eagleseven
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Drug cartels tighten grip; Mexico becoming 'narco-state'
MEXICO CITY - For months, the leaders of Tancitaro had held firm against the drug lords battling for control of this central Mexican town.
Then one morning, after months of threats and violence from the traffickers, they finally surrendered.
Before dawn, gunmen kidnapped the elderly fathers of the town administrator and the secretary of the City Council. Within hours, both officials resigned along with the mayor, the entire seven-member City Council, two department heads, the police chief and all 60 police officers. Tancitaro had fallen to the enemy.
Across Mexico, the continuing ability of traffickers to topple governments like Tancitaro's, intimidate police and keep drug shipments flowing is raising doubts about the Mexican government's 3-year-old, U.S.-backed war on the drug cartels.
Far from eliminating the gangs, the battle has exposed criminal networks more ingrained than most Americans could imagine: Hidden economies that employ up to one-fifth of the people in some Mexican states. Business empires that include holdings as everyday as gyms and a day-care center.
And the death toll continues to mount: Mexico saw 6,587 drug-related murders in 2009, up from 5,207 in 2008 and 2,275 in 2007, according to an unofficial tally by the respected newspaper Reforma.
100,000 foot soldiers in Mexican cartels
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico
The U.S. Defense Department thinks Mexico's two most deadly drug cartels together have fielded more than 100,000 foot soldiers - an army that rivals Mexico's armed forces and threatens to turn the country into a narco-state.
"It's moving to crisis proportions," a senior U.S. defense official told The Washington Times. The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitive nature of his work, said the cartels' "foot soldiers" are on a par with Mexico's army of about 130,000.
The disclosure underlines the enormity of the challenge Mexico and the United States face as they struggle to contain what is increasingly looking like a civil war or an insurgency along the U.S.-Mexico border. In the past year, about 7,000 people have died - more than 1,000 in January alone. The conflict has become increasingly brutal, with victims beheaded and bodies dissolved in vats of acid.
The death toll dwarfs that in Afghanistan, where about 200 fatalities, including 29 U.S. troops, were reported in the first two months of 2009. About 400 people, including 31 U.S. military personnel, died in Iraq during the same period.
The first article is recent, the second article goes further back.
If more people are dying in Mexico than in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there are two hundred-thousand-strong armies fighting for power (100k+ vs 190k), why do we ignore the war going on below our southern border?
Does the US Government seriously believe that a Mexico ruled by drug cartels will not deleteriously affect the United States? Why is nobody talking about this increasingly dangerous situation?
![Mexican-Drug-Cartel-Territories-and-Routes-Map.mediumthumb.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fmappery.com%2Fmaps%2FMexican-Drug-Cartel-Territories-and-Routes-Map.mediumthumb.jpg&hash=b04293b019968b4ab797212d4c6f1326)
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