Mexico-Watch Thread

[Chosen Daughter]

Yet Mitt wants to bring this to the US.

We're talking about human beings being murdered by drug cartel.  I hope Trump does send help.  It is quite possible that Mexico can totally fall to Drug Cartel.  But Trumps criminal reform bill did nothing to help America overcome the Cartel living right here in the United States.  You would think that someone would care to stop the drug cartels from becoming what they are right over the Mexican border.

I am sure that almost every person in the United State knows someone who has fallen victim to drug addiction or crime provided by Criminal drug trade.  And the border is a Cartel business.  Too bad we weren't really serious about stopping it.  Neither side.

[mountaineer]

You're so right. Why doesn't Trump just take over law enforcement for all of the Americas - North, Central and South? And Australia, too, while he's at it? 

[bigheadfred]

You're so right. Why doesn't Trump just take over law enforcement for all of the Americas - North, Central and South? And Australia, too, while he's at it? 

Australia? That's a low blow. 

[TomSea]

Video at link largely reflects the column:

OPINION
Published 9 hours ago
James Carafano: Mexican ambush –Trump and Obrador must take on the cartels (they can win this one)
By James Jay Carafano | Fox News

....

A report by RAND, for example, estimated that in 2017, the cartels made almost $3 billion dollars from human smuggling. To repeat: the problem isn’t drugs—it’s the cartels.

These criminal networks aren’t just limited to the Western Hemisphere. Cartel smuggling networks extend to Africa, Europe and Asia as well.

...

Venezuela is the poster child for this pernicious phenomenon. Nicolás Maduro has driven virtually the entire country into poverty--leading millions of refugees to flee the hellhole he and his cronies have created. Yet, despite international pressure, sanctions and internal opposition, his illegitimate regime still clings to power. In part, Maduro is still there because his regime is fueled by drug cash from the criminal cartels.

Read more at: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/mexican-ambush-trump-obrador-cartels-win-james-carafano

Worth the read, just talk? I hope AMLO takes up Trump's offer.

This is the biggest incident, USA/Mexico incident at least in the region I think since...



Since Black Jack Pershing carried out an expedition to try to capture Pancho Villa and that was around 1916.... though, a lot of sundry incidences are happening continually in the border area, especially now. I could be wrong but I can't think of anything else that compares to the massacre except what happened at Columbus NM back in the day. 10,000 troops sent. Whew!

[TomSea]

A suspect has been arrested in the massacre of a family from a Mormon community in Mexico
By Madeline Holcombe and Holly Yan, CNN
Updated 0831 GMT (1631 HKT) November 6, 2019
Family of nine brutally murdered in Mexico

CNN)A suspect has been arrested in the massacre of nine family members from a Mormon community on the Mexican side of the border with the United States, Mexican authorities said Tuesday.

The Ministerial Agency for Criminal Investigations (AMIC) said it has detained an individual who was holding two bound and gagged hostages in the hills of Agua Priests in the state of Sonora. The suspect had several rifles and a large amount of ammunition, including a number of large-caliber weapons, the agency said in a statement posted to its official Facebook page.

...

Peniche Espejel said he believes the newly-formed "Los Jaguares" cartel, an off-shoot of the Sinaloa cartel, may be behind the massacre. But earlier Tuesday, a US official said a rival cartel called La Línea is under focus.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/06/americas/mormons-attacked-us-mexico-border-wednesday/index.html?utm_content=2019-11-06T09%3A37%3A59&utm_source=twCNN&utm_medium=social&utm_term=link

Had "bound and gagged hostages", I don't even know what to make of that??  This isn't like a valid news source is actually confirming this.

I don't know if La Linea is affiliated with the Zetas but sometimes they have suspects and arrests in Mexico that sometimes appear to be more about quick justice and scapegoating someone.

This attack seems like a pivotal moment but if I emphasized its importance, obviously, there have been other instances, the Walmart shooting a few months ago or the number of times, this apprehension of El Chapo's son where they let him go, the ambush of police officers more into the interior weeks ago,  cargo trucks being used for smuggling are caught and people found inside,
sometimes, dead from suffocation. There have been many incidences, it does seem spinning out of control a bit now.

Hills of Agua Priests? Or "Hills of Agua Prieta" and Agua Prieta is a town on the borders, that doesn't mean those hills are though.

