Courtesy of dailymail.co.uk
My initial comment about this was how much I love the caption under one of the pictures.
"Bringing out the big guns: Armed federal police prepare to patrol the streets as they arrive in Ciudad Juarez yesterday"
What strikes me the most about this article is not the number of murders in one month (250) but the fact that there's already 2500 troops there. This is a city of 1.6 million people and there were 250 people killed last month. This isn't a city, it's a war zone.
Questions worth considering upon reading this article:
Is sending in more federal troops merely going to displace this problem while murder rates drop to "an acceptable level"? What will be the measure of progress? Is this "iron fist" rationale the best way to deal with organizations that are above the law? How long can an occupation of a city like this continue? How long will it take before the local military officers get bought out to look the other way? What's to stop the cartels from working with the military against each other and thus letting the military do their dirty work (by raiding, arresting, and hampering) in the struggle against their opponents?
1 comment:
Wow. What a cluster fuck.
I see the problem that's presented. What is the measure for success? In a way it's slightly similar to what happened in Iraq. What was the meassure for success there? Capturing Saddam and his loyal followers? Capturing or killing everyone from the "deck of cards"? Then what? I think this situation in Mexico is not easily solved. With corruption already within the police ranks, you posed a great question: How long before the military is bought out? We know that Mexico is not exactly economically stable. Isn't their unemployment/underemployment rate around 50%? There's obviously a sense of frustration among their population and the cartels are feeding off of it. And with a strong drug market just across the border, it's going to take more than 5000 troops to eradicate the problem.
There's a reason that there are so many immigrants coming from Mexico, legal and illegal. The country is going to waste without enough jobs to turn the economy around and in the case of Juarez, there's not enough resources to prevent or curtail the gang wars. Hell if that were my reality, I'd be looking for a way to illegally enter the U.S too.
Post a Comment