Boom!

I haven’t been able to run down Malcolm Beith’s references (and I’ll leave that to others), but I believe he’s correct when he posted yesterday:

Everyone is reporting on the car bomb in Ciudad Juarez, and how it adds a new dimension to the war on drugs. Actually, car bombs (i believe multiple) were detonated in Sinaloa in 2008. So it’s not really a new dimension, more of an ugly new twist.

And, although the would be bomber managed to managed to blow himself up, it’s not the first time gangsters have used bombs against law enforcement people by any means. On 16 Feburary 2008, a gang with colorful names like “El Nazi” and “El Gordo” tried to blow up the local prosecutor’s office in the Federal District, instead blowing up some flunkie.  That bomb was a primitive “mother of Satan” concoction.  Most of the ingredients being available at your local hairdressers (and the widow of the wannabe bomber was a hairdresser), the Mothers of Satan have been a favorite bomb for all kinds of baddies, including “terrorists” — which led to the usual crazy reactions in the U.S. about possible Middle-Eastern involvement.   Count on the always reliable Fred “Paranoia R Us” Burton to try detonating a whole new level of paranoia:

Although Mexican authorities say the attack was the result of a car bomb, a counterterrorism expert said there is “some confusion” about exactly what caused the car to explode.

“For this to be an improvised grenade attack, in some capacity, it doesn’t surprise me,” said Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence at Stratfor, a privately owned global Intelligence service.

But if this particular car bomb was manufactured to the level of sophistication similar to those used by terrorist groups like Hezbollah, then this is a significant event, Burton said.

Other than a more sophisticated bomb design — n this case,  set off by a cell phone, and designed to injure or kill rescue workers (one of the victims was a doctor who stopped to render medical assistance) after police officers were wounded in a shoot-out with gangsters,  all that means is gangsters are reading the same “bombing for dummies” books every other bad guy reads.

Gangsters have been using bombs and car bombs to kill their enemies for a very long time.  And all over the world, even in Arizona (where car bombs are also used for such mundane purposes as disposing of unwanted — and well insuranced — spouses).

And it’s certainly not as if this is a new idea.  Car bombing in relation to the border narcotics trade has been considered before, as in the 1958 film “A Touch of Evil”: