Small War in Mexico: 2002-2015 (closed)

[Jedburgh]

Statistics can be spun for whatever purpose the user wishes. In this case, no matter which side you wish to turn the numbers towards, in the end we still have a serious problem. A LOT of firearms are making their way from the U.S. to MX and getting in the hands of DTO gunslingers. U.S. POOs for these weapons range from gun stores to pawn shops to gun shows and a lot of gray and black areas in-between. Obtaining and transporting these weapons involves a noxious collaborative mix of street gangs, prison gangs and OMGs working to supply the MX DTOs. This is a wide-spread problem in TX, with a lesser - but still serious - impact in AZ, CA and NV.

So just throw out the damn percentage metrics. What really matters is the cold, hard fact that there is a substantial cross-border weapons trade going on that not only provides the MX DTOs with a substantial number of weapons, but the cash flows coming the other way for purchase/transport costs are also strengthening domestic street gangs, prison gangs and OMGs in the affected areas and beyond. That ain't a good thing no matter how you spin it.

[Tom Odom]

Statistics can be spun for whatever purpose the user wishes. In this case, no matter which side you wish to turn the numbers towards, in the end we still have a serious problem.

I would agree that we do have a problem. The same one we have had before the current drug gang wars erupted along the borders, namely an unsecure border.

None of what is currently under discussion in relation to the weapons issue relates to that base line border issue. It is illegal to cross the border without proper permission regardless of direction. The legal penalties are, however, largely unenforced if you are headed north. Since the emergence of the Mexican drug gangs as a direct challenge to cvil and military authority, legal control on the Mexican side of people, material, and money moving south has become equally problematic.

So just throw out the damn percentage metrics. What really matters is the cold, hard fact that there is a substantial cross-border weapons trade going on that not only provides the MX DTOs with a substantial number of weapons, but the cash flows coming the other way for purchase/transport costs are also strengthening domestic street gangs, prison gangs and OMGs in the affected areas and beyond. That ain't a good thing no matter how you spin it,

Here I will disagree on throwing out the metrics because the metrics are an issue when they are used for non-related purposes. Four times as many weapons --much of it military grade--enters Mexico from other areas. So if we are going to highlight the weapons issue, we need to see where most are coming from.

That does not mean we do not have an issue along the border. Rather I would suggest again that we need to highlight the base issue--border security--and work out from that versus taking the arms smuggling and trying to work backwards.

Tom

[AdamG]

Ollie North's buddy Arif Ali Durrani, who previously was pinched for selling missile parts to Iran from the US, was busted in 2005 exporting jet parts to Iran out the back of his restaurant in Tijuana.

Zeayadali Malhamdary was busted the same year for smuggling Iranians into the US via Mexico. Wonder what they were up to.
http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news...muggle-CR.html

And what was the point of Ahmadinejad's excellent Nicaraguan vacation two years later?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6261721.stm
http://www.reuters.com/article/world...39469120070802

I'll leave the articulation to this reporter - The only question is whether, in the event of war, Iran could deploy its Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guard agents to hit American interests or allies in South America. It's been done before, under the cover of Iran's embassies, to Jewish targets in Argentina, Americans in Iraq, and perceived enemies elsewhere around the world.
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iranian...caragua/70934/

[AdamG]

I would agree that we do have a problem. The same one we have had before the current drug gang wars erupted along the borders, namely an unsecure border. .

Exactly. If the secondary source of arms is misidentified as the primary source, then nothing can be done to effectively interdict the real flow of weaponry and the problem will persist.

That does not mean we do not have an issue along the border. Rather I would suggest again that we need to highlight the base issue--border security--and work out from that versus taking the arms smuggling and trying to work backwards.

An effective border control would solve both the north and south bound problems. Jump Start was good but could have been better:
http://www.groundreport.com/Opinion/...Been-Effective
As effective as the Guard has been, however, some feel it could have been more effective. The late U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA), the driving force behind the OJS program, had recommended in 2005, after studying the Border problem, that 36,000 troops, or 18 personnel per mile, would create an impenetrable border. He had researched and published this number in his 2005 report to the House Immigration Reform Caucus, “Results and Implications of the Minuteman Project.”

