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Drug-related/vigilante/(both) violence escalates in Mexico.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  September 29th, 2011 at 01:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Well, I suppose that this was inevitable.

A self-styled drug-trafficking group calling itself the “Zeta Killers” claimed responsibility this week for the recent murders of at least 35 people believed to belong to the Zetas, Mexico’s most violent criminal organization.

The claim by the “Mata Zetas” has stoked fears that Mexico, like Colombia a generation before, may be witnessing the rise of paramilitary drug gangs that seek society’s approval and tacit consent from the government to help society confront its ills, in this case, the Zetas.

(Via AoSHQ Headlines) Before you start cheering, the WSJ article goes on to note that these guys (they call themselves Los Mata Zetas, or “Zeta Killers”) are probably not so much ‘annoyed Mexican citizens taking the law into their own hands’ as they are ‘rival drug gang members using vigilantism as a cover’ – although I suppose that you could be a violent drug gang member and still find the Zetas appalling. Which they are. It’s just that it’s an open question whether these people are any better: while the WSJ did report that the group assassinated 35 people, the AP notes that that total “included 12 women and two minors.” While killing hangers-on of a drug gang may be an effective terrorist tactic, it is nonetheless still a terrorist tactic. And it’s a tactic that suggests that angels – even the Old Testament (read: scary) ones – are thin on the ground in Mexico right now.

Of course, the real question – at least, for ugly Americans – is: if Mata Zetas is from a narco-terrorist cartel, then did we sell that group the guns? And if we did, did we do it deliberately? I have been very, very resistant to the idea that the White House may have decided that the best way to control the worst Mexican narco-terrorists (H/T: Transterrestrial Musings and Confederate Yankee) would be to run guns to the somewhat less-awful Mexican narco-terrorists. I mean, it sounds like a subplot in a Tom Clancy novel. LITERALLY. And I would like to believe that the Obama administration would have thought twice, or three times, or however many times it would have taken to realize that running guns to Mexico without telling the Mexican government is what people call a casus belli, not to mention a damnably* stupid idea. Stories like the above make me wonder.

It’s a heck of a thing when you have to hope that your government is just being run by idiots who can’t be trusted to come in from the rain.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Theological opinion, not profanity.

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COMMENTS

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  • surfcitysocal

    This article makes me want to go run across the border and spend my tourist dollars there right away.

  • lookingforward

    I am an American but I live in Mexico City. People here are angry about Fast and Furious, and even more outraged that from their perspective, the Obama administration is not being held accountable for their criminal actions. Some politicians here have made some noise about it, but overall the Calderon administration is afraid to go after their largest trading partner and main source of income.

  • Aaron Gardner

    At some point the idea of granting asylum to some of our illegal immigrants is going to make sense. Even for the hardest of hardliners.

  • mrmises

    The real question isn’t whether Operation Fast and Furious guns were involved. Guns are guns, and the source of those weapons is less interesting than the fact that cartels are turning our southern neighbor into a narco-military state.

    The real issue is what can be done to stop the violence and return real authority to the Mexican government. A military solution will not succeed. Afghanistan’s thriving opium poppy industry attests to that. Economic solutions will succeed. For Mexico, legalizing drug production would stop the cartel violence and bring the very real and very profitable industry above the board. This will enhance the credibility of Mexico’s elected government and keep its citizens safe. The United States would be wise to adopt a similar solution.

  • izoneguy

    when Bachmann & Santorium start whining about in-state tuition…..

    In-state tuituion is not the magnet that draws illegals across the border.

    It is the part of not wanting to get your head chopped off with a chain-saw
    that makes people flee. Mexico has a civil war on it’s hands. That is what
    we should be focusing on. The human tragedy unfolding in Mexico will overwhelm America.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    I have every sympathy in the world towards the idea of rationalizing our War On Some Drugs policy – at least, when it comes to the softer stuff. But it is in fact an issue that we ended up putting guns into the hands of Mexican narco-terrorists. Don’t just rush past that because you want to argue drug legalization; countries have started wars with less provocation than what we’ve given the Mexicans.

