Snark o’ the week
Congratulations to San Miguel de Allende for finally making it into UNESCO’s list of world heritage sites. The town campaigned pretty hard for it, though it’s not exactly clear to us why. Not only do they not need additional tourism, but the booming trade in Texan gringa plastic surgery is bound to be affected, since UNESCO rules prohibit the alteration of historic facades without a permit from INHA.
The other Global leader’s conference
As he prepared to leave Japan on the last day of the G8 summit, President Bush “signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit”:
…He told his fellow leaders: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”
President Bush made the private joke in the summit’s closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry.
The “G-8” nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have been meeting in Sapporo, Japan — supposedlY “working for real commitments” on cutting carbon emissions. The best they could come up with was a vague promise to maybe cutting emissions by half… sorta, kinda:
A statement from an environmental coalition including Friends of the Earth International explained the key flaws. “First, the G8 formula is a global cut,” not imposing particular responsibility on the rich, high carbon-polluting countries. Second, “the cut has no clear baseline. It was revealing that in announcing it, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda initially said it was from 1990 levels, then had to take back that statement and subsequently mentioned a 2000 baseline.” Third, the statement is not binding, and “indeed, the G8 announcement reinforces the G8 as a site for climate action that rivals the UN process [for climate change negotiations] and effectively subverts it.”
The G-5 (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) — which you hear much less about — was also meeting in Japan. The G-5 nations want an 80% cut in emissions by 2050, with a 25 to 40 percent cut in 1990 emission levels by 2020.
The G8, G5 and Australia, Indonesia and South Korea are collectively responsible for about 80 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases. The G-8 account for the bulk of these emisions. How the G-5 nations are, as Felipe Calderon said in a joint statement, “take into account historical responsibility and respective capacities as a fair and just approach”, was left unsaid.
Brazilians, Chinese, Indians, Mexicans and South Africans have begun to enjoy the “good life” — and why not? What makes you think Brazilians and Chinese and Indians and Mexicans and South Africans don’t want cars and refrigerators and air conditioners? How many Canadians, or Frenchmen or US people would WANT to live with regular water shortages or power outages? How many want to take the bus, or walk to the supermarket (or shop at the corner grocery every day because they only have a tiny refrigerator)… or… only run the air conditioner an hour or two at a time? To even reach the G-8 “voluntary” goals, it’s either going to require the G-5 and other nations to stop their development, or for the G-8 nations to make radical changes in their own societies.
In some ways, the G-5 nations may be in a better position. Public transit systems never deteriorated in these countries (they’ve improved) and there are less wasteful old technical systems (like oversized refrigerators) to re-engineer. I noticed a long time ago that Mexican refrigerators and washing machines were built for a country with water and electrical shortages (and electricity is relatively pricey in Mexico — heavy consumers pay more, not less per kilowatt hour) — and family homes are much smaller than in the “advanced” countries. But, the G-5 are the supposedly “developing” countries, and their development is going to continue. They can’t sacrifice their own citizens because of the wasteful habits used by others in the past.
We’re in for a bumpy ride.
Memin and the Party of Joy
The comic book character, Memin Pinguin, is back in the news.
While there is a good case to be made (and it is made very well by Marco Polo Hernandez Cuevas of North Carolina Central University in the attached video) that the comics are symptoms of a racist Spanish influence in Mexican culture, I don’t think Mexico is nearly as “racist” as the United States, and looks at stereotypes, like Memin, differently than we do in the U.S.
The cartoon is not as popular as the U.S. press makes out, the series having been discontinued in 2001. The only translation I’ve seen of a Memin comic, in a scholarly article sent to me by Professor Hernandez Cuevas, has Memin speaking “Hollywood Ebonics”. If I recall correctly, Memin speaks Veracruz/Caribbean Spanish. He certainly doesn’t talk like Buckwheat.
In the comic, he’s being raised in the Mexico City dump by his long-suffering mother (his father having been killed in an accident). Like another popular Mexican stereotype (Maria la India) he’s an uneducated naif, but making his own way amid sterotyped representatives of the other social and economic groups within Mexico. However, he does indeed drawn with exaggerated “Negroid” features. For that matter, so was Colin Powell, when he was U.S. Secretary of State during the build-up to the Iraq War, which made him extremely unpopular in Mexico. At that time, the most popular foreign actor in Mexico was Denzel Washington.
