Thread: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Mexico, says U.S. to blame for drug wars

Something has to be done, that crap is spilling onto our borders.

nukes

Me thinks, this is just the start of something.

I agree...we better do something quick.

We're going to war baby.

Being involved in 2 wars isn't really a test for our military. We need a war on 3 fronts. Iran, Iraq & Mexico.

Is Pakistan a sovereign country ? If it is then that would make 4 fronts because I believe our cruise missiles hit them the other day.

I have a solution:



These on the border, with predator drones to vector them in.

It will be very hard to fight them with our soldiers because anemies are invisible. Unless we catch them in action, it will be very difficult for us to differentiate bad guys from civilians. I think it is good idea to train a large group of people who can speak spanish and spread them inside the mexico to fight these criminals. And yes, these specially trained people must look like mexicans.

Originally Posted by chobby192

It will be very hard to fight them with our soldiers because anemies are invisible. Unless we catch them in action, it will be very difficult for us to differentiate bad guys from civilians. I think it is good idea to train a large group of people who can speak spanish and spread them inside the mexico to fight these criminals. And yes, these specially trained people must look like mexicans.

Chobby, you make a valid point, but this didn't stop us from entering Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. So I don't believe this will dissuade us here either!

Originally Posted by IronAddict

Chobby, you make a valid point, but this didn't stop us from entering Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. So I don't believe this will dissuade us here either!

We have find a new strategy. Unless we can come up with a device that will help us identify bad guys from civilians, sending our soldiers will be more expensive and less effective and worst of all, there will be more casaulties on our sides. This is going to be a very long war against these criminals, so we have to find a very effective and less costly way to really go deep down the root of these gangs.

Originally Posted by chobby192

We have find a new strategy. Unless we can come up with a device that will help us identify bad guys from civilians, sending our soldiers will be more expensive and less effective and worst of all, there will be more casaulties on our sides. This is going to be a very long war against these criminals, so we have to find a very effective and less costly way to really go deep down the root of these gangs.

The only way we can correctly identify friendlies from enemies is by the garb that they wear, and this has quickly been adapted to by our enemies.

They only way I see from entering a dissembled war, is to make these politicians who want to quickly send us to war fight them,(but that ain't gonna happen), so the next step would be to make their kids fight these costly wars. Or, we can bring back a draft, and everyone, I mean everyone must join the military for 2-4 years. But, that's too unpopular. So it's business as usual.

Shiite, they'll just send in the Marines, they're right next door in San Diego!

Originally Posted by chobby192

We have find a new strategy. Unless we can come up with a device that will help us identify bad guys from civilians, sending our soldiers will be more expensive and less effective and worst of all, there will be more casaulties on our sides. This is going to be a very long war against these criminals, so we have to find a very effective and less costly way to really go deep down the root of these gangs.

What are you talking about? We created the gangs.

We are the buyers of the drugs, and we are the suppliers of the weapons. We provide the ingredients for an insanely profitable black market, and then we declare war on that market.

It is fucking dumb. We are created a situation much like our prohibition, but we are doing it to another country. Mexicans are paying the price of our meddling.

We created the Taliban forces in the middle east, too. We trained them, supplied them with money and weaponry, all so they could harass the fuck out of the Soviets. Now our own killer pets have turned against us, and who do we blame? Iraq!

Originally Posted by KelJu

What are you talking about? We created the gangs.

We are the buyers of the drugs, and we are the suppliers of the weapons. We provide the ingredients for an insanely profitable black market, and then we declare war on that market.

It is fucking dumb. We are created a situation much like our prohibition, but we are doing it to another country. Mexicans are paying the price of our meddling.

We created the Taliban forces in the middle east, too. We trained them, supplied them with money and weaponry, all so they could harass the fuck out of the Soviets. Now our own killer pets have turned against us, and who do we blame? Iraq!

Yes it's insanity, But for these people on top, it makes very good sense. They are already making billions and they stand to make billions more, to them it's just business as usual, and the poor saps who think they're protecting this country, are just being deluded, and used!

It's the end of the world as we know it...

I wish the US would just buy Mexico so it would easier for me to travel to Cancun.

Originally Posted by ROID

We're going to war baby.

.

you mean with the drug lords, not the country..

