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 veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
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 Mexico drugs war: Cartels recruit child assassins 
#10036874 - 03/25/09 12:38 AM (3 years, 2 months ago) |
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Mexico drugs war: Cartels recruit child assassins
March 24, 2009 - telegraph.co.uk
Special Report: In Ciudad Juarez, North America's most dangerous city, the warring drug cartels have found a new weapon even more effective than rocket launchers or grenades.
 As guerrilla forces have discovered in Africa, 13 and 14-year-old children on the margins of society make fearless killers. In Juarez, now Mexico's drug addict capital, they are almost certain to be high on crack cocaine.
Around 80 per cent of the 2,000 people killed in the past 14 months in this border city have been aged under 25.
The city of 1.8 million people, separated by just a bridge over the Rio Grande from El Paso in Texas, sits on a major drug route and has been the epicentre of the brutal drug violence gripping Mexico and increasingly creeping over the border into the United States.
In a city now empty of the Americans who used to flock here for the lively bars and flea markets, taxi drivers can instead offer visitors a macabre tour of the many murder spots as well as streets where drug deals can be seen being conducted within yards of the local police.
In one street alone, home to a strip of non-descript, cartel-owned bars, 16 people have been killed in the past two months.
Usually, the gunmen - teenagers among them - will saunter in and spray indiscriminately with AK-47 assault rifles, hitting both their targets and innocent bystanders. Few suspects are ever arrested as the local police are often working for the same cartels.
A few streets away is a bar where a local cartel chief nicknamed "Jesus the Devil" was recently killed just three days after getting out of jail, shot seven times in the head. "They killed him real bad," said the driver.
Those captured by the cartels are even less fortunate. Many are tortured and beheaded. Police officers, almost all suspected of working for the drug barons, have frequently been among the dead. The local morgue is currently doubling in size to cope with demand.
But at last Juarez's battered citizens have been offered some respite.
Army convoys now rumble through the narrow streets day and night, machine gun-armed troops and special forces soldiers crowded into pick-up trucks as they stop cars and raid houses.
Government officials were able to announce this week that a "surge" involving 10,000 soldiers and federal police has cut by 70 per cent a murder rate previously averaging five a day.
Belated efforts to tackle the cartels, long ignored by a US distracted by Islamic extremism, are also being stepped up north of the border.
Playing down recent claims that Mexico is as much at risk as Pakistan of becoming a failed state, the US government has promised to send more troops and equipment to fight the cartels along the border.
Washington may be reassured by the situation in Juarez where some semblance of normal life has returned to a city previously ruled by the warring drug factions of the Juarez cartel and Joaquin Guzman, recently added to the Forbes magazine's list of billionaires.
But law enforcement sources fear it may be too late to tighten up the border as the cartels are already firmly established in an estimated 230 US cities.
In Phoenix, Arizona, alone there have been 700 cartel-related crimes in the past two years, including kidnappings and shootings by gangs prepared to shove a gun into a baby's mouth to get their way.
Although the cartels have warned that they will treat American law enforcement no differently than Mexican police, experts are split over whether the cartels are willing to use the same level of violence in the US.
Many cartel members are already thought to live quietly just over the border, one reason that may explain why, despite the carnage across the river, El Paso is one of the safest cities in America.
The drug violence exploded after a crackdown on the cartels ordered more than two years ago by the Mexican president, Felipe Calderon.
According to Diana Washington Valdez, an El Paso investigative reporter who has covered the cartels extensively, Mr Calderon is isolated, allegedly surrounded by officials who are paid as much as $500,000 (£340,000) a month to supply the cartels with information.
"The big guys haven't been arrested. The authorites know where they are but they're always tipped off and protected," she said. "If the Mexicans are serious, they have to go after these politicians who are on the take."
The Juarez troop surge was financially unsustainable, she said. "What's missing is a decisive plan of action. The cartels will lie low for a while and then get back to business. I'm afraid the violence will go on until everyone who is meant to die, dies."
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buddhabadger
Evil Overlord
Registered: 01/16/09
Posts: 491
Loc: The Forest
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Re: Mexico drugs war: Cartels recruit child assassins [Re: veggie]
#10036958 - 03/25/09 01:20 AM (3 years, 2 months ago) |
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They make a good point: There was a window of opportunity to have done something sooner but the US' attention was focused elsewhere, overseas. It wouldn't have worked, but it might've ameliorated the bigger problem.
And now, ironically, the problem of "What do you do with child soldiers?" comes home to the doorstep, instead of being answered "Who cares, it's an African problem."
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- I don't abuse drugs; in fact, I think I treat them quite nicely. -
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azshroomer
no1
Registered: 01/07/09
Posts: 282
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Re: Mexico drugs war: Cartels recruit child assassins [Re: veggie]
#10037883 - 03/25/09 09:19 AM (3 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
veggie said:
Mexico drugs war: Cartels recruit child assassins
A few streets away is a bar where a local cartel chief nicknamed "Jesus the Devil" was recently killed just three days after getting out of jail, shot seven times in the head. "They killed him real bad," said the driver.