Mexicans, apparently, don’t “get” racial stereotyping. It was not Mexicans, but Mexican-Americans who complained about Speedy Gonzales (beloved in Mexico) and the Frito Bandito. Back in July 2005, when the Mexican Postal Service issued stamps featuring Memin (part of a series on comic book characters), the outrage from the United States was simply not understood in Mexico. David Brook wrote — in Spanish — an excellent overview of the polemics surrounding the issue. The over-eagerness of the Bush Administration to take up the anti-Memin cause seemed a little out of character… and to the Mexican press, appeared to have more to do with strained relations between the Fox and Bush administrations than anything else. Vicente Fox didn’t help any when he agreed to meet with Rev. Jesse Jackson about the “controversy.” At the time, Jackson had been making noises about a “black-brown coalition” to oppose certain Bush Administration policies, and it seemed terribly convenient for Bush to make a postage stamp into an international issue. And meeting with Jackson (who has no official position in the United States government) made it appear as if Fox was giving special concesions to foreigners. In other words, giving in to whatever some gringo wanted.
According to the Houston Chronicle’s Neil Stratton:
Wal-Mart announced Wednesday it will no longer sell the controversial comic book featuring Memín. The national chain recently made the comic book available in its stores as part of a series of Spanish-language titles. The books prompted outrage this week from community activist Quanell X, who demanded that Wal-Mart apologize for selling the racially charged books.
However, the decision by the nation’s largest retailer to pull the books wasn’t enough for Meyerland resident Shawnedria McGinty, 34, who originally brought the matter to Quanell X’s attention. She said the statement released by Wal-Mart addressing the comic book was tantamount to “a slap in the face.”
Shawnedria McGinty may read Mexican comic books, and may regularly shop for them, but somehow that doesn’t seem likely. Quanell X, a controversial Houston political figure, is the head of the “New Black Panther Party of Houston” (disavowed by the Black Panthers themselves), described by the Anti-Defamation League (the Party itself does not seem to have a website) as
… feeding off of the nostalgia for, and presenting itself in the image of, the original Panthers, the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense has been able to … maintain its influence in the black community. While the NBPP still attracts some followers under the guise of championing the causes of black empowerment and civil rights, its record of racism and anti-Semitism has overshadowed any of its efforts to promote black pride and consciousness.
From my time in Houston, I remember Mr. X as being very good at stirring shit up (which sometimes needed stirring), but without a huge following. Whether or not this is true here, I’ll leave to the Houston media to figure out.
One other thought crosses my mind. Mexico’s first mixed Afro-Mestizo President was elected in 1828, and there have been several (Juan Alvarado, Lazaro Cardenas del Rio) since then. It’s only now that the United States has a serious mainstream candidate for president who is of mixed race. While the United States lumps Mexicans and Afro-Cubans and Afro-Dominicans and a lot of other people together in the false “racial” category of “Hispanic,” it’s Mexican-Americans — especially in states that normally vote Republican, like Texas, or are closely contested between the parties (like New Mexico) that are of special concern to the two political parties. The U.S. press hasn’t picked up on this yet, but Juan José Gutiérrez, of LatinosUSA, and an Obama supporter has. In today’s Jornada, Gutiérrez is quoted as saying (my translation):
“What were the odds that the protests would come from a Republican bastion like Texas? It seems that there are some people interested in creating a pretext to accentuate differences between Hispanics and African-Americans, based on something that has nothing to do with the political reality of the United States.”
I’d originally planned to post this video later, but given the political ramifications of comic-book-gate, Prof. Hernandez Cuevas’ short documentary is well worth posting now:
One of the more popular criticisms I hear about the the Merida Initiative from conservatives (and others) on U.S. websites is that “the money will just go to corrupt Mexican politicians”. I think it may be corrupting, but what people forget is that the U.S. treasury isn’t writing a check payable to the Mexican government. It’s spending money IN THE UNITED STATES for
… for nonintrusive inspection equipment, ion scanners and canine units for Mexico and Central America to stop drugs, arms, cash and criminals. It also includes secure communications systems, helicopters and surveillance aircraft, and it includes training and community action programs for anti-gang measures.
