The drug business funds the black-ops budget. As long as we allow a black-ops budget, we will have a robust, intelligence-run drug business. And people will die. - Ed.
My 2006 article about a possible coming revolution in Mexico was both correct and incorrect. At that time, I focused on the highly emotional and heavily contested presidential election. I thought the forces of the left might launch a national revolution, but they did not, seemingly content to work within the system, at least for now. Nevertheless, an ultra-violent, albeit somewhat quiet, heavily armed insurgency is already well under way. The key players are the drug cartels and the rightist Calderon government. On one front, the cartels are warring among themselves for dominance in the lucrative multi-billion dollar drug trade, made possible by ridiculously inappropriate and ineffective U.S. laws. On the other front is the war against the Mexican government, the cartels hoping to dominate, or at least to intimidate and coerce the system to make their work even easier. This is just what has happened in Colombia and other drug-producing countries, and is resulting in what many are calling the Colombianization of Mexico. What is happening is largely ignored by the American “mainline” media. Since I live in South Texas, I occasionally look at Spanish language newspapers. I wish I could relay some good commentary, but other than matter-of-fact reports on the violence, little is said. The American press has chosen by and large to ignore the issue as it might impinge on tourism, oil imports, the lucrative outsourcing of our industrial jobs, etc., but the Mexican media has a better reason for avoiding it. Some of the main targets for narco-assassins are journalists. Of course, the stories that doomed them most often involved clear and direct exposés of criminal activity and widespread public corruption. Let’s pause a moment to honor these brave reporters and commentators. How many writers, including myself, would be willing to risk death to make a statement? Not only that, some of them continued even after the deaths of their colleagues. Of course, the narco-terrorists eventually had their way. Read full story
