Fast and Furious

[BluegrassCat]

No 1 is that the core issue is the trade in banned narcotics. My assumption is that the economic downturn has actually reduced demand in the USA and that this drop in revenue is as much a part of the inter-cartel conflict in Mexico as the general business argument -I have read various reports of the drug trade being worth X billion $ in one paper with a different figure in another. It is still worth a lot of money, but the business exists because it has customers; greater public awareness of the costs of that snort and that fix (which usually comes via Afghanistan and Pakistan) could, over time, persuade the next generation to try something else to get their kicks; I don't think the current generation of users cares one way or the other how many Mexicans get killed.

The 2nd issue is the hardy perennial of gun control -the USA is addicted to killing, the right to bear arms has been debated again and again and again, but if you are going to reserve the right to buy them, at least make obtaining a weapon as hard as possible, and how can any sane individual want to own an automatic weapon that looks like something out of a war film? What is that used for? Even hunters must surely believe that you have one shot to get the deer, isn't that how they rank each other's ability?

The 3rd Issue is that if the Obama administration devised this policy and it has failed, they must admit it, and find something else. The Obama administration has less of an impact on the cartel wars than drug users, I feel you are trying too hard to smear the Obama administration with any and every calumny you can think of -even the 'neo-cons' didn't bomb the cartels residences into rubble yet they were indifferent to the rubble left behind in Iraq -on day 1 they blasted a private house into dust because someone told them Saddam was eating dinner there -he wasn't, 25 people were killed, and none of them got any compensation. And Mexico's crime has direct impact on the USA in a way Iraq never has.

There is a 4th Issue, and that is whether or not the Calderon administration in Mexico went about this issue the wrong way, and has actually generated more violence than would have happened had the focus been on the manifestly corrupt military and police services of that country. The rule of law? Whose law?
I used to know a well-educated Mexican here in the UK who despaired of his country's political administrations -an oil rich country with plenty of oil that hasn't been discovered in the Gulf, none of which 'trickles' anywhere near the pueblo. In the end, he said, you create a niche for yourself and your family in some town or some city, try to stay in work, eat, pray and play and just hope the reality that is sometimes only metres away doesn't come through the front or the back door.

Ultimately, the drugs trade is just an illegal part of the capitalist system, a system that has no emotional sentiment or morals; it has one motive -to make money: undermine that and you undermine crime syndicates at the level of the cartels, given that there will always be some criminal underworld -but there is no reason why anyone should live in a country where organised crime is, in effect, a parallel government. After all, some people believe elected governments are not much different.

Stavros, you've once again let informed analysis distract you from the point of the post. The OP doesn't actually care about this issue. It's only interesting as a partisan tool to bash the president and his administration.

And wasn't the OP ranting just the other day about the lack of coverage of this issue by CBS, only to turn around and create a whole thread relying on CBS coverage? The ability to manage dissonance must be herculean.

[Stavros]

Fair point, BluegrassCat. On the other hand, without opening up a major debate on gun control, I am interested in the Mexican situation and its ramifications, The Guardian, more so than other UK papers, has carried a fair amount of in-depth reporting on the drug wars. I would rather onmyknees focused on that instead of Obama-bashing which is inevitable but tedious at the same time.

[hippifried]

Bullshit

Uh oh... There's those hangups again. Better go get a Prozac & some counseling.

[fred41]

Politics aside ...it's perfectly reasonable to bash (criticize) someone in the President's administration (such as Eric Holder) without bashing the President. It has been done in previous administrations. It may , in fact...be time for Mr. Holder to go...we will just have to wait and see.

[Ben]

The always entertaining Alex Jones (albeit I've big disagreements with him) on FAF....

[onmyknees]

Stavros, you've once again let informed analysis distract you from the point of the post. The OP doesn't actually care about this issue. It's only interesting as a partisan tool to bash the president and his administration.

And wasn't the OP ranting just the other day about the lack of coverage of this issue by CBS, only to turn around and create a whole thread relying on CBS coverage? The ability to manage dissonance must be herculean.