Because president Calderon’s campaign against them last year has been amazing. His security forces have already damaged the Gulf cartel although it has left a vacuum of power that other cartels can fill ( especially by the Sinaloa cartel). His greater monitoring and control of aircraft entering the country’s airspace has decreased by 95 %airborne shipments of cocaine from Colombia to here, unfortunately Mexican traffickers have expanded their presence in Central American countries as they have begun to rely increasingly on land-based shipping routes to deliver drugs from South American producers.
Unfotunately, despite his efforts the violence has increased, probably because the drug cartels hate his guts.

Originally Posted by Prince

I wish the US would just buy Mexico so it would easier for me to travel to Cancun.

Soon my friend, soon.

North American Union

Originally Posted by bandaidwoman

you mean with the drug lords, not the country..

Because president Calderon’s campaign against them last year has been amazing. His security forces have already damaged the Gulf cartel although it has left a vacuum of power that other cartels can fill ( especially by the Sinaloa cartel). His greater monitoring and control of aircraft entering the country’s airspace has decreased by 95 %airborne shipments of cocaine from Colombia to here, unfortunately Mexican traffickers have expanded their presence in Central American countries as they have begun to rely increasingly on land-based shipping routes to deliver drugs from South American producers.
Unfotunately, despite his efforts the violence has increased, probably because the drug cartels hate his guts.

This whole thing is a crock, I live here in California and I know some pretty shady characters who do this for a living. They are in cahoots with some of the Border Patrol agents, who fill them in on which line to safely enter in, so their cargo can safely make it into the US. For their cut of course!

I hate to say this, but nothing is what it seems!

Originally Posted by IronAddict

This whole thing is a crock, I live here in California and I know some pretty shady characters who do this for a living. They are in cahoots with some of the Border Patrol agents, who fill them in on which line to safely enter in, so their cargo can safely make it into the US. For their cut of course!

I hate to say this, but nothing is what it seems!

so how does that negate his efforts and accomplishments? we don't have corrupt law enforcement officials on our side as well?

My original question, was , what pretense would we have to go to war with a country who's leader is obviously making a valiant effort ? ( probably for political reasons.. though I suspect he will be as successful as we are in our own non ending drug war.)

Originally Posted by bandaidwoman

so how does that negate his efforts and accomplishments? we don't have corrupt law enforcement officials on our side as well?

My original question, was , what pretense would we have to go to war with a country who's leader is obviously making a valiant effort ? ( probably for political reasons.. though I suspect he will be as successful as we are in our own non ending drug war.)

Our Politicians are as crooked as my dogs hind leg!

Yes a pretension!

They need to find out who is selling them the artillery..the night goggles..

That we are suppliers of the guns is yet another BS myth invented by the anti gun groups. They are using the usual shell game of statistics to attempt to pass new gun control laws. Here's the facts:

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S. While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.

By William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott

Thursday, April 02, 2009

EXCLUSIVE: You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

'These Don't Come From El Paso'

Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.

The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Boatloads of Weapons

So why would the Mexican drug cartels, which last year grossed between $17 billion and $38 billion, bother buying single-shot rifles, and force thousands of unknown "straw" buyers in the U.S. through a government background check, when they can buy boatloads of fully automatic M-16s and assault rifles from China, Israel or South Africa?

Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government, says the drug cartels are using the Guatemalan border to move black market weapons. Some are left over from the Central American wars the United States helped fight; others, like the grenades and launchers, are South Korean, Israeli and Spanish. Some were legally supplied to the Mexican government; others were sold by corrupt military officers or officials.

The exaggeration of United States "responsibility" for the lawlessness in Mexico extends even beyond the "90-percent" falsehood -- and some Second Amendment activists believe it's designed to promote more restrictive gun-control laws in the U.S.

In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.

Chris Cox, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, blames the media and anti-gun politicians in the U.S. for misrepresenting where Mexican weapons come from.

"Reporter after politician after news anchor just disregards the truth on this," Cox said. "The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment."

"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"

But Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, called the "90 percent" issue a red herring and said that it should not detract from the effort to stop gun trafficking into Mexico.

"Let's do what we can with what we know," he said. "We know that one hell of a lot of firearms come from the United States because our gun market is wide open."

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S. - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com

Originally Posted by WillBrink

That we are suppliers of the guns is yet another BS myth invented by the anti gun groups. They are using the usual shell game of statistics to attempt to pass new gun control laws. Here's the facts:

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S. While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.

