Charlie Rose: Interview with Mexican President Calderon

[brokenarrow]

Watch:

Charlie Rose - Felipe Calderon, President of Mexico


He's a very intelligent articulate person. I actually like him. I don't think Mexico has had a better president. If he was an example of the type of Mexican sneaking into the United States, I would want more. But he's not.

We get the people who can't spell, who can't drive, who seldom bathe, who bring in diseases, who commit crimes, who join gangs, who lower academic standards, who lower standards of living, who lower neighborhood home values,who can't speak English, who can barely speak Spanish, who breed like rats, who cook with rats, who live like rats......!

 

[waltky]

Mexico goin' to the polls...

Mexico Begins Search for New President as Criminal Violence Soars
July 01, 2011 - On Sunday, July 3, Mexicans in the state of Mexico, which borders Mexico City, will elect a new governor, while the current governor, Enrique Pena Nieto campaigns to be elected president. The politicking in Mexico comes as the current president, Felipe Calderon, is enmeshed in a war against drug cartels and other criminal organizations that has cost around 40,000 lives in the past five years. Some Mexicans hope a change in leadership may lead to diminished violence or even a truce with the powerful cartels, but, as The war is likely to continue well into the next presidential term.

One of the international observers on hand for the voting in the state of Mexico is Professor George Grayson of the College of William and Mary, considered one of the top US experts on Mexico. He says Governor Enrique Pena Nieto wants to use the election as a springboard for his presidential campaign. “He wants to make sure that his successor wins by a huge majority to give impetus to his juggernaut as he seeks to become chief executive next year, so this July 3rd gubernatorial contest is really in many ways a primary for next year's election," said Grayson.

Public opinion polls indicate Pena Nieto is likely to get his way Sunday and that he has a very good chance of winning the presidency next year. He is a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, the party that ruled Mexico uninterrupted for some 70 years before Vicente Fox of the National Action Party won the presidency in 2000. Some Mexicans see a return of the PRI as a possible way of stopping the violence. They say the party, for all its unsavory reputation for corruption and abuse of power, did maintain public order when it was in power, perhaps even making deals with cartels to turn a blind eye to their drug smuggling as long as they avoided violence.

Grayson, who says the PRI did make such deals in the past, says that is unlikely now. He says Pena Nieto and other candidates have told him personally they would never negotiate with the cartels. “It is not because they are opposed to trying to reach a modus vivendi [agreement for peaceful coexistence], but there are just too many big shots now and one of the cartels, which calls itself Los Zetas, could not be trusted any further than you could throw its paunchy leader," he said. Aside from the trust factor, Grayson says there is also the question of with whom to negotiate. The most powerful drug cartel, that run by Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman in the western state of Sinoloa, is being challenged by not one, but several rivals whose alliances with each other are constantly shifting. Most of the murders in Mexico over the past few years have involved gunmen from one cartel killing operatives from another cartel.

Some have suggested that legalization of drugs might curb the power of the cartels, but the men with guns are not likely to disappear from the scene even if that did happen. Security analyst Scott Stewart of Austin, Texas-based Stratfor, a global intelligence company, says US law enforcement agencies have determined that many of the cartels are not exclusively drug traffickers. “Previously they would call them drug-trafficking organizations, or DTOs, and today they are increasingly referred to as trans-national criminal organizations, or TCOs, because they are involved in all these different crimes," said Stewart. "Especially a lot of the weaker organizations. Sinaloa does not seem to be quite that much involved in these other crimes, but many of its enemies, especially the remnants of the Arellano-Felix organization, the remnants of the Carillo-Fuentes organization, Los Zetas, they are involved in kidnapping, extortion, cargo theft, alien smuggling, even CD and DVD piracy.”

MORE

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dey is too!, like Pakistan was hidin' Osama...

