America's Growing Role In The war Against The Drug Cartels

Source: NPR, STRATFOR. Credit: Stephanie d'Otreppe/NPR

How the U.S. Fights The Zeta Cartel, From Spies To Sanctions -- Danger Room

The violence in the Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon began Tuesday morning and continued into Wednesday. By the end, 30 bodies had turned up around the state with bullet wounds or had been dismembered. The cause was attributed to a seemingly never-ending war between the Zeta drug cartel and their rivals. And that may only be a prelude. Miguel Angel Treviño, or "Z-40," has seized the leadership of the cartel from longtime chief Heriberto Lazcano, according to the Associated Press, which describes the new boss as a "brutal assassin" who favors cooking his enemies inside burning oil drums.

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My Comment: In the past, the U.S. provided training, equipment, and funds to support Latin America's wars against the drug cartels. It appears that a policy shift has occurred (with no debate), and that U.S. forces are now becoming directly involved.

America's Growing Involvement In Central America's Drug Wars

Image: NPR

Marines vs. Zetas: U.S. Hunts Drug Cartels in Guatemala -- Danger Room

The war on drugs just got a whole lot more warlike. Two hundred U.S. Marines have entered Guatemala, on a mission to chase local operatives of the murderous Zeta drug cartel.

The Marines are now encamped after having deployed to Guatemala earlier this month, and have just “kicked off” their share of Operation Martillo, or Hammer. That operation began earlier in January, and is much larger than just the Marine contingent and involves the Navy, Coast Guard, and federal agents working with the Guatemalans to block drug shipment routes.

It’s a big shift for U.S. forces in the region. For years, the Pentagon has sent troops to Guatemala, but these missions have been pretty limited to exercising “soft power” — training local soldiers, building roads and schools. Operation Martillo is something quite different.

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More News On America's Growing Involvement In Central America's Drug Wars

200 US Marines join anti-drug effort in Guatemala -- Bloomberg Businessweek/AP
Over 150 US Marines Deployed to Guatemala to Combat Drug Traffickers -- Insight
U.S. increases drug monitoring in Guatemalan, Honduran waters: official -- Reuters
Marines spot traffickers from Guatemalan skies -- Marine Times
Drug Lab Found in Caribbean Region of Honduras -- Latin American Herald Tribune
United States donates $2.5 million to fight drug trafficking in Costa Rica -- Inside Costa Rica
Costa Rica Drug Trafficking Threatens Country's National Parks -- Huffington Post
'Criminal Insurgency' is a Growing Threat in Central America -- David C. Eckley, Mexidata.info

Former Top MI6 Officer: Global War On Drugs A Failure

Former Top MI6 Officer Attacks Global War On Drugs -- The Guardian

• Prohibition promotes insecurity and crime
• Poor states pay the price for black market, says study published by respected thinktank

Suggestions that the drug laws need changing, that the global war on drugs has failed, are invariably put down to woolly, liberal, or maverick, thinking. What will be the response then when the suggestions come from a former deputy head of MI6 in a study published by such an established and venerable thinktank as the International Institute for Strategic Studies?

"Drugs have been the commodity which more than any other has primed the pump for the massive rise in organised criminality witnessed since the end of the cold war", writes Nigel Inkster, former MI6 director of operations and intelligence, and author, with Virginia Comolli, of Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States published by the IISS this week.

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WNU Editor: The IISS report is here.

World Drug Facts: 284 mln Drug Addicts Spending $320 Bln On Drugs Each Year

About 53 mln people regularly use amphetamines, 22 mln are addicted to opium and its derivatives, and 19 mln – to cocaine, the official said. © REUTERS/ Oswaldo Rivas

Official: 284 Mln Drug Addicts Spend $320 bln On Drugs Annually -- RIA Novosti

There are over 284 million drug addicts worldwide who spend about $320 billion a year to buy illegal narcotics, the head of Mexico's federal police said.