By William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott

Thursday, April 02, 2009

EXCLUSIVE: You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

'These Don't Come From El Paso'

Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.

The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Boatloads of Weapons

So why would the Mexican drug cartels, which last year grossed between $17 billion and $38 billion, bother buying single-shot rifles, and force thousands of unknown "straw" buyers in the U.S. through a government background check, when they can buy boatloads of fully automatic M-16s and assault rifles from China, Israel or South Africa?

Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government, says the drug cartels are using the Guatemalan border to move black market weapons. Some are left over from the Central American wars the United States helped fight; others, like the grenades and launchers, are South Korean, Israeli and Spanish. Some were legally supplied to the Mexican government; others were sold by corrupt military officers or officials.

The exaggeration of United States "responsibility" for the lawlessness in Mexico extends even beyond the "90-percent" falsehood -- and some Second Amendment activists believe it's designed to promote more restrictive gun-control laws in the U.S.

In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.

Chris Cox, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, blames the media and anti-gun politicians in the U.S. for misrepresenting where Mexican weapons come from.

"Reporter after politician after news anchor just disregards the truth on this," Cox said. "The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment."

"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"

But Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, called the "90 percent" issue a red herring and said that it should not detract from the effort to stop gun trafficking into Mexico.

"Let's do what we can with what we know," he said. "We know that one hell of a lot of firearms come from the United States because our gun market is wide open."

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S. - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com

Absolutely correct. It is another lie fabricated by the democratic and liberal anti gun crowd to use as a tool to get more firearms laws passed. Gun owners of America are already fighting these false statements. But again, most unknowing people will support this idea if not told the truth. People are very easily persuaded into false security.

17% when you are talking about blood wars is pretty significant, don't you think?

Sure, the 90% statement is dumb, I agree. We also aren't buying 90% of the drugs.

I just find the conversation interesting. I like guns and drugs.

Originally Posted by KelJu

17% when you are talking about blood wars

Is there another type?

Originally Posted by KelJu

is pretty significant, don't you think?

No, not really, but the real issues is, as usual, they are bold face lying to the public. 17% would not arouse the public, but be it 17% or 100%, the fact is, the cartels would never have any problems getting weapons as they have the budget larger then many countries entire GDP. Once again, it's shown that a country with very tough gun laws (and Mexico has some of the strictest in the world) only leads to bad guys and government having guns.

Originally Posted by KelJu

Sure, the 90% statement is dumb, I agree. We also aren't buying 90% of the drugs.

What % are we buying? I don't recall, but we are the major users of the product. American's like their drugs it appears.

Originally Posted by KelJu

I just find the conversation interesting. I like guns and drugs.

We all know legalizing drugs would put an end to this in a matter of days, but it does not serve to give the moral lesson about the evils of drugs they want. Either, we legalize it, make it (cheaper, cleaner, and safer), regulate it, and tax it, or we literally put mine fields and troops on the border, but economics 101 states where there is demand, there will be supply, regardless of legal/moral issues.

Originally Posted by dg806

Absolutely correct. It is another lie fabricated by the democratic and liberal anti gun crowd to use as a tool to get more firearms laws passed. Gun owners of America are already fighting these false statements. But again, most unknowing people will support this idea if not told the truth. People are very easily persuaded into false security.

Such is the beauty of the 'net. The mainstream media no longer governs the flow of information. The 'net has been the worst thing for the anti gun/anti human rights types since the 2A was written.

"No lie lives forever" - MLK

Originally Posted by WillBrink

Is there another type?

Sure. There are lots of wars that aren't blood wars. War of wits, way against cancer, war against poverty, war against hunger, ect. War is just a conflict between two opposing forces.

Whats the difference between a fight, a conflict, and a war? That is like asking the difference between a lake and a pond.

Ambiguity is the English language's biggest weakness. I suppose versatility is it's strength.

Originally Posted by KelJu

Sure. There are lots of wars that aren't blood wars. War of wits, way against cancer, war against poverty, war against hunger, ect. War is just a conflict between two opposing forces.

Whats the difference between a fight, a conflict, and a war? That is like asking the difference between a lake and a pond.

Ambiguity is the English language's biggest weakness. I suppose versatility is it's strength.

True enough. I only use the term war in one context generally and i don't use it lightly, so I don't suffer from ambiguity when using the term.