I saw a picture of what looked like a "Lebaron's general store" out in this rural area earlier.

[mountaineer]

Former special agent after slaughter of American family: If we want, it's not hard to destroy the Mexican cartel.
Posted by Jason Piccolo | Nov 6, 2019

...     This is not the first time Mexican cartel members ambushed U.S. citizens. I spoke to my good friend Vic Avila.

In 2011, Vic and his partner, Jamie Zapata, were ambushed in Mexico by ten cartel gunmen when they were forced off the road. The gunmen shot Vic multiple times and killed Jaime. Vic told me:    “As someone that was personally touched by the “war” by being shot by a Mexican Cartel and Special Agent Jaime Zapata losing his life, it is now time to designate some of these cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. This should be in conjunction with securing our border and protecting our sovereignty.”  ...

...   INTERPOL says:      “By disrupting the flow of terrorist funding and by understanding the funding of previous attacks, we can help prevent attacks in the future.”

The U.S. can do the same thing. Attack the cartels money flow from within and outside U.S. borders. Attack the money and cut the head off the snake.  ...  Full article at Law Enforcement Today

[Idiot]

Somebody please clear up something for me. WTH were American Mormons doing living in Mexico to start with? If they were there to avoid paying US taxes and to protest life in America,screw them. The bought the ticket,and they can take the ride. It's Mexico's problem,not ours.

Good grief man....are you really this cold hearted?

[sneakypete]

Good grief man....are you really this cold hearted?

@mrpotatohead

Are YOU really so empty-headed you think America is the worlds daddy/babysitter? If so,I hope you encouraged your children to enlist in the US Army or the USMC as infantrymen,and put your "money" where your mouth is.

[skeeter]

@mrpotatohead

Are YOU really so empty-headed you think America is the worlds daddy/babysitter? If so,I hope you encouraged your children to enlist in the US Army or the USMC as infantrymen,and put your "money" where your mouth is.

If there was a worthy use of our military it would be against the drug cartels. They are a direct threat to the nation - much more immediate than anything coming out of the middle east.

[sneakypete]

If there was a worthy use of our military it would be against the drug cartels. They are a direct threat to the nation - much more immediate than anything coming out of the middle east.

@skeeter

I can't argue with that. Defeating/killing them is in MY mind a part of the "raise the wall to make America secure". Going to be hard to do,since they use their money to rent or actually buy Left Coast politicians,though.

Pelosi is already owned by the Chinese via her husband's business connections,so it's unlikely the cartels will try to buy her because the Chinese could cut off the drug cartels access to full auto weapons.

[TomSea]

Sovereignty is a sensitive subject, I do respect that. As it is, there exists working relationships as well already:

Mormon killings: Mexico’s López Obrador rejects U.S. suggestion he adopt more aggressive security policies
Mary Beth Sheridan

MEXICO CITY — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Wednesday rejected U.S. suggestions he adopt more aggressive security policies after a massacre of fundamentalist Mormons in northern Mexico, saying that approach in the past has been a “disaster.”

The barbaric killing Monday of three women and six children of the extended LeBaron family — dual U.S.-Mexican citizens — has raised pressure on López Obrador’s leftist government, which has pledged to use social programs to address the root causes of violence.

“It’s unfortunate, sad, because children died. This is painful,” López Obrador said during his regular morning news conference Wednesday. “But trying to resolve this problem by declaring a war? In our country, it’s been shown that this doesn’t work. This was a disaster.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/mexico-mormon-killings-lopez-obrador-rejects-us-suggestion-he-adopt-more-aggressive-security-policies/2019/11/06/4d966c1e-000f-11ea-8341-cc3dce52e7de_story.html

In other news, one of the children walked 23 kilometers for help, so that's ?? 12 miles or something.

We can't unite to defend our own border unfortunately, so in my view, I don't favor what AMLO said but I do understand it.... and it doesn't always preclude some back-channel cooperation. Maybe they just don't want everything to be public.

[TomSea]

OK, the 2 rescued hostages are NOT believed related... read it for oneself. They call him a drug lord.

Suspected drug lord is arrested over slaying of Mormon family
By Emily Crane and Adry Torres For Dailymail.com

The suspect - only identified as a 30-year-old man named Leonardo - was found late Tuesday in the town of Agua Prieta, right at the border with the U.S. state of Arizona, holding two hostages who were gagged and tied inside a vehicle.

