Mexican Cartels Build Mad Max Narco Tanks 343
Hugh Pickens writes "Not content with building their own submarines, using bazookas, rocket-propelled grenades or land mines, drug cartels are now building armored assault vehicles, complete with gun turrets, inch-thick armor plates, firing ports and bulletproof glass. The monsters look like a cross between a handmade assault vehicle used by a Somali warlord and something out of a post-apocalyptic Mad Max movie, and have already appeared in several confrontations with Mexican authorities. A look inside a captured 'monster' truck (YouTube video) reveals that in addition to swiveling turrets to shoot in any direction, they have hatches and peepholes for snipers, their spacious interiors can fit as many as 20 armed men, and they are coated with polyurethane for insulation and to reduce noise. Still Patrick Corcoran writes that the armored vehicles are not a game changer. 'While the "narco-tanks," as the vehicles are often called, make for great blog fodder and provide entertaining videos, seeing their rise as a significant escalation in Mexico's drug war would be wrongheaded,' writes Corcoran. 'In the end, the "tanks" are a sexy narrative, but these mistaken notions about the criminals' "military might" not only inflate the power of Mexico's groups far beyond any reasonable assessment, they also obscure the problem, and its potential solutions.'"
The war on alcohol ended before this (Score:5, Interesting)
When alcohol was prohibited, the US saw all kinds of organization and arming of people in the alcohol trade. It got so bad that it was decided that alcohol should no longer be prohibited. Now it is just tightly controlled.
The war on drugs is a different story though isn't it. I guess the main reason why might be that all this stuff isn't quite so visible to the public.
The government is the biggest drug cartel (Score:3, Interesting)
What do you think it's doing in Afghanistan [bbc.co.uk]?? You think they're going to let a bunch of sheepherders strangle the family business?
Re:bullshit. (Score:4, Interesting)
and as you say - it stands against small arms - not anti tank rifles or heavier weapons - the point is, it DOES stand against the majority of weapons on the scene.
most of combat in world war ii was fought with similar, even weaker vehicles.
you cant put predator patrols over a city and start shooting suspicious vehicles with anti tank ammunition. that is the real deal here. you are joking when you say MLRS. what are you going to use MLRS against ? neighborhoods ?
this is city warfare. you are not fighting in open desert. predators, mlrs are out of question unless you want to destroy entire neighborhoods.
Re:So? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_drugsub/all/1 [wired.com]
5.5 tons of cocaine on a American-registered DC-9
http://www.madcowprod.com/07152010.htm [madcowprod.com]
As for the US border, expect to see a huge roll out of face, cell phone data and optical character recognition systems deep into the USA on all public roads.
Your car might make it over, but your face will be recorded. You can change cars, papers, times, but over time a database will try and build some face based watch list for people who make repeated trips
Is the driver new to the US, looking stressed, been seen before on back roads
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:bullshit. (Score:4, Interesting)
Your tinfoil hat must be cutting off circulation to your head. The government wasn't smuggling guns for the cartels, they were engaged in a sting. A poorly conceived of and executed sting, but a sting no less. It's just plain dishonest to suggest that the US is funding and arming them.
Yes, they are making most of their money here and they are using that money to pay people to buy them weapons, but you make it sound like there's some sort of conspiracy going on. Whereas what's really going on is typical of organized crime and requires no additional paranoia to explain.
Re:Please remember (Score:5, Interesting)
They do, obviously, because its close to Mexico and has an open drugs market. But I think that is a moot point.
Now before I explain why, bear in mind I'm a Mexican living in Monterrey. Just yesterday I was caught in traffic because a couple of severed heads were displayed on a bridge I go through every single day. People are curious that way and drive slowly so they can see...
If you could magically stop US->Mexico weapon trafficking, they'd bring them in from all over central america where lots of (US led, incited or provoked) wars have been fought, leaving behind healthy weapons markets. Colombia had a worse problem than us in Mexico and their narcs didn't bring in the guns from the US (or obviously they did, but not as easyly as they can do it in Mexico), and they took half the country for themselves (Colombia is still, to this day, split in two).
Its not about firepower, police, law or drugs. Its about money. This mafias are the same as the italian, russian, american or japaneese mafias, and same as those, they get their money from certain trades more than others. In this case, beingthis close to the US means: 1) Drugs and 2) Slaves and Organs (you call this "illegal inmigration" and "black market" organ "donors"). Their bussiness is the border. They are smugglers.