Mexico isn't in cahoots with Sinaloa drug cartel, says government
July 7, 2011 - The latest in the Mexican government’s series of 'myth-busting' videos challenges the idea that authorities aren't doing enough to hunt down Joaquin Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Joaquin Guzman, alias “El Chapo,” heads the Sinaloa Cartel, Mexico’s biggest drug trafficking organization, and is now the most wanted man in Mexico, if not the world. He has been on the run since escaping prison in 2001, and was recently described by an official from the US Drug Enforcement Administration as the biggest drug trafficker in history.

Mr. Guzman’s decade of liberty is an ongoing embarrassment to the Mexican government, especially with the emergence of claims over the years that the drug lord was living openly in the mountains of the Sierra Madre. There are stories about him marrying in a public ceremony in a local village, zooming through the region in a convoy of cars, and going out to eat in restaurants accompanied by his entourage.

Meanwhile, there are suspicions that the government is focusing on pursuing members of other drug-trafficking organizations at the expense of targeting the Sinaloa Cartel. An investigation by the US radio station NPR in 2010 found that the number of Sinaloa members captured is disproportionately low, relative to those arrested from other criminal groups.

All this, together with the rising fortunes of the Sinaloa Cartel, has led to suspicions that law enforcement may be on Guzman’s side, perhaps working to eliminate the Sinaloa Cartel's rivals at the expense of targeting Sinaloan operatives, with "El Chapo's" unofficial blessing.

Source

 

[waltky]

Calderon got the military fightin' human trafficking in Mexico...

Mexican military rescues 20 hostages from gang
Tue, Jul 12, 2011 - The Mexican military rescued 20 kidnapped men from a house in the northern city of Monterrey, a military spokesman said on Sunday.

“The release of these 20 people was the work of intelligence services from the secretary of defense and a response to the high rate of kidnappings that exists in the city of Monterrey,” military spokesman Antonio Vargas said. The rescue came after the military raided the house where the hostages were being held early on Sunday morning. The victims were in a 9m2 area and their hands and feet were bound. They said they were recently kidnapped in different parts of Monterrey, the third-largest city in Mexico. The kidnappers demanded a ransom for each hostage of between 20,000 and 50,000 pesos (between US$1,789 and US$4,300).

Kidnapping in the industrial-hub city has become “an illicit organized crime that gangs commit in order to cover their expenses, and we are fighting it head-on,” Vargas said. The operation involved house-to-house checks carried out by military in the area. According to the government, the states of Nuevo Leon, whose capital is Monterrey, and Tamaulipas, are the scenes of a deadly war between the Gulf Cartel and its former allies Los Zetas, who control the drug trafficking routes into the US and criminal activities in local markets.

Meanwhile, 10 decapitated bodies were found in the northern Mexican city of Torreon in the country’s latest grisly mass murder as drug gangs war over smuggling routes, Mexican newspapers reported on Sunday. The bodies were dumped in the back of a truck with their heads scattered across the city, Reforma newspaper reported. Authorities said the killers left a message directed at another gang, the paper said.

In related developments, recently arrested leader of Los Zetas says the group gets their drugs in Guatemala and their weapons are smuggled from the US across the Rio Grande. Rejon Jesus Enrique Aguilar, also known as “El Mamito,” is a leader and founder of Los Zetas, which was founded by military deserters. Aguilar was arrested on July 3 in a district near the Mexican capital. In a video copy of his statement that was delivered to the media this week by Mexico’s secretary of homeland security, Aguilar said his group obtains their drugs in Guatemala. “We buy in Guatemala,” he answers to a question about where they get the cocaine that they traffic. “It is not reliable [buying from] the Colombians.”

Mexican military rescues 20 hostages from gang - Taipei Times

 

[St.Blues]

Wimpy Charlie Rose? Waste of time. Get Calderone on with Oreilly...........

 

[uscitizen]

Someone else watches Charlie Rose?

 

[Moonglow]

Wimpy Charlie Rose? Waste of time. Get Calderone on with Oreilly...........

Why? Does the president of Mexico need a spit bath?

 

[uscitizen]

Only old farts watch BillO.