I’ve been having a hell of a time finding out exactly WHO (or are corporations a “WHAT”) will be receiving these funds. As Laura Carlsen noted last October (when the initiative was first being discussed):
…the new deal will offer up lucrative contracts to U.S. military and intelligence equipment firms, long-term maintenance and training contracts, and related services. In a recent Washington Post article, Misha Glenny cites a GAO report on Plan Colombia that finds that 70% of the money allotted never leaves the United States.
The billion-dollar drug deal may be a bonanza for Boeing, but the pay-off to the U.S. taxpayers who have to foot the bill is much less obvious.
Despite Walters’ claims, a tremendous amount of evidence exists to show the consistent failure of the supply-side model of drug war that relies primarily on military and police enforcement measures. When that model goes international, it becomes even more problematic, feeding conflict as it starves social investment.
Certainly the police and military in Mexico want, and need, more training — and maybe equipment. The crackdown on narcotics dealers is welcome by many, who are tired of the violence. The violence has escalated SINCE the crackdown, and — similar to the Bush administration’s response to increased violence in Iraq — the claim is that the “surge is working.” Maybe.
Even if that is true (and given the sorry state of the rural economy, I can’t see drug sales themselves as corrupting. If a narco buys a new SUV, and the salesman buys his daughter a computer so she can get ahead in her studies and go to medical school, is her future career based on corruption? What if she specializes in addiction treatment therapies?
That’s a little silly, I know. But, if these funds are going to be corrosive, I think it’s going to come in two areas. First, with more resources and intellegence gathering capability, there is a danger that “anti-drug” activities will be used to deal with unpopular, or politically inconvenient, factions. BurroHall mentioned a military raid on the Zapatistas under the guise of searching for marijuana, reported in more detail by Luis Hernández Navarro of Jornada:
Since the January 1994 insurrection, various administrations have wanted to associate the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN in its Spanish initials) with drug trafficking. They’ve never been able to demonstrate such a link, but they try time and time again.
This past June 4 the tired old story played out again. Only this time the threat is greater than in the past. On that date over 200 agents from the federal Army, the Attorney General’s office, and state and municipal police, with their faces painted, entered the Zapatista territory of La Garrucha with the pretext of looking for marijuana plants. Hundreds of residents from the Hermenegildo Galeana and San Alejando communities fended them off with machetes, clubs, and slingshots.
Zapatista communities prohibit the cultivation, trafficking, and consumption of drugs. It’s not even permitted to drink or sell alcohol there. This isn’t a new fact. The rebel commanders have made this law public since the beginning of the armed uprising. The measure remains in effect under the civil authorities who have been put in charge of the autonomous municipalities and the good government councils.
(Translation from Narco News: while I am dubious about some of Narco New’s reporting, because they don’t seem to fact check their “co-publishers”, I will use their material if it is from a reputable outside source [which you can assume was fact-checked] or that I’ve double checked against other published data)
I don’t want to go into a long riff here, but I’d point out that the Merida Initiative funding was part of a military spending and “anti-terrorism” appropriation. Mexican “anti-terrorism” activities were in the news last week. The now deceased ttp://www <!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>Fredi Fierro Peredo was arrested and tortured at the age of 85 after disturbances in Guerrero a few years back. Fierro’s posthumous testimony is part of an investigation into military conducted disappearances and torture that followed the Acteal Massacre. Without much trouble that incident could be called “anti-terrorist” activities today. I’ll try to get my source translated and posted later this week.
Last week, Mexicans were shocked when police training videos — that included torture — surfaced in Leon. What was puzzling at the time was that the trainers were English-speakers. A little investigation by Mexican journalists has uncovered the identity of those trainers: “Jerry WIlson” and karateca, instructor de torturadores <!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>Gerardo Arrechea, both connected with a Florida company, Risks Incorporated. El Universal reports that Arrechea has an unlicensed karate school in Mexico, and is apparently working illegally. NarcoNews ties him to a Cuban-American organization with a propensity for violent acts in Cuba and elsewhere.
This is where United States taxpayer dollars are going. If the funds are just ending up in the hands of narcotics dealers, it’s because the beneficiaries of government largesse (say Bell Helicopter workers) will have the money to spend… on narcotics, among other things.