Of the two, the first gives much more money, att least 20 billion dollars a year (at the very, very least, 10 billion, at the highest count, 60-70 billion). Mexico's oil industry, the third largest state-owned in the world, gives 40 billion at its best. And most of the state money comes from that, not taxes.
So in the end, its about how governments spend their resouces to face this threat: ours focus on drug trafficking to the north. Yes, most of our effort here is tries to make sure that your coke is more expensive. Imagine that. Actually, the President of Mexico in the 2007, as proof that this shit is working, cited that the price of coke in new york went up due to this genius war of his.
Now this was not invented by mexicans. We are catholics but not puritans. We certaintly have never, ever had a prohibition party like you guys did in the XIX century and we do not make international drug policy: that one is imposed by the U S of A. We did not prohibit marihuana until you guys came a knocking demanding we did.
You guys need to change that shit because we are killing people here to make the mafia stronger because this is the result of a policy you impose on other countries. If other countries do not comply with your war-on-drugs discourse, your senate puts them in a list where they face strong trade barriers. are not ellegible for aid, and are strong armed by US government lobbies that do their best, which is a lot, to complicate those countries access to international money lending programmes such as those by the IMF and the WB.
Change that shit man. We down here do not deserve to die, live with fucking murderers, give them a fuckload of money (through prohibition), because you guys cant officially state that your people like to get high, You hold this policy of purity that aspires to a "clean" america, while on the other hand you are the country with the highest per capita consumption of illegal drugs in the world.
Its stupid. Your country is killing mine over a really stupid view of the world. I want drugs to be legal in ALL OF OCCIDENT.
Jesus did not have the last dinner with a mountain dew and did not turn water into coca cola. He very well damned had a glass of wine and in that particular wedding he brought more booze for everyone to party the fuck on. I sure do hope you guys get that through your thick heads before the cartels find out that they have to force american authorities on their soil to fuck off so they can continue doing bussiness.
Re:Thank you Wachovia (Score:2, Interesting)
You have to understand the reality of the situation. As they say, follow the money. Wachovia is not alone or even an outlier.
If you follow the flow of product and look at the profit margins, where the costs are is in the border trade. Outside the U.S., and within the U.S. itself they operate on much smaller profit margins. Once you hit the U.S. border trade the margin goes up to something like 400% (then drops back down once inside). This is to account for lost (seized) inventory, costly operations overhead, payoffs, etc. so that ultimately, you have to raise the price x fold in order to maintain a decent margin overall because of a small portion of your distribution network.
As for the finance aspect of the trade, Wachovia is only the tip of the iceberg. It has been well known for around a decade that if you were to pull all of the drug money out of the stock market, the market would most likely crash and we would be plunged into an even deeper depression. Yep, the liquidity injected into the market by drug-money helped to keep the economy from total collapse while the financial cartels were making huge gains and we (the taxpayers, homeowners and small investors were being taken for all we had).
At the height of the 2008 banking crisis, Antonio Maria Costa, then head of the United Nations office on drugs and crime, said he had evidence to suggest the proceeds from drugs and crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to banks on the brink of collapse. "Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade," he said. "There were signs that some banks were rescued that way."
Add on top of that the private prison industry. Add to that lawyers and the legal system. Add to that large pools of taxpayer money for "enforcement" to dig their hands into.
This is why a failed war on drugs continues. Money. The cartels make more money with drugs being illegal, and I don't mean drug cartels (although they do as well). Simply put, what is in the "legitimate" society's actual best interest doesn't matter (or doesn't matter as much as money) to the cartels who run "legitimate" society.
As long as this reality exists there will be a war on drugs.
As long as certain entities make more money with drugs illegal rather than legal, there will be a war on drugs.
Who does a war on drugs help? Wall Street cartels, law enforcement cartels, private prison cartel, legal system cartels, etc..
Who does a war on drugs hurt? Taxpayers, (otherwise law abiding) citizens. Just the little people.
Re:solutions... (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW how's that "Hope and Change" thing working out? Turned out to be nothing but Dubya dipped in chocolate huh? I'm afraid the late Bill Hicks [youtube.com] nailed it more than 20 years ago. How sad is it the man has been gone for two decades and if anything his words are even more true now?
Bill Hicks:-
I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your fuckin' mouth.
Your denial is beneath you, and thanks to the use of hallucinogenic drugs, I see through you.
"This is your brain." I've seen a lot of weird shit on drugs. I have never ever ever ever EVER looked at a fucking egg and thought it was a brain.
If you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, then go home and burn all your records, all your tapes, and all your CDs because every one of those artists who have made brilliant music and enhanced your lives? RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrEAL fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few songs.