...

Authorities said the suspect, who is part of an El Chapo rival cartel, was also found in the possession of four assault rifles and ammunition, as well as various large vehicles including a bullet-proofed SUV.

The hostages are not believed to be related to the nine LeBaron family victims who were killed on Monday while traveling in a convoy of three SUVS on a dirt road in Sonora state.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7655867/Suspected-drug-lord-arrested-slaying-Mormon-family.html

"part of an El Chapo rival cartel", so one of the other cartels, not El Chapo's Sinaloa cartel. These are early reports, I saw one report saying it was a targeted hit.

As bad as this is, I remember some fast and furious guns tied to a massacre in Juarez that killed 16 young people.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/furious-guns-tied-to-2010-juarez-massacre-other-murders-in-mexico

So, it'd be fine with me, if we acted strongly to this but I guess, there is some perspective needed too.

At the least, if we sealed off the border effectively with security and possibly the wall, illegals and drugs and other coming in, these cartels might not be hanging out in these spots. I've always thought real security is needed, the wall is just another element but walls can be overcome in my view, you will need security supporting it.  Security, surveillance and so on.

[Fishrrman]

If I lived in the LeBaron community, I'd pack up and get out of there, and head for el norte.

I sense the cartel that just went after them isn't finished yet, particularly if it takes incoming from the Mexican government.

The cartel may come after them with more vengeance than did Missourians against the Saints in the late 1830's...

[mountaineer]

If I lived in the LeBaron community, I'd pack up and get out of there, and head for el norte.

They may be reluctant to reestablish in the US, given their polygamist ways. But it really does seem to be a matter of life or death - choose wisely!

[sneakypete]

They may be reluctant to reestablish in the US, given their polygamist ways. But it really does seem to be a matter of life or death - choose wisely!

@mountaineer

I don't give a damn what the adults do,or if they live or die,but I do care about what happens to the children. They are years away from marrying anyone,so send them north to live. Literally.

[bigheadfred]

Polygamy should be made legal.

People should be allowed to marry themselves for that matter.

The stats that need to be added in are all the gang violence generated by the cartels in this country right now.

[TomSea]

They may be reluctant to reestablish in the US, given their polygamist ways. But it really does seem to be a matter of life or death - choose wisely!

The practice of polygamy has mostly been abandoned in the communities in Mexico, experts said.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/06/mexico-family-shooting-ambush-history-mormon-groups-sonora/4175548002/

I certainly would not know but I know articles have come out today, I thought I saw one saying "not practiced", this article seems to indicate it is rare.

A few years ago, there was that Warren Jeffers fellow was in the news, I think there have even been reality shows showing polygamy. So just chiming in.

@mountaineeer

[TomSea]

One must go to the article but as of 2004, they actually had a pretty low murder rate.

Homicides in Mexico

Yearly breakdown



The states of Aguascalientes, Campeche and Coahuila also are well below the national average and have homicide rates similar to that of Uruguay.


Full article: How Dangerous Is Mexico

Well, Uruguay sounds like a fairly relaxed place. I was not aware of these statistics. I was on the first graph, in 2004, Mexico had indeed, a very low murder rate compared to nowadays.

[truth_seeker]

If I lived in the LeBaron community, I'd pack up and get out of there, and head for el norte.

There have been these independent breakaway, colonies, sects since the 1800s.

When mainstream LDS gave up polygamy in order to gain Utah's staehood, These groups settled iMexico, rizona, Colorado, Texas, BC Canada, Utah.

[Sighlass]

Cartel Attack On U.S. Family: Suspect Arrested; Official Says Family May Have Been Targeted

Mexican officials say they have made an arrest in response to the horrific massacre of nine American citizens — three women and six of their young children — in the Mexican state of Sonora.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/cartel-attack-on-u-s-family-mexico-arrests-suspect-official-says-family-may-have-been-targeted?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mattwalsh

[TomSea]

Massacre of Americans shows drug war worse this time around

November 6, 2019

MEXICO CITY (AP) — There was a time when the violence of Mexico’s 2006-2012 drug war shocked Americans, but barely touched them. This time around — like everything else about the country’s renewed cartel conflict — it’s worse.

