America is locking up the biggest share of the world's prisonersEvery year at U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes' border security conference in El Paso, participants see a slide show put on by ICE officials.
Every year the pictures get more violent and starkly
indicative of near-civil war conditions on the other side of the border.
This year, according to a newsman who heads his own border news service, the pictures shown of the narco war in Tamaulipas State near Matamoros and Reynosa resembled more a mideastern war zone than Mexico.
Rivals interrogated a cartel member prior to his
decapitation.
A convoy of 50 vehicles with the CDG logo of the Gulf cartel passed through a highway toll booth without slowing down.
A squad of gunmen with both a grenade launcher and a rocket
launcher attacked the town of Camargo.
The lifeless body of 2010 candidate for Governor Rodolfo
Torre lay on the ground next to some of his unfortunate
companions.
The development that took the most attention from the group
was a banner that beseeched citizens who see any Zetas to
text or call a special hotline set up by Cartel de Golfo.
They are fighting the Mexican ex-Special Forces members for
the exclusive rights to smuggling drugs across the border in
the area.
The same is true in Ciudad Juarez, where the same type of
warfare is taking place between the Zetas and the Sinaloa
Cartel.
According to the best figures tabulated by a university
researcher, there were 47 people gunned down on the Juarez
side of the border during the weekend conference - August 13
to Sunday, August 15. By the next morning, the news
websites Lapolaka and El Diario had reported at least eight
more victims murdered in Juarez.
Over the past 4 years following a crackdown ordered by
President Felipe Calderon, the security budget has more than
doubled from about $5 million per year to $10 million.
According to Alejandro Hope, director of international
affairs for CISEN, Mexico's counterpart to the CIA, four
large drug cartels have been splintered into numerous
smaller ones.
Authorities have seized 84,049 weapons, 6,000 grenades and
$411 million of cash.
The cost is high. More than 28,000 people have been cut
down in the resulting drug-related violence.
But the results were countered by U.S. Amabassador to Mexico
Carlos Pascual. He told conferees that the U.S. estimate of
drug profits is a total of $19 to $29 billion in laundered
funds each year, counting the funds stacked up on both sides
of the border.
Less than $800 million is estimated to have come from drug
sales inside Mexico. America is the end market for the
massive carnage and loss of life.
One of the Mexican scribes writing about the problem
provided food for thought in print.
He wrote an extensive opinion piece that places the blame
squarely on American officials.
Such a market cannot exist, according toFrancisco Martin
Moreno, a columnist for the Mexico City daily, "Excelsior,"
unless there is an extensive culture of corruption among the
American law enforcement communities, intelligence officers,
judges,prosecutors and legislators, he said.
What's more, the press never carries the names of big time
dope king pins on the U.S. side of the border.
His main question was this. Can you name one, just one
American king pin in the trade that results in profits of
tens of billions of dollars per year?
The answer is no. That means the media is bought off, the
officials thoroughly bribed, and it leaves people with
ordinary lives with the perception that the problem exists
solely in Mexico, that there is no drug problem in America.
Meanwhile, the jails and penitentiaries are chock full of
drug offenders. Ameria has incarcerated the highest per
capita rate of offenders of any nation in the world, bar
none. At year end 2008, 2,424,279 people were behind bars,
62.6 percent of them in federal and state penitentiaries and
the remaining 32.4 % in local jails. That represents an
imprisoned rate of 506 persons per 100,000 in population.
This compares with a worlwide population of incarcerated
invdividuals of 9.25 million. Almost half are in the U.S.,
which accounts for only 4.5% of the world population.
Selling dope to people and locking them up is a huge growth
industry. "The Atlantic" magazine called it "The Prison-
Industrial Complex" in a December, 1998 article.
How to win the game?
Don't use drugs. Simple enough, no?
Looks like many Americans find it a hard thing to do. The
powerful people in the U.S. make a big share of the profits
off their resulting misery, as shown by the numbers.
What's more, the press never carries the names of big time
dope king pins on the U.S. side of the border.
His main question was this. Can you name one, just one
American king pin in the trade that results in profits of
tens of billions of dollars per year?
The answer is no. That means the media is bought off, the
officials thoroughly bribed, and it leaves people with
ordinary lives with the perception that the problem exists
solely in Mexico, that there is no drug problem in America.
Meanwhile, the jails and penitentiaries are chock full of
drug offenders. Ameria has incarcerated the highest per
capita rate of offenders of any nation in the world, bar
none. At year end 2008, 2,424,279 people were behind bars,
62.6 percent of them in federal and state penitentiaries and
the remaining 32.4 % in local jails. That represents an
imprisoned rate of 506 persons per 100,000 in population.
This compares with a worlwide population of incarcerated
invdividuals of 9.25 million. Almost half are in the U.S.,
which accounts for only 4.5% of the world population.
Selling dope to people and locking them up is a huge growth
industry. "The Atlantic" magazine called it "The Prison-
Industrial Complex" in a December, 1998 article.
How to win the game?
Don't use drugs. Simple enough, no?
Looks like many Americans find it a hard thing to do. The
powerful people in the U.S. make a big share of the profits
off their resulting misery, as shown by the numbers.
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