Which leads to the second problem. The iniative looks only at the “supply side” and does nothing about demand. Other than leading Mexico into a police state, it only as an afterthought looks at the cash coming into Mexico. While some of those heliocopter workers might buy more Mexican tomatoes, or auto parts, or gasoline made from Mexican oil, guns and “training” by U.S. based companies is not going to put cash into the pockets of Mexican workers, or rural residents. It’s going to damage the tourism industry, and make the country more, not less, dangerous. A couple of neighbor kids were arrested yesterday for… something. The cops showed up, put their hands on the kids and told them to sit in the back of their pickup truck. The kids were talking — politely — to the coppers as they drove off. Compare that to an arrest in the United States — the kids would be wrestled to the ground, handcuffed (and being Mexico, cuffed up the side of the head a few times). I worry what’s going to happen when the police are trained to treat all arrests as potentially deadly, and have the firepower to back it up. Or with even more weapons available that make confrontations all the more likely. I expect cops will be drawing their guns a lot more… and more “innocent bystanders” (or at least people not directly related to the crime, like the guy shot in his car in Cuilican last week when the police and gangsters had a car chase/shootout and the poor guy bought it at an intersection).
And, as long as there is a willing buyer, narcotics dealers will keep selling. Only now they’ll have more guns available on the black market.
Now they tell us!
The USDA has finished its exhaustive studies of Mexican tomatoes and found no evidence of salmonella. Too late, I think, to save this year’s crop. Oh well, Sinaloa’s other major exports — marijuana and opium poppies, might bring in some needed cash. You mean those aren’t the crops we should be exporting?
The problems have been bureaucratic and the scare seems media-driven to me. I don’t play “blame the media”, but it seems as if the big news bureaus have just been taking what they’re told by the FDA — which seems to have no handle on the situation — and has been stirring up a lot of needless fear.
There’s no grand conspiracy, but U.S. policy (and bureaucratic ineptitude) seems designed to depopulate rural Mexico. Between an inability to fashion a workable food policy (and the country’s over-dependence on a few corporate suppliers), Mexican farmers can’t compete. If they turn to the crops that aren’t being driven off the market by the FDA and the USDA, they run up against the U.S. “war on drugs.” The rural people can’t win… I guess they’ll have to emigrate.
Lawrence Iliff and Alfredo Corchado (Dallas Morning News) report in the Arizona Republic:
Overall, about 15 percent of the U.S. food supply and 60 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables consumed are imported, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.
Mexico is the second-largest foreign source of agricultural products and seafood for the U.S., moving to No. 1 during the winter months and filling about 60 percent of the supermarket produce aisle. And it’s the worst offender when it comes to food shipments turned away at the border by U.S. inspectors, a review of food rejections shows.
In fairness to Mexico, U.S. food producers were the subject of far more expansive recalls last year than foreign producers, including recalls of California spinach that tested positive for E. coli and was blamed for three deaths, and of 22 million pounds of frozen beef hamburger patties, also because of a dangerous strain of that common bacteria.
I think that I shall never see…
July is forestry month. Karl Vick, in the 5 July Washington Post reports on how the Bush administration is celebrating:
MISSOULA, Mont. — The Bush administration is preparing to ease the way for the nation’s largest private landowner to convert hundreds of thousands of acres of mountain forestland to residential subdivisions.
The deal was struck behind closed doors between Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and Plum Creek Timber Co., a former logging company turned real estate investment trust that is building homes. Plum Creek owns more than 8 million acres nationwide, including 1.2 million acres in the mountains of western Montana, where local officials were stunned and outraged at the deal.
…
Environmentalists, to their surprise, found that timber and mining were easier on the countryside.
“Now that Plum Creek is getting out of the timber business, we’re kind of missing the loggers,” said Ray Rasker, executive director of Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit that studies land management in the West. “A clear-cut will grow back, but a subdivision of trophy homes, that’s going to be that way forever.
“It’s kind of the ugly face of the new economy.”
Meanwhile, down here in “backwards” Mexico, the billion tree campaign has somewhat slowed down, but …
In Tijuana, combining urban beautification and air quality improvements, the state Governor planted a tree in front of “the tacky border fence” as Maggie’s Madness puts it (and thanks for the photo, Maggie!)
President Calderon on 5 July was quoted as saying “Planting a tree makes you part of history” at the start of festivities at Ejido San Nicolas Obispo, Michaocan, where locals attempted to break the Guinness World Record for the most trees planted in a single day… .part of the La Cruzada Nacional de Reforestación.
