Mexico’s government is broken.

[LilOlLady]

MEXICO’S GOVERNMENT IS BROKEN.

Mexican congressman; “Illegal Aliens brave the desert and rattle snakes just to get a job because our immigration system is broken.” We are not the blame, the corrupt Mexican Government is to blame and if they worked as hard changing things in Mexico as they do trying to get here, they could make things better for those who want to stay home. They come not just for jobs, some come because crime is more lucrative here than in Mexico, Automatic Birthright Citizenship, and our generous government hand-outs and free healthcare.

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd says purt soon dey gonna have to file fer bankruptcy - an' den the gov't. gonna bail `em out `cause dey's 'too big to fail'...

US$14.5bn lost by gangs in drugs war: Mexican president
Mon, Sep 03, 2012 - Mexican President Felipe Calderon said on Saturday that his controversial war on drugs had cost criminal gangs US$14.5 billion as he submitted his administration’s last report to congress.

Calderon leaves office on Dec. 1 after a six-year term that has been overshadowed by his government’s struggle to tame drug-related violence that has left more than 50,000 people dead since 2006.

In his final report to the new congress, the conservative leader, who is limited to one term by law, focused on the capture of gang leaders and the massive seizures of cash and drugs. “During this administration, the federal government was committed to returning peace and calm to Mexicans, as well as preventing violence and building the foundations of an authentic and lasting peace,” Calderon’s report said.

In the past six years, authorities have seized 114 tonnes of cocaine, nearly 11,000 tonnes of marijuana and more than 75 tonnes of methamphetamines. More than 100,000 vehicles, 515 boats and 578 aircraft have been confiscated, along with more than US$1 billion in cash. All these actions represented a loss of US$14.5 billion for the cartels, Calderon said. According to the public security ministry, the criminal organizations control a US$64 billion market.

Outside the congress, which opened its first session since July 1 elections, some 5,000 protesters demonstrated against Calderon’s security strategy. The student movement #Yosoy132 submitted its own “counter-report” which read: “We have seen a cowardly president speak about courage while society contributed the dead, the displaced, the kidnapped and the ill-treated by the authorities.”

US$14.5bn lost by gangs in drugs war: Mexican president - Taipei Times

 

[Politico]

It has always been corrupt and always will be.

 

[editec]

When we passed NAFTA we opened up the MEXICAN economy to imported food from the USA.

Small mexican farmers could not compete with USA imported food thus thowing millions of Mexicans farms onto the economic trash heap.

Those farming folks started coming up to the USA in droves in order to find work on the very US farms that had put their farms into insolvency in Mexico

Ironic isn't it?

 

[waltky]

South of the border gettin' to be a dangerous place for U.S. drug agents...

Is Mexico Becoming the New Iraq for American Agents?
September 4th, 2012 - EDITOR'S NOTE: Sylvia Longmire is a former senior border security analyst for the State of California. She is currently a consultant, correspondent for Homeland Security Today magazine, and author of Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico’s Drug Wars. The opinion expressed by the author is that of her own and does not represent that of CNN.

The news emerging from Mexico on August 24, 2012, sounded more like a spy thriller than the usual reports of shootings, body dumps, and decapitations. Initial reports were foggy, but it was sounding more and more like two Americans assigned to the US Embassy had been ambushed by criminals while on their way to a Mexican naval training base. As more details started trickling in, the scenario became more and more disturbing; the two wounded Embassy employees, according to published reports in Mexico, may have been CIA agents on a joint counterdrug mission, and their attackers were Mexican federal police officers. The CIA has not commented on the matter.

Making matters worse is the fact that the agents, along with a Mexican naval officer, were unarmed and traveling in a heavily armored SUV clearly bearing diplomatic license plates—something that was impossible for the attackers to miss. Mexican government officials claim it was “an accident” and a “case of mistaken identity,” as the 12 officers involved were supposedly in the area hunting down kidnappers. Yet, they were all wearing civilian clothes, according to a Mexican military official’s accounts to CNN, and traveling in different unmarked cars. They were also likely not carrying their standard-issue weapons; some Mexican media outlets indicated AK-47 shell casings were found at the scene of the shooting.