  • mrmises

    I agree. The point I was trying to make is that while the ATF supplying Mexican criminals with guns is abhorrent and an affront to Mexico’s sovereignty, the cartel would have guns regardless. Assuming that Mexico would not risk its relationship with the United States to make a point on principle when there is very little practical effect of the Fast and Furious weapons in Mexico, the issue is how to address the problem. Mexico has not been able to reign in the violence, and apparently the United States is so confounded that supplying the criminals with weapons seemed wise.

    Operation Fast and Furious is an ill-conceived plan that was executed with the competency we have come to expect from the federal government. This merely reinforces what we already know: We need real change at the federal level. We agree that there is a problem, and we ought to explore potential solutions.

  • earlgrey

    administration did, because it doesn’t surprise me.

    I am outraged because the only people talking about it are conservatives who are seen by the MSM and popculture as a lesser form of human being.

    I don’t even think Fox is covering this scandal much.

  • cej

    Waiting for an allegedly small government conservative like yourself to call for a complete repeal of the controlled substances act and an end to the war on drugs. Legalize everything, let people choose to ruin their own lives if they so wish. Offer help if asked.

  • powertothepeople

    or even what conservatism is about, paving the way for loser dope heads to get high without penalty from the law. How about we fight to legalize prostitution, public sex, public nudity, drinking in public and so on while we are at it. Damn those morality laws…………..

    Get real.

  • aesthete

    we should probably be talking about some way to responsibly provide currently illegal and profitable drugs sold almost exclusively by the cartels, or at least getting rid of the UN treaty that enforces a party line among all countries vis a vis drugs. Part (though certainly not all) of the reason that leftist parties and thugs in Latin American countries are mobilizing and gaining strength is because farmers who grow what druggies consume are unjustly having their property either razed or seized in the service of our current policy. When the Columbian “right-wing” governments are literally setting your crops on fire, stealing money you made legitimately, and killing agricultural fields by spraying them from the air, it’s not bound to make agrarians what you’d call sympathetic towards either rule of law or right-wing politics. If farmers hadn’t disproportionately swung left, it is more than likely that thugs like Humala in Peru or Evo Morales in Bolivia would not have won. It is certainly likely that farmers and those countries would be better off if they had legal avenues by which they could protect their property.

  • aesthete

    but Fast and Furious is certainly more recent. (BTW, Mexico’s draconian gun laws don’t get nearly enough play when we talk about the ability of citizens to defend themselves from cartels legally.)

  • aesthete

    it would still be incredibly stupid. Maybe slightly offensive to the sensibilities, but really: who, besides a teenage boy fresh off of watching Star Wars (original trilogy, of course), would think that it’s a good idea to support a group of rebels or “vigilantes” we know nothing about with the full weight of the US government, and expecting everything to turn out fine?

    Oh, right.

  • aesthete

    I don’t think that Fast and Furious was meant to do any of the Tom Clancy shenanigans that you note some people — well, let’s be honest, partisan hacks — have bought into. Holder has been lying, stonewalling, and contradicting himself since this thing broke, and the actions themselves *still* make no sense whatsoever as part of a legitimate operation for the purposes of law enforcement or national security.

  • cej

    This site claims to be about small government. The War on Drugs costs about $70 billion (and that’s just in the USA). I cannot think of a policy that is more antithetical to notions of small government than a $70 billion Washington-run disaster of bureaucracy and police-statism..

    I have a question for you: why do you not just go join the Democrat party? They are interested in controlling your life with laws. They are interested in forcing you to buy their version of health insurance. They are the ones who are trying their hardest to throw away the 10th amendment. They are the ones trying to stuff their morality down your throat by forcing states to define what a marriage is or is not. They are the ones who want to control 50% of your earnings because they have better ideas for what do do with your money than you do.

    The Democrat party can be the party of nanny-state authoritarianism, and the Republican party can be the party of the Constitution and defense of individual rights. You can join the Democrats and try to get control of the apparatuses of the state and try to shove your view of morality down your neighbors’ throats.

  • popdaddy

    I don?t know why Gov. Perry does not emphasize his work in fighting the illegal alien threat. But he is very involved in working with the Texas Department of Public Safety to fight these Mexican gangs who bring drugs, slaves and foreign terrorists into the United States.
    He definitely would make a difference on the border if not for the Federal government lack of cooperation. The Texas Public Safety Commission released notes from their meeting discussing the criminal alien threat Tuesday 9/27.
    http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/news.htm#

    There are serious issues to be addressed regarding the border and most on the last debate stage didn?t have a clue.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    If you did agree, then you wouldn’t be trying to change the subject to drug legalization.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    “Only Democrats want to ban angel dust!”

