Small War in Mexico: 2002-2015 (closed)

[AdamG]

NuevoLaredo Cartel Gun Battle 7-16-2010
Warning : graphic
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35201752/N...attle7-16-2010

[slapout9]

If you want to get scared forget Halloween, read this about the Mexican border and Hezbollah and Hugo Chavez and every other thug that hates us.




http://www.house.gov/mccaul/pdf/Inve...der-Report.pdf

[SWJED]

A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border - excerpt from the Executive Summary and Findings:

... Mexican drug cartels operating along the Southwest border are more sophisticated and dangerous than any other organized criminal enterprise. The Mexican cartels, and the smuggling rings and gangs they leverage, wield substantial control over the routes into the United States and pose substantial challenges to U.S. law enforcement to secure the Southwest border. The cartels operate along the border with military grade weapons, technology and intelligence and their own respective paramilitary enforcers.

In addition, human smugglers coordinate with the drug cartels, paying a fee to use the cartels’ safe smuggling routes into the Unites States. There are also indications the cartels may be moving to diversify their criminal enterprises to include the increasingly lucrative human smuggling trade.

Moreover, U.S. law enforcement has established that there is increasing coordination between Mexican drug cartels, human smuggling networks and U.S.-based gangs. The\ cartels use street and prison gangs located in the United States as their distribution networks. In the United States, the gang members operate as surrogates and enforcers for the cartels.

Murders and kidnappings on the both sides of the border have significantly increased in recent years. The violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has increased so dramatically, the United States Ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, during the last year, has issued an unprecedented number of diplomatic notes to the Mexican Government and threat advisories to U.S. citizens traveling to Mexico. During August 2005, the Ambassador closed the U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo for one week in order to assess security.

This new generation of sophisticated and violent cartels, along the Southwest border, is presenting significant challenges to U.S. law enforcement. These criminal syndicates have unlimited money to buy the most advanced weapons and technology available. The cartels monitor the movements and communications of law enforcement and use that intelligence to enable the criminals to transport their cargo accordingly.

In addition to the criminal activities and violence of the cartels on our Southwest border, there is an ever-present threat of terrorist infiltration over the Southwest border. Data indicates that there are hundreds of illegal aliens apprehended entering the United States each year who are from countries known to support and sponsor terrorism...

[carl]

I think the statement "The Next Small War Has Begun" maybe overstating the case a bit. We here in the United States face a law enforcement problem, one that is not unprecedented in our history or on the border. That problem is managable as attested to in the reports description of programs that drastically reduced crime along some border areas.

Mexico may have an incipient small war on their hands as it seems some of the drug cartels are getting confident enough to challenge the central government.

The wave of illegal immigration is mostly caused by disparity in the economies of Mexico and the United States; labor is moving from where it isn't needed and rewarded to where it is. The report barely notes this and offers no suggestion as to how to accomodate a migration that can't really be stopped.

The other component of the problem is drugs. People want them and will pay, a lot, to get them. That money finances small wars in South America and Asia. I would like to see a discussion about how the legalization of drugs, at least some of them, would affect some of these conflicts.

My opinion is we can't stop the importation of drugs, so we may as well tax and regulate them. We can't do that unless we can see them and we won't see them unless we make them legal.

As an aside, a vetern officer told me once that the difference between police work and the military was that when you do police work, if you are lucky and you get it right, everyone goes home at night. Some might have a new home, but everybody goes home. I've always found that helpful.

[Jedburgh]

ISN, 7 Nov 06: Illegal Migration and Mexico’s Maras

As Americans vote in mid-term elections on 7 November, immigration and border security will be two important issues. Yet from the Mexican point of view, heavy pressure from Washington to curb violence and stop illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border has strained relations and taken much needed resources from Mexico’s southern border between Guatemala and the Mexican state of Chiapas. The city of Tapachula, the second most populated urban center in Chiapas, is at the center of a clandestine world of illegal migration, human smuggling and prostitution.