You're a whining, sniveling, knee jerk liberal. You're a hopeless excuse for a independently thinking, informed individual. Note that your first comment on this thread, or the matter in general is to blindly run to the defense of Obama, and blame me. It shows a lack of intellectual honesty and curiosity. You state no facts to the contrary, no evidence to defend the program or Holder's Department, or for that matter even Holder. You bring nothing to the table but blind loyalty . Not once did I, Senator Grassley, Rep Issa, Ms. Atkinson, or anyone else suggest Obama's involvement. The evidence is clear, the facts sworn, the body count verified.....and strangely....it's all my fault. Don't you see what you've become ? This is precisely why I label you a sycophant. You can't even allow your self the possibility that this occurred as the facts showed. Or that the August letter to Congress stood for 6 months as public record until it was withdrawn because of what Holder termed "inconsistencies and inaccuracies". You will follow your Dear Leader anywhere he takes you.

And yes....It's a fact. Ms. Atkinson is the only Lame Stream Media person who has had the balls to ask questions. The NYT, WAPO, CNN, ABC, NBC, etc, etc seem to be more enamored with Newt's first wife then they are with 200 dead Mexicans, a dead Border Patrol Agent, and an attorney General who's had to come before Congress 3 times, and leaves more questions unanswered, then answered.




"The 3rd Issue is that if the Obama administration devised this policy and it has failed, they must admit it, and find something else. The Obama administration has less of an impact on the cartel wars than drug users, I feel you are trying too hard to smear the Obama administration with any and every calumny you can think of -even the 'neo-cons' didn't bomb the cartels residences into rubble yet they were indifferent to the rubble left behind in Iraq -on day 1 they blasted a private house into dust because someone told them Saddam was eating dinner there -he wasn't, 25 people were killed, and none of them got any compensation. And Mexico's crime has direct impact on the USA in a way Iraq never has."





Stavros......You need to spend more time watching C-Span ( do you get it over there?) and less time dreaming up defenses for Obama. You're very close to joining the same club Blue Grass Cat is a charter Member of. Your attempt to compare and conflate is foolish....You can do better, although I'm starting to think that might not be the case.

[Stavros]

I don't have access to the daily news feeds from various sources you have there, which gives you as an American a greater opportunity to weigh up the arguments within the USA, but I think if you look at this whole issue in structural terms, the intensification of the conflict in Mexico pre-dated the Obama administration, and the key links -the links that matter most- that the cartels have to the USA are through the supply chains for the customers that buy the dope the cartels have to sell. How does anyone on the streets of San Francisco or New York get their coke for the weekend party? Is it on sale in the drug store?

From that perspective, the Obama administration looks more like a sideshow than major players -unfortunately in Mexico's case even the sideshow is responsible for too many grisly deaths. But the stats and evidence also prove that weapons are being purchased in Texas by US passport holders on behalf of the cartels, and you can't deny that. yes, some shop owners are tipping off the police about suspicious purchasers, but it is happening, and your laws enable it to happen, and Obama, Holder and Congress seem incapable of limiting access to a whole range of weapons of mass destruction, which is what these things become over time. The bitter irony must be that a law designed to provide citizens with protection from a foreign enemy, is empowering cartels who are, in my distant estimation, enemies of democracy in America North, Central and South.

What are you doing about it?

It looks to me like nobody is emerging from this mess with any claim to the moral high ground -whatever Holder was doing doesn't seem to have worked; the same is true of Calderon.

My primary focus is on the root causes, which are supply and demand for marijuana and cocaine; the two principal products at issue. That guns are in the mix is reminiscent of the Reagan administration's involvement in the illegal narcotics and arms trades in Central America and the Middle East - a notorious figure called Oliver North comes to mind, and to compare and conflate, is he worse or better than Mr Holder?

[hippifried]

Root cause? The root cause of all drug related crime is one group of self righteous assholes dictating what type of recreation others can enjoy.

[Stavros]

Dictating? As in: Hippifried, yo Hernandez, I insist you snort cocaine tomorrow and pay my boys $100. How does Cocaine become today what Opium was in 1900?

[fred41]

Dictating? As in: Hippifried, yo Hernandez, I insist you snort cocaine tomorrow and pay my boys $100. How does Cocaine become today what Opium was in 1900?

Don't want to put words in his mouth..but I believe he is speaking about legalization.