The slaughter of three U.S. women and six of their children, some infants, in the northern state of Sonora Monday punctured the old belief that the drug cartels would avoid killing foreigners, women or children. But it wasn’t the first, or the only, such case.

Children are being killed with chilling frequency as the unwritten rules of Mexico’s drug war appear to fade. In August, gunmen burst into a house in Ciudad Juarez, home of the Juarez cartel, and fired 123 bullets that killed girls aged 14, 13 and 4, along with an adult male who apparently was the real target.

Read more at: https://mynorthwest.com/1586846/massacre-of-americans-shows-drug-war-worse-this-time-around/

This unfathomable violence has been around. Where might it be in 5 or 10 years at this rate?? And we know you know who (the Democrats) don't really even care to seal up the border!

"Unwritten rules" per above, actually, imho,  in the drug trade, even reflected in those movies like the "Godfather 2" and "Scarface", the drug wars for the most part are just down and dirty. We have already known about things like 'mass beheadings", "mass graves", "mutilations", if one is surprised, they aren't paying attention. To me, the only surprising thing is that those murdered appeared to be "dual citizens", having citizenships for both America and Mexico.

[TomSea]

Just a few details, "2 attacks, more than an hour apart" (Tuesday) from USA Today .

If it was a mistake, why were there two attacks?

That is an emerging part of the investigation. Mexican army chief of staff Gen. Homero Mendoza said the ambush consisted of two attacks more than an hour apart at two places along the road. He said that at 9:40 a.m., a Chevy Tahoe was hit by bullets and exploded in flames, and at 11 a.m., two Suburbans were hit by gunfire.

Were the Jaguars and La Linea cartels involved?

César Peniche, attorney general of Chihuahua, told Univision that the region where the massacre occurred is operated by a group connected to the Sinaloa cartel called the Jaguars.

...

Okay, sounds like they STILL are not saying who they think did this.

AMLO declines Trump offer to help but others inclined to accept

...

....The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial published Tuesday that “drug gangs control huge swathes of the country.”

...

The Drug Enforcement Administration should be capable of identifying and locating those responsible for the attack and would be a sign that U.S. justice “has a great reach,” the newspaper said.

It also stated “a U.S. military operation cannot be ruled out.”

More at: https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/amlo-declines-trump-offer-to-help/

Then this article goes on to say, some opposition politicians would accept "respectful collaboration".  Good article, nifty little site for 10 free articles a month (and usually, articles they gather from other sources).

[TomSea]

It should be as clear as a bell that if you live somewhere for 80 years, maybe even longer if they started coming post 1890, that's over 100 years, that you might not just pull up stakes and leave.  The danger may have creeped up on them. So, no, I'm not going to blame them. If they came in 2005 or something, I might consider that point of view.

They apparently have some lucrative pecan orchards. Maybe some even had some sea-side property on the coast from what I read.

No, I'm not planning to go to Mexico and wouldn't. But I'm not so quick to judge others either.

And I'd suspect a lot of that 80-110 years has been peaceful. Some maybe not, there was a revolution in Mexico, too, they threw down roots as well.

Even the settling of a lot of America was not always a walk in the park. Some saw some very tough times, I'm sure.

[TomSea]

In fact, I didn't see what it would serve to post these latest articles coming out of Pennsylvania but they have been in the news:

A 10-year-old boy was shot in the head while walking home from school
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/07/us/philadelphia-boy-shot-walking/index.html

3 arrested in Philadelphia shootings of 2 children
https://www.kmov.com/arrested-in-philadelphia-shootings-of-children/article_ab3af90a-c3c1-5bfe-b7a2-4c0bbc93638d.html

Yes, what is going on in Mexico is unacceptable but I'd try to make some constructive comments if things are not so tidy in one's own backyard.

[Smokin Joe]

@skeeter

I can't argue with that. Defeating/killing them is in MY mind a part of the "raise the wall to make America secure". Going to be hard to do,since they use their money to rent or actually buy Left Coast politicians,though.

Pelosi is already owned by the Chinese via her husband's business connections,so it's unlikely the cartels will try to buy her because the Chinese could cut off the drug cartels access to full auto weapons.

The Chinese are supplying drugs (fenatanyl, designer sh*t) and precursor chemicals to the cartels, anyway, so shutting all that down would likely be bad for the Pelosi family bottom line.