Mexican authorities in 2005 reported that at least 3,000 members of Central American street gangs, known locally as “maras” or “pandilleros,” prey on illegal migrants passing through the state. Since then, the numbers of maras have grown. A hurricane that ripped apart the infrastructure in early October 2005 removed important transport lines, such as the Tapachula-Salina Cruz train, forcing immigrants to walk and making them much more vulnerable.

The Mexican state of Chiapas has long been a problematic area for smuggling, passing from Central America to Mexico. Yet like many of Mexico’s other states that suffer from the drug trade and immigration patterns, police corruption, limited resources, and perhaps most of all, political pressure focused on the north has maintained a status quo where thugs steal from poor immigrants and cops do little to stop them...

[selil]

Pulled from Blackwater Tactical today....

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...8LAL8V01.shtml

(AP) U.S. Border Patrol agents chasing suspected drug traffickers on the Texas border allegedly crossed into Mexico and had a brief standoff with Mexican police before peacefully returning, Mexican authorities said Friday.

Jose Luis Delgado, a police officer in Guadalupe, about 25 miles southeast El Paso, Texas _ said he and two colleagues encountered some U.S. Border Patrol agents on Mexican territory.

He said the Mexican police responded Thursday with guns drawn to a report that a marijuana-laden pickup truck had been abandoned in the Rio Grande.

"When we arrived (the U.S. officials) drew their weapons," Delgado said.

Delgado said he identified himself as a police officer and that the American agents returned to their side of the border without further problems.

More at the link.......

[slapout9]

selil,thanks for posting this. I had a friend tell me about this but I had not read anything about it until now. This is not the first time this has happened and won't be the last. Other incidents have been a lot worse than this but the MSM never seemed to care until it became a hot issue.

[Bill Moore]

The situation on the border has been serious for years, so to define it as the next small war is probably a bit of a reach; however, the fact that persons of interest are using Mexican cartels to smuggle them across our borders, then link them into a trans-state, trans regional gang network for support is obviously cause for concern. We can call it a law enforcement problem on our side of the border, but law enforcement on Mexico's side of the border is notably inept, and since it poses a security threat to our national interests on many levels (narcotics, human smuggling, weapons smuggling, support of gangs, potential support of terrorists if they pay enough, etc.) then maybe asking the military, or other agencies to start addressing the problem across the border is not out of the question. What was once a relatively harmless (despite the political mileage some politicians got from it) of illegal aliens crossing the border at will to work low paying jobs, is now much more significant.

[slapout9]

Bill, it is not just Mexico helping persons of interest, Cuba, and Hugo (professional devil smeller) Chavez have been involved. About two or three weeks ago Lou Dobbs of CNN did a special about the border, the Mexican government actually produces a pamphlet on how to cross the border and make trouble for the gringos, they are considered hero's in Mexico and should do all they can to ripp off the gringo economy. When a legitimate government does that I would say that qualifies as a phase 1 insurgency (latent and subversive).

Also some of the Latino gangs"MS13" in particular are not just drug gangs but are actually revolutionary terrorist gangs. Now I am not saying we should redeploy the 1ST Cav along the border , but border patrol and national guard units could make a big dent is this problem. Two governors along the border have already said they are in a state of emergency over this.


So I say instead of waiting to the last minute like the US usually does, lets control our borders like we should have been doing all along.

Later, Viva Las Vegas!

[Bill Moore]

Slapout, what ya saying, dig into a defensive position and hope for the best? We can't afford deploying that type of man power for an extended period of time, nor will a static defense work. Assumng that what you posted is factual (I like Lou, but where are the supporting facts?), then we need to conduct cross border operations to target the facilitators (cartels, and others). Furthermore, if it is true that the recognized government (instead of some shadow government) published a how to paper on how to cross the border, and then prompted the illegals to rip off the gringos, then we're in a state of conflict. This is well beyond the capability of law enforcement to manage (they're failing miserably, and it isn't due to lack of effort). Northern Mexico cannot be a safe haven for cross border operations into the U.S.. Right now they're free to sit across the border, watch our police patrols on the border, intercept their communications, and direct their infiltrations between the seams. This isn't strictly a law enforcement problem.

[slapout9]

Hi Bill, It's me again.....