[jmm99]

Here we have "Results and Implications of the Minuteman Project" by the late Charlie Norword (bio; attached to the Herd) - a quick 30-page read.

Its Executive Summary:

The Minutemen Project demonstrated that with realistic and immediate manpower increases illegal immigration on America’s southern border would be dramatically reduced if not virtually eliminated compared to current levels of illegal crossings.

Approximately 900 volunteers participated in the Project over the 30-day period. An estimated 125-450 volunteers were actively involved in the Project at any given time, functioning in a lightly armed constabulary role, without arrest powers.

Volunteers paid their own expenses, received no pay, and were drawn from all regions of the country. Volunteers received approximately two days training before active duty. Many volunteers were former military, while some had previous law enforcement training. Operational organization was military in nature.

Based on field observations, the Project deployed on average 6-20 personnel per border mile, although at an unsustainable tempo, and with conditions that artificially amplified the impact of Project volunteers.

A successful immediate replication of the Minuteman Project would require an average 12 –24 enforcement personnel per mile, or around 36,000 total additional personnel to adequately secure the entire 2,000 mile southern border. An additional 12,000 support personnel may be necessary to provide services over an extended deployment.

Physical injury of volunteers or immigrants, violence, and political border incidents were avoided through the exceptional leadership and prior planning exhibited by Minuteman Project leaders, and the high caliber and total mission dedication of volunteer personnel the organization was able to field for a limited deployment. It is doubtful that these standards could be maintained over time with an unpaid volunteer organizational structure.

Congress and the states could sustain the success of the Minuteman Project with immediate provision of an adequate number of legally authorized auxiliary border enforcement personnel, charged with similar light-armed constabulary duties, and in coordination with the Border Patrol. This could be achieved immediately through a combination of means.

The States, Congress or the President could provide for deployment of the National Guard, and/or Homeland Security Grants for authorized State Defense Forces to assist the Border Patrol at the discretion of their respective Governors. Troops would need to be drawn from multiple states in order not to exhaust the manpower resources of the border states. Congress and the President could also deploy federal forces to the border to relieve state reinforcements, until the Border Patrol can be permanently strengthened.

My two cents worth on this auxiliary force (which amounts to a type of gendarmerie) is that something akin to the National Guard - but focused on a legal system-legal action approach (e.g., Border Patrol) - would be worth a spin. Both borders (north and south) are porous.

In addition, these home-based gendarmerie could be helpful in a Mombai situation - I'm assuming a level of traning and education on a par with the Border Patrol, etc. It would also give a number of folks, who are not pleased with directions to go shopping, something to do.

[carl]

A secure border would be a good thing. But that is not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is there are tens of millions of Americans who are willing to pay oceans of money to buy something they want that our government says they can't have. There is so much money to be made serving the appetite for drugs, that inventive, nervy and violent people are going to find a way to serve it no matter what we do at the border.

The only way to solve the fundamental problem is to radically reduce demand, or legitimize the demand, legalize it. We won't reduce demand because that would inconvenience a lot of upper and middle class people; and we don't want to legalize it because that wouldn't look good. What we will probably do is what we have done for decades, strong arm weaker countries into trying to save us from ourselves and getting a whole lot of Latin American policemen and soldiers killed.

So what does that make us? Feckless is a good word.

Jed: Please don't use the acronyms, I get lost. I was able to figure out "DTO", drug trafficking organization, but ""OMG" lost me. Operational maneuver group?

[Jedburgh]

A secure border would be a good thing. But that is not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is there are tens of millions of Americans who are willing to pay oceans of money to buy something they want that our government says they can't have. There is so much money to be made serving the appetite for drugs, that inventive, nervy and violent people are going to find a way to serve it no matter what we do at the border.

The only way to solve the fundamental problem is to radically reduce demand, or legitimize the demand, legalize it. We won't reduce demand because that would inconvenience a lot of upper and middle class people; and we don't want to legalize it because that wouldn't look good. What we will probably do is what we have done for decades, strong arm weaker countries into trying to save us from ourselves and getting a whole lot of Latin American policemen and soldiers killed.

So what does that make us? Feckless is a good word.

Jed: Please don't use the acronyms, I get lost. I was able to figure out "DTO", drug trafficking organization, but ""OMG" lost me. Operational maneuver group?

Sorry, Carl. OMG = Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. As just one example, there are elements of the TX Hell's Angels involved in the cross-border weapons trade.

I agree with you 100% on the demand issue. But that topic's been extensively discussed on this board.

[AdamG]

It'll be interesting to see if this particular Cartel retaliates for this encounter.

15 gunmen, 1 soldier killed in Mexican shootout
Apr 16 02:17 PM US/Eastern
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

MEXICO CITY (AP) - The Mexican military says 15 gunmen and one soldier were killed in a shootout hours ahead of President Barack Obama's first visit to the country.

Mexico's Defense Department says the shootout happened in a remote, mountainous region in Guerrero state, where the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco is located.

The department says soldiers came under fire from a convoy of gunmen Wednesday while patrolling the drug trafficking area.

Obama is meeting Thursday with President Felipe Calderon to show his support for the Mexican government's fight against cartels. The Defense Department described the shootout Thursday.

[Ron Humphrey]

It'll be interesting to see if this particular Cartel retaliates for this encounter.

(EPR), (EPRI),

Guerrero is one of the Mexican states in which political violence has been a constant
historical feature. Over the last 100 years, people’s lives have been characterised by
extreme violent oppression. “Landless wage laborers as well as ejidatarios and smallholder
peasants have fought against oppression by government and private interests through
formal channels ... But characteristically, the stories of worker organizations and smallscale
landholders ... have been infused with a more violent, subversive, and anarchic
outlashes by the poor. Indeed the word Guerrero means warrior in Spanish” (Wexler,
1995:11). Violence is currently the most serious problem in the state, particularly in the
forest regions “While drugs and killing appear together in occasional media snippets, the
violence in Guerrero pervades everyday life. Armed hold-ups ... occur in the public streets
and more often along rural roads. In one span of 36 months preceding the October 1993
elections, 45 opposition party officials were assassinated in Guerrero” (Wexler, 1995)

Link

or a whole different group

[AdamG]

or a whole different group

A whole different group than who? The 15 dead gangsters weren't identified, by a specific Cartel.

Thanks for the link, interesting reading.

[Ron Humphrey]

A whole different group than who? The 15 dead gangsters weren't identified, by a specific Cartel.

Thanks for the link, interesting reading.

Didn't see any specific references either thus wondering if you might have had the scoop

Anywho- looking at the history in that area could be any of the above, especially if the current environment down there has some cartels taking advantage of the historic issues in order to get bases of operation.

The link is somewhat dated though so more recent info might be beneficial in actually getting clarity on current conditions there.

[AdamG]

Ron,
Will post when something crosses my radar.

From the Reforma Agency, via the Brownsville Herald -

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/art...ns_report.html

Mexico DF-During the administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, the agencies in charge of fighting organized crime have seized 35,943 firearms from the drug cartels, or a yearly average of 15,400 weapons.

This latest figure is five times larger that the yearly average reached during the presidency of Vicente Fox** whose agencies seized 2,500 weapons yearly between 2002 and 2006.

The official report "Mexico-U.S. Arms Trafficking 2009*" states that between Dec. 1, 2006 and March 26, 2009, the Attorney General's Office (PGR), the Federal Police, The Mexican Army and the Mexican Navy also seized 4,772,517 rounds of ammunition and 2,804 grenades.


* Anyone seen the original report, in English or Spanish?

** So, does that mean the good guys south of the border interdicted five times more trafficking or are just five times more proactive than during the previous administration?

[Ken White]

Tastes differ but to me it and the red type are a distraction from your comment...

[bourbon]

Mexico arrests drug hitman behind US kidnap case. Reuters, April 25, 2009.