Speaking at an international conference on drug control in Cancun on Wednesday, Mexican Secretary of Public Security Genaro Garcia Luna said marijuana was the most widely consumed illicit drug, with 119 mln regular users around the world.

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My Comment: Looking at these stats .... it is easy to come to the conclusion that today's drug wars dwarf all other wars.

A Look At The Drug Runners' Jungle-Built, Kevlar-Coated Supersubs

Photo: Christoph Morlinghaus

Authorities in Awe of Drug Runners' Jungle-Built, Kevlar-Coated Supersubs -- Wired Science

The clatter of helicopter blades echoed across the jungles of northwestern Ecuador. Antinarcotics commandos in three choppers peered at the mangroves below, scanning for any sign of activity. The police had received a tip that a gang of Colombian drug smugglers had set up a clandestine work site here, in a dense swamp 5 miles south of Colombia’s border. And whatever the traffickers were building, the tipster had warned, was truly enormous.

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My Comment: I find this story fascinating, and a look at how huge the drug business has become in the Americas.

Submarines Becoming The Boat Of Choice For Colombian Cocaine Smugglers

Photo: Drug traffickers have been using submarines like this one, which the Colombian navy found in February. Luca Zanetti

The Cocaine Wars: Invasion Of The Drug Submarines -- Time Magazine

In recent years, the boat of choice for Colombian cocaine smugglers has been the semisubmersible, a vessel that cruises just below the ocean's surface with only its air and exhaust pipes sticking out of the water. Since the semisubs have proved so successful at dodging interdiction, it seemed inevitable that traffickers — who in the past have commandeered entire passenger jets to move their product — would upgrade to even more elusive full-fledged submarines. But narco U-boats were a murky legend of the depths, the drug-cartel version of the Loch Ness monster.

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My Comment: These submarines are flimsy but they are not cheap to put together. These seizures are giving a good indication on how much the drug gangs are profiting from their activities, and having a submarine (or fleet of submarines) ..... is just a means to do business.

Guatemala Is Now At War Against Mexico's Drug Cartels

Mexican Drug Cartels Draws Guatemalan Army To Jungles Where It Fought Civil War -- Washington Post

IN COBAN, GUATEMALA The once-fearsome Guatemalan army has returned to the jungles where it battled Marxist guerrillas a generation ago, this time to hunt shadowy Mexican drug traffickers fighting for control of strategic smuggling routes to the United States.

So serious is the perceived threat to national security that Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has extended "a state of siege" and martial law in his country's Alta Verapaz province, where authorities say the soldiers are beating back an invasion by the Mexican cartel known as the Zetas.

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My Comment: This is a losing battle. The drug cartels are successful because they provide enormous wealth to those who are willing to take the risks to get involved in this trade. Because of extreme poverty and high unemployment .... places like Guatemala have become ideal recruiting grounds for the cartels .... a battle that the Guatemalan government and military have no hope of winning.

In The Drug War, Drugs Are Winning

In The Drug War, Drugs Are Winning -- Reason.com

The case for legalizing marijuana.

When someone next door is coping with trouble, the neighborly thing to do is help. Mexico has a growing problem with extreme violence. And many people in California have a good idea of how to help.

Mexico has been wracked by murders connected to the drug trade. Last year, it suffered more than 6,500 drug-related killings, triple the number in 2007. And 2010 looks worse.

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My Comment: More people are dying from Mexico's drug cartel wars than those in Afghanistan and Iraq combined .... and it is a number that is getting worse. From that perspective, i would have to say that the drugs are winning.

Anti-Narcotics Drive Fuelled Drug Cartels: U.N.

Suspected members of a crime gang accused of extorting, kidnapping and drug trafficking are shown to the press in Mexico City, Eduardo Verdugo / AP

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

VIENNA (Reuters) – A U.N. anti-drug drive has backfired by making drug cartels so wealthy they can bribe their way through tracts of West Africa and Central America, the U.N. crime agency chief said on Wednesday.