Since 2006, the Cruzada has planted 85 new forests. The goal for this year is 64 more.
Becoming a non-person
Erik K. Ward on what happens when you don’t have a drivers’ license (in his case because of a visual handicap) and have your passport and birth certificate go AWOL…
I’m African-American and my family moved to California almost a hundred years ago after a lynching took place outside their hometown in Kentucky.
I’m also undocumented, or in the current anti-immigrant vernacular, “illegal.” I don’t have the necessary documents to prove my identity. Therefore, within four years, I won’t be able to vote, have access to social services, or receive state identification to travel…
Since it was obvious, after twenty minutes of discussion, that I didn’t own a driver’s license, a passport, or a social security card, they told me to fill out the proper forms in front of a notary public in Chicago. I quickly opened the phone book and had a co-worker drive me to a notary public. But when I got there, the notary public said I needed a passport, social security card, or driver’s license to receive an official notary seal.
…
Four weeks later my birth certificate arrived!
But when I arrived at the Post Office to pick it up, the attendant asked me to produce a passport, driver’s license and, most ironically, a copy of my birth certificate to obtain my birth certificate.
So, what do we call Mr. Ward? An illegal non-alien, or an undocumented citizen?
Plan Merida — bad to worse
Laura Carlsen, Americas MexicoBlog:
When drug trafficking is considered synonymous with terrorism, it opens the door to suspension of civil liberties, pulls the country into the Bush counterterrorism strategy, and obscures the real nature and roots of the problem. Negroponte’s remarks also reflect the removal of the security locus from the national to the regional realm, where the United States calls the shots. In this context, fears of violation of national sovereignty are not exaggerated.
While accusing the opposition of being insensitive to drug-related violence, proponents of Plan Mexico paved the way for an aid package that will likely increase violence and bring it closer to home as the drug war extends to opposition targets like it did under Plan Colombia. It will also fail, just as other applications of the drug war model have failed.
I would like to be wrong on this, but the signs are already there—human rights violations have increased precipitously since President Calderon launched the militarization of Mexican society in response to the violence of the drug cartels. The Merida Initiative applauds this strategy and explicitly aims to reinforce and broaden security measures. It adds U.S. espionage equipment and firepower while providing no significant funding or role for civil society measures or protection of civil liberties. Violence fought with violence has led to nearly double the drug-related deaths this year alone and multiple attacks on grassroots leaders, unarmed civilians, Zapatista communities and women by security forces.
Ain’t no way to treat a lady, oh no…
After thinking about it, I decided to pull down this post. Too many (very good) questions, coming from a comment Irene made about the angle of the shot. My error. It happens.
What’s wrong with salsa?
From Nancy Kercheval, Bloomberg.com:
July 5 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. will ban Mexican imports of ingredients commonly used in foods such as salsa as it seeks the source of a salmonella outbreak, Cable News Network said, citing former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.
Health inspectors will stop shipments of cilantro, jalapeno peppers, Serrano peppers, scallions and bulb onions from entering the U.S. on July 7, Thompson told CNN. The items will be tested for salmonella and E.coli.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration originally theorized that tomatoes were the source of the salmonella poisoning, which has afflicted 943 people in 40 states, the District of Columbia and Canada, CNN said, citing U.S. Centers for Disease Control statistics.
The outbreak has cost tomato growers about $450 million, Thompson told CNN. He is a partner in Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, according to the law firm’s Web site.
I’m still trying to figure out why Tommy Thompson is involved. It may have to do with Akin Gump‘s large “Health Care” practice (if salmonella can be blamed on Mexican farmers, it gets the privatized health services folks off the hook, and the FDA out from under the suspicion of not doing their job) or their Republican Party ties (again, the FDA incompetence angle) or… who knows… something involving their big foreign clients, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, China.
It makes no sense that Thompson would be involved (even as an ex-Health and Human Services Department Secretary) … but, for what it’s worth, I’m still eating Mexican vegetables with no ill effects.