I have never seen two people on pot get in a fight because it is fucking IMPOSSIBLE. "Hey, buddy!" "Hey, what?" "Ummmmmmm...." End of argument.
Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit... unnatural? You know what I mean? It's nature. How do you make nature against the fucking law?
I believe that God left certain drugs growing naturally upon our planet to help speed up and facilitate our evolution. OK, not the most popular idea ever expressed. Either that or you're all real high and agreeing with me in the only way you can right now. (Starts blinking)
They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.
No, I don't do drugs anymore, either. But I'll tell you something about drugs. I used to do drugs, but I'll tell you something honestly about drugs, honestly, and I know it's not a very popular idea, you don't hear it very often anymore, but it is the truth: I had a great time doing drugs. Sorry. Never murdered anyone, never robbed anyone, never raped anyone, never beat anyone, never lost a job, a car, a house, a wife or kids, laughed my ass off, and went about my day.
Christianity has a built-in defense system: anything that questions a belief, no matter how logical the argument is, is the work of Satan by the very fact that it makes you question a belief. It's a very interesting defense mechanism and the only way to get by it -- and believe me, I was raised Southern Baptist -- is to take massive amounts of mushrooms, sit in a field, and just go, "Show me."
That's an act, that's a frying pan, that's a stove, you're an alcoholic! Dude, I'm tripping right now, and I still see that that's a fucking egg, alright? I see the UFO's around it, but that's a goddamn egg in the middle. There's a hobbit eating it, but goddammit that hobbit's eating a fucking egg! He's on a unicorn. But, no, th-th-th-that's a fucking egg. How dare you have a wino tell me not to do drugs!
The worst kind of non-smokers are the ones that come up to you and cough. That's pretty fucking cruel isn't it? Do you go up to cripples and dance too?
A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? It's like going up to Jackie Onassis wearing a rifle pendant.
Re:Please remember (Score:3, Interesting)
Very well put, only someone outside U.S. can judge the situation the way you did and pretty much what the average citizen of producer countries think.
Anyway, I'm from Colombia and may say that were not actually "split in two" as you said. We went trough a very interesting phase where originally the drug was controlled by cartels (Medellin Cartel and Cali cartel, Pablo Escobar era) Guerrilla at that time didn't have participation in the drug trade. Eventually Cartel bosses got killed and every mid rank from those cartel tried to establish themselves as the new lords, some of them succeeded, quietly staging a plan to get political leverage, so they created the paramilitary (by the hand of incompetent leaders and military that let Guerrilla arm themselves coupled with the beginning of drug trade for them) Paramilitary said "oh look government is incapable of dealing with Guerrilla, lets arm common folk and call some Israeli mercenaries to train them so we can stop guerrilla" eventually Paramilitary started to use the seized drug labs from the Guerrilla and almost monopolized the drug production, now, with shitloads of money and political and military support they eventually were able to control 1/3rd of the congress and founded and supported the election of President Uribe, (contemporary to W. Bush) Uribe himself being the son of one of the very first drug lords (before Escobar era) took strong arm politics against the Guerrilla (also a battle for drug production share, which USA readily founded) and neighbors countries like Ecuador and Venezuela. Meanwhile and while people acclaimed military success the congress (owned by Paras) passed on law after another making almost impossible to deal with mafia bosses in the future. At some point they decided to outsource the drug related violence to Mexico and just concentrate in the production and delivery to Mexico and central america.
What happened here, as I see it, is that they secured a top-down control of loyal minions that would allow the flow of drugs from certain bosses and put face and mess with anyone that dares to compete with them, since there is no competition theres very little drug related violence in Colombia, the guerrilla is almost dead, sheltering across the border in Venezuela and Ecuador and occasionally ambushing police convoys and random civilians. USA keeps pouring money in the plan Colombia that is used to fight "non-kosher" drug producers and traders, old drug cartel minions and low levels just are dedicating to common crime, which is very high. Now go and ask someone in Washington if they think Uribe is one of the bad guys. The guy is a genius, a criminal, but pure genius, making American taxpayer money help him fight the competing drug producers
We are, by no means, divided. Some people applied economic thesis to the drug business and succeeded, they took it to the next level and what we see in Mexico is what we saw here in the 80s, the business got shielded top-down and the lechers couldn't be more happy.
This is the war on (some producers not affiliated with the owners of the circus) drugs for you. I'm sorry for Mexico, it does not help that it's a macho society so the levels of violence are higher that we were used to see here.