does Pete Sessions Fit Into The Indictment Of Rudy’s Cronies?

    Former Rep. Pete Sessions’ (R-TX) hopes for returning to the House just got a little more complicated Thursday.

    Sessions, who lost his suburban Dallas seat in 2018, was mentioned – though not by name – multiple times in the four-count indictment of two associates of Rudy Giuliani for allegedly violating campaign finance laws.

    • DdC says:

      The pot thinkins…
      Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman plus businessmen David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin, allegedly funneled money from an unnamed foreign national to candidates for political office in Nevada who could change state laws about recreational marijuana licensing. The group intended to set up a recreational marijuana business and wanted to change licensing laws in multiple states to build the weed empire.

      Indicted Ukrainians sought Nevada cannabis licenses in all the wrong ways

      Two Ukrainian associates of Rudy Giuliani were arrested on Wednesday night and charged with funneling foreign money into US elections, an illegal activity. The headlines have been dominated by the pair’s alleged donations to a pro-Trump super PAC last year, but there’s another charge hidden in the indictment that has left some in the cannabis industry—and many in the state of Nevada—scratching their heads.

      The Sleazy Marijuana Plot Buried In The Explosive Indictment Of Giuliani’s Associates

  5. strayan says:

    The lame argument against cocaine use that refuses to die:

    Recreational drug use isn’t just a personal risk, it is contributing to the destruction of our planet. ‘Narco-deforestation’ is devastating – throughout Central America, drug traffickers cut down rainforests to cultivate coca plants (which is used to make cocaine). https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/12/you-cant-call-yourself-a-climate-change-activist-if-youre-doing-coke-10896413/

    • duh! says:

      Just like cannabis growers are using up all the water in California… I think the rain forest is in bigger trouble than the “narco- deforesters” could ever manage.

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