The link below is a transcript of the Lou dobbs special called Broken Borders.
It was a long show but if you read it (1/3 down) you will see where the Mexican Government publishes a book on how to illegally cross the border and encourages it citizens to do this to get money from the US. The book looks like comic book and of course you would have to order the video to see it but it is described in the transcript. You can also read about hand grenades and IED's being used.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...29/ldt.01.html

PS Bill here is a song from Lou Dobbs show called "Goodby Teaxs Hello Mexico"
http://www.texasreddirtmusic.com/slthm.html

[Sergeant T]

Having grown up in San Diego this entire topic is very déjà vu. What was a southern California problem for decades became a “national” problem. One local TV station made a great deal of hay back in the mid 80’s when they showed groups of Mexican kids crossing the border illegally every morning to line up at the bus stop and then get picked up by school busses and taken to American schools.

One of the origins of the problem as it currently exits is our success in tamping down the Colombian cartels. Squeezing sea based supply routes shifted trafficking to overland routes. Where ever drug trafficking and its enormous sums of money go so will a heavy dose of corruption, kidnapping, murder, etc. South Florida’s problems of the 80’s have become south Texas’ problems, writ large. This will take a bigger investment of time and resources to correct.

One quick observation. The corner of ATL where I work and live has a heavy Hispanic immigrant (read: illegal alien) presence. Almost all of the new immigrants we’ve been getting for the past two years have been Guatemalan. The only thing I can read into that is the exportable labor pool in Mexico is shrinking.

[selil]

Seems border hostilities are warming here in CONUS.

http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news...ry0104-CR.html

Guardsmen overrun at the Border

A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.

According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.
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The Border Patrol will not say whether shots were fired. However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident.

The Border Patrol says the incident occurred somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville. The area is known as a drug corridor. Last year, 124-thousand pounds of illegal drugs were confiscated in this area.

The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.

Not much more at the link other than some video talking about this being a probe to see how the guardsman would react.

[Steve Blair]

An interesting BBC piece here about the TJ police.

Local police in the northern Mexican border city of Tijuana have been ordered to hand in their guns.

The move is part of an operation by soldiers and federal police to crack down on drug traffickers.

A short article, but an interesting indicator of how far things have gone "south," if you will. And who's to say that the army isn't interesting in cutting itself in on a nice slice of that narco-money action?

[slapout9]

Theses attacks have been picking up quite about lately. Whenever the Border Patrol want comment on shots fired, you can bet there were! I was trying to find some other articles but I cant remember where I saw them but head chopping is becoming the favorite terrorist tactic down there. Wonder where they learned that?

[Bill Moore]

I recall there was a little disagreement about Slapout's original post suggesting that the conflict on our southern was the next small war, but I think events (not just the ones mentioned here) are indicators that we are in a war of sorts, a 4th or 5th generation type conflict, where gangs have wrested control from the state (in Northern Mexico), and now they are trying to expand their control into border states (it has been going on for years, but we may be a tipping point where they feel they're strong enough to challenge us with force). Regardless of whether organized criminals or insurgents, they pose a serious threat to the security of our citizens, a threat that may be beyond the ability of law enforcement to handle.

Furthermore many gangs throughout the U.S. are becoming more sosphisticated, better networked, and in some instances starting to coalese into sosphisticated mafia like organizations (this makes them both more dangerous and more vulnerable). This is an insurgency, not for control of the government, but to weaken the government's ability to challenge their criminal enterprises. The street punk is now a punk soldier in a private Army motivated by greed and ego.

A lot of these thoughts need to be flushed out further, but I think we may have our head in the sand regarding the threat in our homefront and on our border. If our government can't control these punks based on their network organization, we will expose a soft underbelly that many different threats can exploit.

[Jedburgh]

I recall there was a little disagreement about Slapout's original post suggesting that the conflict on our southern was the next small war, but I think events (not just the ones mentioned here) are indicators that we are in a war of sorts, a 4th or 5th generation type conflict, where gangs have wrested control from the state (in Northern Mexico), and now they are trying to expand their control into border states (it has been going on for years, but we may be a tipping point where they feel they're strong enough to challenge us with force). Regardless of whether organized criminals or insurgents, they pose a serious threat to the security of our citizens, a threat that may be beyond the ability of law enforcement to handle.