MEXICO CITY, April 25 (Reuters) - Mexican police have arrested a top drug gang hitman suspected of being involved in the still unsolved December 2008 abduction of U.S. anti-kidnap expert Felix Batista, the government said on Saturday.

German Torres, 29, was arrested in Mexico City on Friday. He is believed to be a founding member of the feared "Zetas" wing of the powerful Gulf cartel that dominates drug smuggling from northeastern Mexico into Texas.

[Jedburgh]

RAND, 27 Apr 09: Security in Mexico: Implications for U.S. Policy Options

Violence in Mexico has spiked over the past four years and is increasingly affecting the United States. In response, both the Mexican government and the U.S. government are searching for ways to improve security in Mexico. This monograph examines the security situation in Mexico and assesses its impact on the United States. In addition, it outlines a number of policy options that the United States can consider in its efforts to assist the Mexican government in improving internal security in Mexico.....

[Hunter Watson]

Law enforcement professional John Sullivan and a colleague have written a "Plazas for Profit" article which appears in the SWC Journal; added link: http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/docs...2-sullivan.pdf . I reproduce my comment on it here in hopes of stimulating conversation on what I think is the ultimate issue:

Hunter Watson :

I thank you for the article on Mexico's war with the cartels along her northern border. It's a penetrating analysis and deserves to be widely read.

As I worked through it I was alert for a discussion of drug policy changes as a line of attack against the cartels. I found only a single comment to the effect that there was no likelihood of such changes in the near future. I wondered how that judgment had been reached.

Mexico represents America's most important foreign relationship. We are joined at the hip. To a large extent we are family, something which can not be said of Iraq and Afghanistan---and in the broad sense not even of Israel.

My question is whether the same analytical expertise can be applied to the *political problem* of changing American drug policy with the goal of destroying the demand for the cartels' products. Where is the pressure coming from in the U.S. to throw good money after bad in a failed enterprise? Who are the primary actors? What are the enforcement mechanisms protecting the taboos against discussing changes in policy? Why is it preferable to have drugs *and* drug related crime as opposed to only drugs? Why can't marijuana and cocaine be treated as a health problem? Why is maintenance of this failed method of dealing with the impact of drugs deemed indispensable when it also seems to fail every cost/benefit analysis?

Until we take such a hard look at ourselves I see no hope of ending this crisis. The stability and prosperity of Mexico and other Latin American countries are far more important to us than whether marijuana and cocaine are available legally rather than illegally in the United States.

Hunter Watson
Winter expat living in Mexico

[davidbfpo]

Hunter,

Many of the themes have been discussed before, notably legalisation of drugs, gangs and narco-terrorism. All under various titles and not easy to locate readily.

I like the line that Mexico is far more "family" than other nations; a fact IMHO due to geography and with the immigration of Spanish-speakers demography.

Still hard decisions appear to elude politicians and the public in this sphere. Especially when labelled as a "war", rather than a health problem for example.

davidbfpo

[jmm99]

if youse da same Yooper whose bio includes once upon a time Marine - and once upon a time prosecuting attorney - and who should know a lawyer with the initials JMM. If so, small world indeed.

No need to beware of David - he is a British gentleman. Also a collaborator, as they say, on the War Crimes thread here in Law Enforcement.

Advise if I am on target.

[bourbon]

Welcome Hunter,

Several threads contain discussion on the issues you raise:
How America Lost The War On Drugs
Drugs: The Legalization Debate
Small War in Mexico
General Barry McCaffrey: Mexico Trip Report
The US Army on the Mexican Border

[Hunter Watson]

[QUOTE=jmm99;71038]if youse da same Yooper whose bio includes once upon a time Marine - and once upon a time prosecuting attorney - and who should know a lawyer with the initials JMM. If so, small world indeed.

No need to beware of David - he is a British gentleman. Also a collaborator, as they say, on the War Crimes thread here in Law Enforcement.

Advise if I am on target.

You are, M. It's a pleasure to meet you here, though I won't be be on line much until fall. We leave for our off-the-grid camp on Tuesday---by way of Nuevo Laredo.

I'll be interested in the war crimes thread. Thanks for the url.

Best,

H.