The 10-year campaign had cut drug production and the number of users, said Antonio Maria Costa, but drug gangs were using their enormous profits to undermine security and development in nations already plagued by poverty, joblessness and HIV-AIDS.

Drug mobs were "buying officials, elections and parties, in a word, power," said Costa, director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

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More News On The Drug Wars

The Disturbing Rise of Drug Gangs -- Time Magazine
What has the Drug War done for you lately? -- New Republic
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran join in drug crackdown -- AP
Mexico police find severed heads -- BBC
Congress Discusses Increasing Drug Violence in Mexico -- Voice of America
Mexico anti-drug war can be won: US official -- AFP
Tune in: Online radio show on Mexico’s war on drugs -- World Focus

Cocaine Production Surge Unleashes Wave Of Violence In Latin America

From The Guardian:

Cocaine production has surged across Latin America and unleashed a wave of violence, population displacements and corruption, prompting urgent calls to rethink the drug war.

More than 750 tonnes of cocaine are shipped annually from the Andes in a multi-billion pound industry which has forced peasants off land, triggered gang wars and perverted state institutions.

A Guardian investigation based on dozens of interviews with law enforcement officials, coca farmers, refugees and policymakers has yielded a bleak picture of the "war" on the eve of a crucial United Nations drug summit.

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My Comment: One would think that with the economic/financial crisis getting worse, there would be less money to buy drugs. It appears that I am wrong.

But what is more shocking to me is that more people are dying from this war than Iraq and Afghanistan combined .... and the main stream media is only now properly covering this conflict.

Guinea-Bissau Violence Is Impacting Its Neighbours

GUINEA-BISSAU-SENEGAL: Assassinations Breed Uncertainty In Neighbouring Casamance -- IRIN News

DAKAR, 5 March 2009 (IRIN) - The recent assassinations of Guinea-Bissau’s president and army chief have cast a deep uncertainty over Senegal’s restive Casamance region, where a decades-long separatist struggle has been heavily influenced by Bissau politics, analysts say.

On 2 March President João Bernardo Vieira was shot dead, hours after a rocket attack killed Army Chief of Staff Tagme Na Wai. Guinea-Bissau officials have insisted the presidential assassination was not a coup, and on 3 March Guinea-Bissau swore in the parliament speaker Raimundo Pereira as interim leader and insisted it will maintain civilian rule.

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Update: Guinea-Bissau killings worry neighboring Senegal -- Energy Publisher

My Comment: It appears that South America's drug culture and violence is now being exported to Africa. If this is the case, it makes the problems that Africa has many times worse..

Three More Brigades To Go After Heroin Trade In Afghanistan

A Canadian soldier walks through a poppy field in Afghanistan. The crop is one of the chief sources of cash for the Taliban insurgency. Peter Andrews/Reuters

The Dance Of Death -- Strategy Page

February 12, 2009: NATO and U.S. forces have developed a playbook for how new replacement and reinforcing units can best fight the pro-Taliban militias in southern Afghanistan. These tips and tricks will get a lot more use soon. By the end of the year, three additional U.S. brigades will enable a new strategy, going after the heroin trade, to be implemented.

The playbook, created using years of experience, exploits how the Afghans operate. For example, there are always opportunities to use tribal politics. So officers have to sit down and negotiate with likely tribal allies (usually long time foes of the drug gang leaders). This can lead to an intelligence bonanza, because lots of people know where the Taliban and drug gangs hide their assets (money, heroin and opium, safe houses). Make the right deal, and all (or at least lots) will be revealed. Without a local patron, most rural Afghans won't even be motivated by cash rewards to provide information. But if someone higher up the food chain says it's OK, you'll have more intel than you can act on at once.

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My Comment: A rather optimistic point of view to how this counter insurgency plan will work. I am not so optimistic .... all that I can see are a lot of angry farmers.