    And they wonder why the Libertarian party never achieves breakout.

    Moe Lane

    PS: Free hint: this isn’t a public forum. This is private property and you don’t actually have free speech rights here.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    …that you’re superfluous to requirements, so hasta la vista.

    Seriously, folks, this is not a good place to advocate legalizing all the drugs.

  • Bill S

    And conservatives are not necessarily libertarian, which you clearly are. So why don’t YOU go join the Libertarian party?

    Thanks to Moe, I don’t have to check back to see if you’ve provided a brainless response. Good riddance, dopehead.

  • Jack_Savage

    The thought of a libertarian airline pilot flipping out just before landing the plane I am riding in because he is coming off exercising his individual rights, otherwise known as a heroin high, or because he had some really good herb in Seattle and took his eye off the runway while reaching for the Doritos under his seat.

    Yep. Hate those drug laws.

  • http://dreamsfrommyforefathers.com RoguePolitics

    Just because they came from Mexico doesn’t mean they have to go back to Mexico.
    China’s a good country. Rule of law, limited gang activity, low unemployment…
    :)

  • onemovoter

    If you know how the lefties think about guns. It makes perfect sense when Obama was quoted as saying “we are working on it” when asked by a Brady gun control lady as to what he was doing to ramp up gun control laws.

    The left knows that in order to get stricter laws, you need a crisis, and this was a plan to make a crisis happen. They just didn’t expect to be caught.

  • popdaddy

    I like AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s idea of pink underware and tents in the desert surrounded by fence and barbed wire for drug heads arrested for possesion of illegal drugs.

  • mrmises

    This is fallacious. Even worse, it represents the reprehensible liberal belief that people need the government to tell them what they can and cannot do. If one extends your line of reasoning to ardent guns rights enthusiasts, it is a miracle that gun owners don’t exercise their individual rights each day and fire off their weapons in public. Just because you support an unfettered right to possess a firearm in public places does not mean you will carry a weapon in public. It especially does not mean that you would abuse that right by committing acts of violence.

    Supporting the right of an individual to make a choice should not be conflated with support for the choice itself.

    (Just as the right to bear arms, which is a Constitutional right, is subject to reasonable limitations, so are other rights. In this context, alcohol is a great example. While a pilot has the legal right to consume alcohol, the state ought to and does criminalize intoxicated pilots. However, the fact that a pilot could get drunk and endanger others does not mean the state ought to prohibit everyone from imbibing.)

  • http://dreamsfrommyforefathers.com RoguePolitics

    nt

  • lookingforward

    For Mexico to legalize drug production would do almost nothing. First of all, the vast majority of the drug production takes place in South America. Mexico is just a shipping lane. Second, the drug market is the United States. Legit companies couldn’t sell here anyway. If you want to stop the drug war, you have two choices. Return to the pre-Calderon policy of live-and-let-live with the cartels, or legalize drugs in the US. Anything else is probably a waste of time, money and lives.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    …that owning a gun is like taking drugs. If we wanted to read that kind of nonsense here, we’d invite one of the Brady Campaign people to post articles on RedState.

    This is not a topic for discussion, explanation, rationalization, or argument, by the way. It’s an instruction by a site moderator, and you do not get a vote.

  • aesthete

    I don’t want some stupid redneck with self-control issues bringing his gun to a mall and shooting the place up.

    It’s also why I’m in favor of throwing smokers in prison for 5 years. What, do you *want* someone who’s jittery from smoking nicotine to drive and kill someone?

    While we’re at it, let’s bring Prohibition back! Alcohol KILLS, and I’m not about to let some Irish drunk ruin my day by crashing a limo into my car while he’s at work.

    People are not able to do pretty much anything that involves risk in a responsible manner, and since we apparently don’t have laws on the books against negligence/murder/theft or employers and private actors with common sense, I guess we just need to ban all potentially harmful activities forever. Sure wish there were an alternative to that, but there it is…

  • aesthete

    right after Moe posts above, heh. I don’t take back what I said, but @ the editors: sorry about crapping all over y’all’s house. I’d have held my tongue if I’d seen Moe’s post above out of respect for you guys and your property.