Mexican Forces Kill Nation's Most-Wanted Cartel Boss
nytimes.com90 points by downboots 21 hours ago
90 points by downboots 21 hours ago
Puerto Vallarta is on fire - seeing tons of videos on my timeline.
How does this usually work - they just set some cars on fire to prove a point and demonstrate they are "doing something" and then just switch to the next boss that comes out of the secession fight ? Or is it more complicated or nuanced ?
Apparently as "retaliation" from the cartel because their boss was killed. Where do you draw the line?
At what point do you decide to go full El Salvador / Bukele on violent cartel members who are willing to put cities on fire when they cannot human and drug traffic at will?
When is enough enough?
> At what point do you decide to go full El Salvador / Bukele on violent cartel members who are willing to put cities on fire when they cannot human and drug traffic at will?
The point for doing that was some time ago. It's like Islamists. They're so sophisticated that it makes more sense for governments to treat them like foreign military threats than domestic police issues. Don't listen to the "human rights" people in developed countries that became safe and stable by doing these exact same tactics hundreds of years ago.
In Bangladesh in 2016, there was a terrorist attack in a cafe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2016_Dhaka_attack. The government then went full Bukele on the Islamists. There hasn't been a significant terrorist attack in the country since then.
Deciding is one thing, carrying out the decision is another. The Mexican government and security forces have been heavily compromised by the cartels for years. Some of the smaller law enforcement actions are a form of "kayfabe". Even if President Sheinbaum gives the order, there may not be enough honest and loyal personnel to carry it out.
Mexico is a failed state. We can argue about who bears responsibility but that is the reality today.
I don't think that's possible in Mexico. There's too much power in the logistical networks that move things into the US. The demand is too great. Even if you kill every drug trafficker and gang member alive today and create huge prosperity the void will be filled by someone and they will be adversarial to the government and they will have to use extra judicial violence to enforce their position.
The cartel's presence in Mexico is extremely muted relative to their power.
Just purely as a hypothetical thought exercise I wonder how infiltrated the US gov is by cartels.
Probably none.
I grew up in Mexico--spending a few years in or near Puerto Vallarta, specifically, funnily enough--and the M.O. of the cartel is overwhelmingly geared towards keeping a VERY low profile. Their whole purpose is to be quiet and subtle.
For every "loud" cartel action in MX, there are twenty that you never see, and then ten that exist as different recyclings and exaggerations and attack ads in the US to (now) perpetuate the current administration's favorite scapegoat, or (then) to prevent people from emigrating from the US.
It's been like that since '07 or so: take a story from Ciudad Juárez or Tamaulipas, then magnify it and convince Americans that the entire country is like that, so that they don't pay attention to the fact that they could get cheaper healthcare, out of pocket, by driving across the border to an equally well-equipped hospital... than they would for the cost of a single ambulance ride in the States... while living in a house that cost 10-100 times more than a house of the same size and quality across the border. All the while, the cartel hums happily along, truly wanting absolutely nothing to do with you.
Fear sells, and fear controls. Just like whatever series of headlines got you wanting to believe that they've infiltrated the American govt. ;)
They’re overdue. Sheinbaum and other administrators probably didn’t act until now because they’re serving at the cartel’s pleasure. Now with America pressuring them, they’ve finally acted. But if they can’t bring the country under control, it’s going to sink the country and its legitimacy. You can’t have criminals burning airports, school buses, and grocery stores (things I saw videos of earlier).
What if the destabilization of Mexico was the goal so that the US could justify military intervention?
Most-Wanted Cartel Boss so far
Honestly probably not even that. Past most-wanteds were probably more querido.
I imagine that if the U.S. assisted in any meaningful way ala the search for Escobar in Columbia we probably would have heard it by now.
From TFA:
The Mexican government said the United States had contributed intelligence that aided the operation against Mr. Oseguera.
The US confirmed they’re involved. They provided intel, and there’s speculation the Mexican Army was also using american weapons.
As long as Mexico shares a border with the US the biggest consumer of such recreational drugs and poverty in Mexico there will always be drug cartels.
It is basically whack-a-mole killing or imprisoning cartel heads - there will be splinter factions and you will just get three just as nasty ones in it's place.
Agreed, it’s a demand-side problem. The profit potential is so great that someone will smuggle drugs into the US, no matter the risk.
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And thousands more will die due to the fully predictable and justified retaliation that follows. This doesn't meaningfully weaken the cartels, but forces them to respond in order to not compromise future safety.
Prioritizing showy executions over actual progress, words that should describe the cartels, not the government.
> justified retaliation
I don’t see how it would be justified. Do you think the cartels are in the right here?
> Do you think the cartels are in the right here?
Of course not, none of the sides are at all in the right here. But from the cartels perspective, they're almost certainly in the right.
Drug cartels are entirely the result of poor policies, and the blame for all the harms caused by them rests primarily on the shoulders of those perpetuating those policies. Surely the politicians that vote for laws that directly enable drug cartels to exist in the first place must be worse than the leaders of any individual drug cartel?
Any kind of serious analysis of who's more right would end up being a work at the scale of Rising Up and Rising Down, that's probably best avoided.
If we oversimplify cartels into innocent businessmen just looking to sell drugs, with governments being the ones that introduced violence into the equation in their effort to stop them? Surely it must be the cartels
If we oversimplify cartels into evil criminals just looking to wield power over other human beings, with governments just trying to liberate people from cartel tyranny? Surely it must be the governments
He probably sees them as marginalised POC bravely feeding their families under the thumb of American imperialism.
Why do you think I see them that way? I mean fuck, the silly European me thought that Mexicans were mostly white. They sure as hell mostly look like Europeans to me.
Is this some weird neo-Nazi trope you subscribe to? It seems akin to the hilarious "Do Italians count as white people?" that people used to troll Stormfront with.
Because it is absolutely ridiculous to absolve the cartels of their crimes. Only the weird American leftists do it.
* Says Mexicans can't be POCs *
* Calls me a neo-nazi *
fantastic
I hope you can find someone to help you with your basic reading comprehension difficulties.
JasonADrury: I mean fuck, the silly European me thought that Mexicans were mostly white. They sure as hell mostly look like Europeans to me.
djohnston: * Says Mexicans can't be POCs *
DJ really overstated it, but yes: you are a silly European. Most Mexicans have a substantial Native American heritage, and aren't considered "white" by most USians. The richer Mexicans you may have encountered traveling to Europe are more upperclass whitebre(a)d, mostly Spanish bloodlines.
djohnston: * Calls me a neo-nazi *
JasonADrury: > Is this some weird neo-Nazi trope you subscribe to?
You are guilty as charged.
DJ's reading comprehension is fine.