I keel you mang! I keel you real bad! I keel you so bad, you wish I ain't keeled you so bad!
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 pothead_bob
Resident Pothead
Registered: 04/12/08
Posts: 1,677
Loc: Your computer screen
Last seen: 17 hours, 26 minutes
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Re: Mexico drugs war: Cartels recruit child assassins [Re: veggie]
#10037884 - 03/25/09 09:19 AM (3 years, 2 months ago) |
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Well, the US govt. wanted a war, now they're finally getting one. Hopefully politicians like Nixon will learn to stop talking like hard asses by declaring war on stupid shit like drugs and poverty.
Isn't it ironic how anti-druggies are always saying that the war on drugs is to "protect the children" and in this case, it's doing exactly the opposite?
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No knowledge can be certain, if it is not based
upon mathematics or upon some other knowledge
which is itself based upon the mathematical
sciences. -Leonardo da Vinci (1425-1519)
Speak well of your enemies. After all, you made them.
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Green_T
Getting to the chopper
Registered: 10/02/08
Posts: 4,024
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Re: Mexico drugs war: Cartels recruit child assassins [Re: pothead_bob]
#10037964 - 03/25/09 09:36 AM (3 years, 2 months ago) |
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They mean white middle class children, not poor Mexican children.
Ironically, when the drug situation gets worse (as a result of prohibition), legislators push for tougher drug penalties and wars. It's a vicious cycle.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" - Thomas Jefferson
Legalize Meth | Drug War Victims
Their vial of acid, which is on the table over there, tastes vile because they're incompetent chemists.
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DragonChaser
Ice in Her Ass and Pussy
Registered: 04/27/06
Posts: 6,053
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Re: Mexico drugs war: Cartels recruit child assassins [Re: buddhabadger]
#10038323 - 03/25/09 10:37 AM (3 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
buddhabadger said:
And now, ironically, the problem of "What do you do with child soldiers?" comes home to the doorstep, instead of being answered "Who cares, it's an African problem."
You shoot them in the head. It doesn't matter if its a man, woman, or child that has a gun and is trying to kill you. If someone is willing to kill for money, no matter how old they are, they make that decision by picking up the gun.
Plus, I think the whole "Mexican Cartel Child Assassin" thing is just another media frenzy. Ever since 2 teenagers were caught who did hits in America for the cartels, I've been seeing news stories like this.
Sure, I bet the cartels do hire some teenage kids to do killing. But I bet the vast majority are still military trained individuals, and they have a very limited number of child assassins.
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My name is Mud
The OP shall return.
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Drizzt396
Stranger
Registered: 10/12/08
Posts: 82
Last seen: 2 years, 2 months
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Re: Mexico drugs war: Cartels recruit child assassins [Re: DragonChaser]
#10046985 - 03/26/09 03:02 PM (3 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
DragonChaser said:
Quote:
buddhabadger said:
And now, ironically, the problem of "What do you do with child soldiers?" comes home to the doorstep, instead of being answered "Who cares, it's an African problem."
You shoot them in the head. It doesn't matter if its a man, woman, or child that has a gun and is trying to kill you. If someone is willing to kill for money, no matter how old they are, they make that decision by picking up the gun.
Plus, I think the whole "Mexican Cartel Child Assassin" thing is just another media frenzy. Ever since 2 teenagers were caught who did hits in America for the cartels, I've been seeing news stories like this.
Sure, I bet the cartels do hire some teenage kids to do killing. But I bet the vast majority are still military trained individuals, and they have a very limited number of child assassins.
Obviously if you're in immediate danger then you have to defend yourself, no matter who against. That wasn't his point. Also, at least in Africa, child soldiers aren't merely paid assassins or soldiers of fortune. They're kidnapped, brainwashed, and numbed with lots of drugs at a young age. Watch Invisible Soldiers, and maybe your inhuman insensitivity will be chipped away a bit.
As for the article:
"But at last Juarez's battered citizens have been offered some respite.
Army convoys now rumble through the narrow streets day and night, machine gun-armed troops and special forces soldiers crowded into pick-up trucks as they stop cars and raid houses.
Government officials were able to announce this week that a "surge" involving 10,000 soldiers and federal police has cut by 70 per cent a murder rate previously averaging five a day."
Actually, I heard a report on NPR about how the martial law (note: they're not calling it that officially) they've imposed is actually bad. The military controls the borders, they control the police stations, they control the jails, and when they 'arrest' people accused of aiding and abetting, much less being a part of, the cartels, they take them to prisons that are "worse than Abu Gharaib". So the military presence isn't necessarily a good thing...they've cut down on the violence, at the cost of torturing many innocent people. One guy was tortured for merely selling a used car to two members of a cartel, though he had no idea they were.
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