The (Ever-Expanding) War Next Door

With reports like this --

"In Small-Town USA, Business as Usual for Mexican Cartels" (CNN)

Wilmington, North Carolina -- Less than a mile off a county road in Ivanhoe near the Black River, federal drug agents and local authorities found exactly what their informant had promised.

"We saw what looked like, as far as you could see, marijuana plants," said Drug Enforcement Administration agent Michael Franklin.

There were about 2,400 in all, surrounded by a makeshift camp where the growers had illegally squatted on private property, setting up a generator and pump to tap the river for irrigation. The camp, which had been recently inhabited, contained a tarp shelter, canned fuel, drinking water, toiletries and old clothing, some of it camouflage.

Authorities staked out the "grow" for two days waiting for the marijuana farmers to return. They didn't. It was just as well, Franklin said.

"The people we were really focusing on were not the guys tending the field. The guys bankrolling the field were the target," he said.

Those guys, according to the DEA's source, were members of La Familia Michoacana, a Mexican drug cartel that the Justice Department says focuses primarily on moving heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine into the southeastern and southwestern United States.

Because the investigation into the June 2009 seizure is still ongoing, the DEA would not divulge further details. But Franklin said the case is one in a growing list of cartel-linked busts he is seeing in largely rural southeastern North Carolina. The area's Latino population has grown considerably in the past 20 years, and authorities say cartel operatives use Latino communities as cover.

"While the majority of (Latino residents in the area) are hardworking people like anyone else, it's an opportunity for the cartels to have their foot soldiers do their thing, too," Franklin said. Based in Wilmington, he is resident agent in charge of 14 counties.

News of cartel machinations are common in cities near the border, such as Phoenix, and the far-flung drug hubs of New York, Chicago or Atlanta, but smaller towns bring business, too. In unsuspecting suburbs and rural areas, police are increasingly finding drugs, guns and money they can trace back to Mexican drug organizations.

The numbers could rise in coming years. The Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center estimates Mexican cartels control distribution of most of the methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana coming into the country, and they're increasingly producing the drugs themselves.

In 2009 and 2010, the center reported, cartels operated in 1,286 U.S. cities, more than five times the number reported in 2008. The center named only 50 cities in 2006. --

I wonder how long it will be before the reds on the bottom of this map start bleeding (no pun intended) into the top:

(Image: "Mexican Drug War: Waves of Violence," The Economist)

Comments

[stevefraser]

Now it's too late to stop the invasion of our Republic by Mexico...Come to California to see how successfull its been....at least we can legalize drugs to take the teeth out of the Mexican/USA narcotrafficantes.

[Bill Mcdonald]

The corruption of law enforcement on this side of the border has already begun. How soon before judges and prosecutors are targeted first for a little help, then for assassination.

Add budget cutbacks to the mix and a sense of entitlement by some in the law enforcement industrial complex and the worst abuses down south may very well "bleed into the north."

You think a bailiff about to go due to budget cuts won't think twice about looking the other way, when he gets a couple years salary in cash slipped to him in an envelope?

The emphasis on a military solution isn't working too well south of the border and I don't think it will do any better up here. Just more death spread to more innocent bystanders, everyone profiting but the average citizen getting scared to death or worse, killed, just a pawn in the never ending struggle at the top.

[Walter Wit Man]

Racist bullshit.

Americans have been smoking pot for a long time. They can grow it without Mexican gangs.

This is American fascists trying to scare Americans about Mexicans. Sure, the illegal drug trade is bad because it creates violence. But this isn't unique to Mexican or latinos in America.

Racist bullshit.

We need to legalize pot rather than scare-mongering Americans about latinos.

Let's put all the white kids in prison for smoking dope then, eh? You want that? Let's put all the rich white boys in prison. There's something like 40% of our population that has tried it and you want to blame Mexicans.

Fucking racist bullshit.

[Walter Wit Man]

You can't trust the DEA for information. They are drug dealers themselves and U.S. policy has fostered the narco-criminal state!

When they claim there is a problem and they need more money and power one must be very wary. We live in the biggest police state in the world. Probably the biggest the world has ever known. We imprison more people per capita than any other country. In a racist and classist way.

The DEA wants violence. They want more money. They want this scare-mongering.

Instead of doing the fascist DEA dirty work for them by scare-mongering about latinos how about you draw attention to the fascist American state. How much money do we spend on these DEA agents?

[roger]

It takes two to tango, no demand = no supllyer.
From the prohibition,we have learned nothing.
Take the profit out of drugs,cartels will disapear.

[Binko Barnes]

Sure, there's a massive flow of drugs from Mexico to the US. Sure, the traffic in drugs is controlled by brutal Mexican cartels. Sure, their influence in America is growing.

BUT, that does not lead to the conclusion that the solution lies in more police, more militarization of the border, more oppression, more WAR on drugs.

At some point the American people have to stand up and demand solution that involve LESS government intrusion and policing rather than more. But the sheeple of America are driven by fear and fear alone it seems. So that's not likely to happen anytime soon.

It sure would be nice if Mexico could throw off the American yoke for a moment and just legalize drugs. That might set some changes in motion.