Several journalists from both Mexican and American news outlets have interviewed witnesses and residents in the small town where this occurred just north of Cuernavaca, and they all said the same thing: alleging that federal police in that area are working with the cartels. Some witnesses also said that the CIA agents traveled that road frequently, and people had become used to seeing armored vehicles with the diplomatic plates, making the case of mistaken identity harder to swallow. It’s becoming harder and harder to argue that the agents weren’t specifically targeted by a criminal group in the area, perhaps not to kill them outright, but to send a very strong message. But why would Mexican drug traffickers violate an old unspoken rule about avoiding confrontations with US agents because of the negative consequences they tend to bring? History tells us this wouldn’t be the first time this has happened, or even the second.

In March 2010, Drug Administration Agent (DEA) Special Agent Joe DuBois told the Houston Chronicle the following disturbing account. During a November 1999 afternoon, he and FBI Special Agent Daniel Fuentes were driving through the northeast Mexican city of Matamoros in a white Ford Bronco bearing diplomatic license plates. In the back of the Bronco was an informant; a Mexican reporter who was showing the agents various cartel members’ homes in the area, as well as stash houses where illegal drugs were kept prior to being smuggled into the US. One of those homes belonged to the notorious Osiel Cárdenas Guillen, head of the Gulf cartel at the time.

Shortly after the three men drove by, they picked up a tail, were boxed in and forced to stop. Cárdenas himself emerged from one of the vehicles and approached the Bronco. He demanded that the agents surrender and turn over the informant, and the agents refused after Fuentes clearly identified himself as FBI. Cárdenas also clearly indicated he didn’t care who the agents were. After DuBois calmly explained at length what the consequences would be if he and Fuentes were killed—referring to the full might of US law enforcement—Cárdenas gave the order to his men to lower their weapons.

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[waltky]

It was the Beltran Leyva gang!...

AP Exclusive: US car was targeted in Mexico ambush
Oct 2,`12 -- A senior U.S. official says there is strong circumstantial evidence that Mexican federal police who fired on a U.S. Embassy vehicle, wounding two CIA officers, were working for organized crime in a targeted assassination attempt.

Meanwhile, a Mexican official with knowledge of the case confirmed on Tuesday that prosecutors are investigating whether the Beltran Leyva Cartel was behind the Aug. 24 ambush. The Mexican official said that is among several lines of investigation into the shooting of an armored SUV that was clearly marked with diplomatic license plates on a rural road near Cuernavaca south of Mexico City. Federal police, at times battered by allegations of infiltration and corruption by drug cartels, have said the shooting was a case of mistaken identity as officers were looking into the kidnapping of a government employee in that area. "That's not a `We're trying to shake down a couple people for a traffic violation sort of operation. That's a `We are specifically trying to kill the people in this vehicle'," a U.S. official familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press. "This is not a `Whoops, we got the wrong people.' "

Photos of the gray Toyota SUV, a model known to be used by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and other U.S. Embassy employees working in Mexico, showed it riddled with heavy gunfire. The U.S. Embassy called the attack an "ambush." When asked by the AP if the Mexican federal police officers involved in the shooting were tied to organized crime, the U.S. official said, "The circumstantial evidence is pretty damn strong." Both the U.S. and Mexican officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the diplomatic issue. A federal police on Tuesday maintained the position that their agents fired on the vehicle by mistake, thinking it belonged to a band of kidnappers they were pursuing, according to a spokesman who was not authorized to speak on the record.

The U.S. State Department declined to discuss details. "We will not comment on an ongoing investigation," said William Ostick, a spokesman. "This is a matter of great significance to both our countries and we will continue to cooperate with Mexican authorities in their investigation." The Mexican official said one line of investigation is that members of the Beltran Leyva Cartel were interested in attacking the people in the car because some of their lookouts had seen them passing through the area and presumed they were investigating the cartel. It's possible they didn't know they were Americans.

The rural road near Cuernavaca where the attack took place is known territory of the remnants of the Beltran Leyvas, a once-powerful cartel now run by Hector Beltran Leyva since the Navy killed his brother, drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva, in Cuernavaca in late 2009. Beltran Leyva was once aligned with Mexico's powerful cartel, Sinaloa, headed by fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. But the groups split in 2008 and continued government hits on Beltran Leyva leadership since then have splintered that cartel into small gangs warring for the area.

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