Sunday readings: 6 July 2008
Casa Xochiquetzel
Guanabee posts videos (and a link for donations) to Mexico City’s most famous retirement home:
Remember Casa Xochiquetzal, the retirement home for prostitutes in Mexico City? … Once again, Mexico City leads the way in progressive sexual politics and we for one are thoroughly impressed that a place like this exists. In the first video, we meet Canela (pictured here), a 75 year-old sex worker who’s been retired for four years and now sells candles, Paola, aged 60 who still works and says she occasionally gets some young clients. “Son ricos!” Last, we meet Reynita who won’t tell her age, but looks about 90 and sings like an angel.
Speaking of old folks… One bad idea deserves another:
John McCain is trying to sell the same “Free trade” agreement that destroyed Mexican agriculture to Colombia… with probably the same results, according to Michael Collier of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs:
While free trade has the potential to bolster Colombia’s economy and strengthen bilateral ties, it can be argued that the current CTPA would mainly help U.S. agribusiness at the expense of Colombia’s working class and its own agricultural sector. The present respite in the Congressional debate offers the perfect opportunity for the U.S. to take steps to ensure a trade deal that addresses these contentious issues prompted by the trade measures.
Laura Carlsen reflects on her old job with Mexico Business, back when NAFTA was just a pup (Counterpunch)
…In the face of predictions of massive job loss, they blithely assumed that the market and high growth rates would work it all out. For U.S. businesses in Mexico, the greater mobility of capital and investor incentives in NAFTA presented a bright new day with nary a cloud in sight.
Meanwhile, small farmers organizations couldn’t believe they were being asked to compete with subsidized products from the world’s largest exporter. Independent unions thought the trade-off between more maquiladora jobs, and downward pressure on wages and job security due to international competition between workers was sure to be a bum deal in the long term.
Mexican trade activists decided on a two-part strategy: 1) demand information on the negotiations and 2) call the Canadians….
But… how much can Latin America “grow” anyway?
Eduardo Gudnyas, on the IRC-Americas website, writes on the Limits of economic Growth in Latin America:
A good number of the political actors think themselves to be immune to …ecological limits. Indeed they feel that their moment in history is upon them and that, furthermore, they should take advantage of the high international prices in order to feed economic growth in their countries. The hypnotic effect of this material growth, of the appropriation of nature to nourish financial flows that nurture a consumer society, is so intense that time and time again evidence of the effect of growth on ecological limits is rejected.
Alien invaders… NOT!
I wasn’t going to pay attention to the latest dubious “Mescans attacking Ammurica” stories… you know, the kind with headlines like “Mexican Military Raiding The Homes of Phoenix Police Officers” or the slightly more alarming that the variant “Mexican Cartel Zetas Attack and kill an American in Phoenix“. Coming as they do from not very reliable sources, I was surprised to see the alarmist (but semi-reliable) Stratfor Terrorism Intelligence Report riffing off this supposed event.
Not that the story was going to hold up:. These were good old American gangsters who got their “tactical training” (if they had any… they were caught, which means they weren’t exactly the A Team) courtesy of the Arizona Department of Corrections, their long-time landlord. One of them claims to have had “some military training”… whatever that means. Hell, maybe he was in JrROTC or got thrown out of basic training. None, apparently, are even Mexicans.
At least Stratfor got it right that the guys who invaded somebody’s home in Phoenix and killed somebody were gangsters wearing police-type uniforms (one of the other sources assumed anybody wearing military type clothing — you know, they stuff you pick up your local Militias R Us, neighborhood gun shop… or even WalMart, for that matter — and sorta looked Mexican must have been Mexican military guys in the pay of Mexican gangsters.
While it now appears that the three men arrested in Phoenix were not former or active members of the Mexican military or police, it is not surprising that they employed military- and police-style tactics. Enforcers of various cartel groups such as Los Zetas, La Gente Nueva or the Kaibiles who have received advanced tactical training often pass on that training to younger enforcers (many of whom are former street thugs) at makeshift training camps located on ranches in northern Mexico. There are also reports of Israeli mercenaries visiting these camps to provide tactical training. In this way, the cartel enforcers are transforming ordinary street thugs into highly-trained cartel tactical teams.
Though cartel enforcers have almost always had ready access to guns, including military weapons such as assault rifles and grenade launchers, groups such as Los Zetas, the Kaibiles and their young disciples bring an added level of threat to the equation.
Nowhere does Statfor say these bozos were Zetas, or anything else. But they do make a good point. Thugs with access to guns are likely to make Mexico as dangerous as… oh… Arizona.
mexfiles.net 