The Mexican Army Today - Drug cartel boasts that they have infiltated Mexican Army of that they gather a substantial number of recruits from well-trained deserters may be overblown, but Mexican Army, although respected in general as most honest and patriotic of national institutions, has many glaring weaknesses that are not being addressed.

Academic article posted on "strategy.com" in Oct., 2009

GO TO PAGE

URGENT WAR

Two part academic report on the U..-Mexico drug conference held in El Paso in September, 2009, when one of worst periods of drug killings was occurring just across the border in world's "murder capital" of Ciudad Juarez.

GO TO PAGE

Mexico's small but
vibrant Jewish community

Mexico's Jewish community, small but vibrant, begins reaching out to its fellow citizens.

GO TO PAGE
 

Grim glossary of the narco-world

Average words aren't sufficient for the over-the-top violence of Mexico's drug war, so new ones have been invented.

By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times 10/28/09

Reporting from Mexico City - Words can hardly convey how vicious, how over the top, Mexico's drug war has become. So they invented some.

FULL STORY

L.A. shines at Mexican book fair

At last week's Guadalajara International Book Fair, two metropolises with growing cultural and intellectual ties discovered they have much in common.

New York Times 12/6/09

Reporting from Guadalajara, Mexico - Mexico's second-biggest city gets major touristic props for its tequila, baroque architecture and mariachi music. The United States' second-biggest city is famous (or infamous) as the world capital of cars, indolent pleasures and the film industry.

FULL STORY

Mexico crime war a blip in lush life

One optimistic view on U.S. retired people living in Mexico, feeling they are safe despite living near the drug war frontier

US expatriates’ security systems largely effective

Boston.com 12/16/09 - ROSARITO BEACH, Mexico - Bob and Carol Dawson love living in Baja California, but the region’s violent reputation has put them on the defensive. They have been called delusional and reckless - all because they choose to live in an oceanfront gated community about 40 miles and a world away from the US border.

FULL STORY

U.S. Official Corruption is a Problem

As we've pointed out previously, all of this caterwauling about Mexican corruption in the drug trade, and suddenly, no problems once the drugs get into the U.S.? GO TO PAGE

The Economics of Legal Marijuana

By Timothy Lutts

President, Chief Investment Strategist and Editor of Cabot Stock of the Month

Lutts lays the economic costs of the lost war against drug trafficking versus the awards that could come from decriminalizing marijuana use. NOT AN ENDORSEMENT. Just one side of story:

READ FULL ARGUMENT

Prayer for the Drug War in Juarez

beliefnet.com 10/27/09 - A U.S. Christian minister who has ties to a church in drug-war ravished Ciudad Juarez writes prayer for city, which can be found on link. What's interesting is nightly situation that triggered prayer:

"Every night victims have been found hanging from bridges, gunned down in vehicles, and left on street corners, bound and gagged with their throats slashed. Many victims are bystanders in the wrong place. But most are low level operators of the two feuding drug cartels: the Juarez Cartel and the El Chapo Guzman Cartel."

READ FULL STORY/PRAYER

Are Our Crime Fighters
Becoming 'Mexicanized'?

By Judith Miller  - FOXNews.-10/ 27/09

Beheadings and amputations. Iraqi-style brutality, bribery, extortion, kidnapping, and murder. More than 7,200 dead—almost double last year’s tally—in shoot-outs between federales and often better-armed drug cartels. This is modern Mexico ... But chillingly, there are signs that one of the worst features of Mexico’s war on drugs—law enforcement officials on the take from drug lords —is becoming an American problem as well. Full Story

Vigilante justice spreads across Mexico

More Mexicans turn to the lynch mob as crime spirals out of control
By Ioan Grillo - GlobalPost 10/28/09

MEXICO CITY, Mexico — The five teenage boys slump against the wall of a dark house and eye the camcorder nervously. Suddenly, a fist enters the frame smacking one of the boys in the face. Then the barrel of an automatic rifle appears and the teenagers’ expressions turn to terror.
FULL STORYVigilante justice spreads across Mexico

More Mexicans turn to the lynch mob as crime spirals out of control
By Ioan Grillo - GlobalPost 10/28/09

MEXICO CITY, Mexico — The five teenage boys slump against the wall of a dark house and eye the camcorder nervously. Suddenly, a fist enters the frame smacking one of the boys in the face. Then the barrel of an automatic rifle appears and the teenagers’ expressions turn to terror.
FULL STORY

A Reality Check on Drug Use

By George F. Will - October 29, 2009
(NOTE: This is conservative columnist Will's second broadside against the failed drug war in a week, the first saying the Mexican cartels could be defeated simply by decriminalizing marijuana, source of 80% of their revenue.)

During his immersion in his new job, Gil Kerlikowske attended a focus group of 7-year-old girls and was mystified by their talk about "farm parties." Then he realized they meant "pharm parties" -- sampling pharmaceuticals from their parents' medicine cabinets. What he learned -- besides that young humans have less native sense than young dachshunds -- is that his job has wrinkles unanticipated when he became director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

FULL COLUMN

300 arrested in Mexico but is that enough?

www.worldmarketmedia.com 10/26/09
BLOG: Author: Ryan Whitten

During the apex of a forty-four month investigation, the United States justice department has arrested over three hundred people during a raid of the Mexican “La Familia” cartel. Throughout the investigation over 12 tons of drugs, including a large amount of methamphetamyine, and 32.8 million dollars were confiscated.

FULL STORY

Puerto Vallarta - Report on this port city and its safety, especially for U.S. and Canadian retired people.

GO TO PAGE

Isla Mujeres - Tiny island resort of Isla Mujeres, just a short ferry ride from Cancun, was nearly devoid of tourists in October of 2009 scared off from global recession and swine flu fear, and a smidge from drug wars.

I myself spent time at Isla Mujeres long before Cancun became gigantic resort cesspool. Ah, it would be nice to go back. Let's hope Isla Mujeres remains safe and isolated.

GO TO STORY

Border Area Violence & Security
Problems in the Americas

By Adam Elkus and John P. Sullivan 11/30/09

Some 90 percent of South American cocaine (up from 55 percent in 2007) currently transits the Mexico-Central American Corridor. Weak state presence and the lucrative drugs trade are combining to challenge state sovereignty in acute ways. Consider Mexico, where the northern frontier with the U.S. and southern border with Guatemala are contested zones. The bloody centers of gravity of Mexico’s drug cartels are the ‘plazas,’ the drug smuggling corridors that link the borders.

GO TO STORY

It's the time of year when Americans like to flock south of the border -- but flu and violence fears may keep many at home. Here's what you need to know to stay safe on your vacation.

Chicago Tribune 11/29/09 - If you set flu aside, said Edward Hasbrouck, San Francisco-based author of "The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World," the biggest danger for a law-abiding traveler in Mexico probably is "the same as the big danger in the U.S.: road crashes. Almost everything else is negligible by comparison."

Though a number of U.S. citizens have been killed in Mexico, apparently including four whose bodies were discovered in Tijuana in May, those deaths make up a small fraction of those who have died in the drug-related violence.

GO TO STORY