Expansion of Mexican Drug Cartel’s Area of Influence
BY Herschel Smith
13 years, 4 months ago
So do you think that the insurgency in Mexico, and not coincidentally, in the border states of the U.S., is related only to drugs and the war on drugs, rather than to insurgents, warlords and criminals? Think again.
The Salvadoran single mother was hoping to support her children in the United States. Instead, gunmen from the Zeta drug cartel kidnapped her in Mexico and forced her to cook, clean and endure rapes by multiple men.
Now the survivor of this terrifying three-month ordeal is a witness for a growing group of legislators, political leaders and advocates who are calling for action against the trafficking of women in Mexico for sexual exploitation.
As organized crime and globalization have increased, Mexico has become a major destination for sex traffic, as well as a transit point and supplier of victims to the United States. Drug cartels are moving into the trade, preying on immigrant women, sometimes with the complicity of corrupt regional officials, according to diplomats and activists.
“If narcotics traffickers are caught, they go to high-security prisons, but with the trafficking of women, they have found absolute impunity,” said Rosi Orozco, a congresswoman in Mexico and sponsor of a proposed law against human trafficking.
In Mexico, thousands of women and children are forced into sex traffic every year, Orozco said, most of it involving lucrative prostitution rings.
“It is growing because of poverty, because the cartels have gotten involved and because no one tells them no,” said Teresa Ulloa, the regional director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean. “We are fighting so that their lives and their bodies are not merchandise.”
“This is an inferno of sexual exploitation for thousands and thousands of women,” President Felipe Calderon told officials in mid-July after they heard the testimony of a young survivor. “With this new law, we will all be obliged to act, and no authority can say it’s not my responsibility or turn a blind eye to the terrible crime of human trafficking.”
More laws. The ultimate, always-ready progressive answer to crime and sin. Except it won’t work. Not with warlords who routinely behead their enemies and gun down women and children without so much as a blink.
And do you believe that they aren’t in central, everyman’s-town, U.S.A.? Think again.
Many of the nation’s top lawmen have been in Idaho this week. More than 150 federal and state prosecutors are wrapping up a convention of the National District Attorneys Association in Sun Valley. And while the DAs heard from a number of speakers this week, a bit of a bombshell was dropped in an address from El Paso District Attorney Jaime Esparaza.
In today’s Idaho Mountain Express, officials are quoted as saying that one of the most dangerous gangs in the Western world has made its way to Idaho. The so-called Barrio Azteca, which works with Mexican drug cartels primarily at the U.S.-Mexico border, is now present in Idaho, according to Esparaza.
And in spite of the legalization of Marijuana in California and other states, cartel business is booming. That’s because this isn’t about the legalization of drugs. That’s a tangential issue, and you can take whatever position you wish on that. This is about warlord-ism South of the border, and it will ultimately affect every man, woman and child in the U.S. No amount of silly gun tracking programs will end the insurgency.
On August 9, 2011 at 5:25 pm, T2 said:
Mr. Herschel Smith,
Sir, thanks for continuing to raise this issue on our southern border. The danger is a real lack of justice and is linked with greed on both sides of this border. The ties to US banking and Wall Street’s share in laundering money is no tall tale. This greed leads good men having to make deals with the devil.
U.S. federal agents allegedly cut a deal with the Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed it to traffic tons of narcotics across the border, in exchange for information about rival cartels….
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/05/americas-third-wardid-us-cut-deal-with-sinaloa-cartel/#ixzz1UZYioZNo
Over 300 people have died during the month of July (2011) across the border from El Paso, with over 40,000 dead in Mexico in the past six years. We have heard this news before:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/05/americas-third-wardid-us-cut-deal-with-sinaloa-cartel/
The war on drugs is a complete failure, yet the activities alleged above are totally believable based upon our past methods of fighting crime. Recall the John Connolly (FBI) and the Whitey Bulger story.
On August 9, 2011 at 8:25 pm, TS Alfabet said:
It is simply incredible to consider all the crap that is going on in this country today. It really is almost too much to bear. At times, I confess, I just want to shut down the internet, turn off the TV and radio and try to pretend like this place is not coming apart at the seams.
It really is reaching a point of overload. Where do you even begin to start? Everything seems to have apocalyptic dimensions nowadays: the National Debt, the U.S. bond rating, the wilting economy, a soon-to-be nuclear Iran in the midst of a Middle East that is tilting toward Islamist hegemony, FBI-DEA-BATFE involved in clear illegality, race-based rampages in Milwaukee, Chicago and Philly, Defense cuts, failing strategy in Afghanistan— failing foreign policy everywhere in the world that matters…
It is almost surreal. LIke the old fairy tale about the Boy Who Cried Wolf, but this time it’s turned upside down. In the modern version of the fairy tale, the Boy cries wolf, but there really ARE wolves out there, lots of them, all over the place. The problem is that in our modern tale, NO ONE CARES. We are all starting to get used to having lots of wolves around, all the time. “Huh, another wolf? Big deal. Tell me when the wolves have bitten off my leg, then I’ll pay attention.” It is almost *that* bizarre.