Furthermore many gangs throughout the U.S. are becoming more sosphisticated, better networked, and in some instances starting to coalese into sosphisticated mafia like organizations (this makes them both more dangerous and more vulnerable). This is an insurgency, not for control of the government, but to weaken the government's ability to challenge their criminal enterprises. The street punk is now a punk soldier in a private Army motivated by greed and ego.

A lot of these thoughts need to be flushed out further, but I think we may have our head in the sand regarding the threat in our homefront and on our border. If our government can't control these punks based on their network organization, we will expose a soft underbelly that many different threats can exploit.

Bill,

Dr. Max Manwaring has written and lectured a great deal on this very topic - and has worked at fleshing out the generational concepts of street gangs. This aspect of gang theory wasn't his creation - it was really given impetus by John Sullivan of the LA County Sheriff's Dept in the late '90s.

If you haven't read it, I recommend Manwaring's paper Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency, dated March 2005.

...The political-psychological issues of the urban gang phenomenon in the global security environment translate into constant subtle and not-so-subtle struggles for governmental power that dominate life throughout most of the world. This, in turn, leads to the slow but sure destruction of the state, its associated government, and the society. And, again, the basic threat devolves to that of state failure.

This contemporary political war situation is extremely volatile and dangerous and requires careful attention. In these terms, the United States, the other countries of the Western Hemisphere, and the entire global community must understand and cope with the threat imposed by diverse third generation gangs that are engaged in destabilizing and devastating violence, which is more and more often being called “terrorism,” “criminal anarchy,” “narco-terrorism,” or “complex emergency situations.” If the United States concentrates its efforts and resources elsewhere and ignores what is happening in Latin America and the Caribbean, the expansion of gangs, of “lawless areas,” and of general instability, as well as the compromise of effective national sovereignty and security could easily destroy the democracy, free market economies, and prosperity that have been achieved in recent years. In turn, that would profoundly affect the health of the U.S. economy―and U.S. concomitant power to act in the global security arena.

...to link this with what does have the national focus, there was also a student thesis from NPS in late '05 that took a look at the Iraqi insurgency in the context of "gang theory".

[120mm]

I recall there was a little disagreement about Slapout's original post suggesting that the conflict on our southern was the next small war, but I think events (not just the ones mentioned here) are indicators that we are in a war of sorts, a 4th or 5th generation type conflict, where gangs have wrested control from the state (in Northern Mexico), and now they are trying to expand their control into border states (it has been going on for years, but we may be a tipping point where they feel they're strong enough to challenge us with force). Regardless of whether organized criminals or insurgents, they pose a serious threat to the security of our citizens, a threat that may be beyond the ability of law enforcement to handle.

Furthermore many gangs throughout the U.S. are becoming more sosphisticated, better networked, and in some instances starting to coalese into sosphisticated mafia like organizations (this makes them both more dangerous and more vulnerable). This is an insurgency, not for control of the government, but to weaken the government's ability to challenge their criminal enterprises. The street punk is now a punk soldier in a private Army motivated by greed and ego.

A lot of these thoughts need to be flushed out further, but I think we may have our head in the sand regarding the threat in our homefront and on our border. If our government can't control these punks based on their network organization, we will expose a soft underbelly that many different threats can exploit.

Bill, I think the gangs are encouraged by the Mexican governments attitude that they still own the southwestern US, as well. From this keyboard, I have a hard time distinguishing between "criminal gang" and "government" in Mexico.

[slapout9]

120mm, its easy to tell the difference the criminals have newer cars.

[slapout9]

On a more serious side some good Intel on Mexico's gangs and long range plans. Talks about Bolivians protecting drug routes these are land routes protected by boots on the ground, stealing form the people and their mind is on the money! Yes sometimes John Robb finds some good stuff but it ain't new. Can I get an Amen for a surge into Mexico and Central America. Whoop their Ass and take their gas!

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/

For listening pleasure and cultural enhancement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypdmf...elated&search=