18 gunmen killed in attacks on Mexican army bases

[cory777]

Source: AP

Apr 1, 12:01 AM (ET)
By ANTONIO VILLEGAS

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (AP) - Dozens of gunmen mounted rare and apparently coordinated attacks targeting two army garrisons in northern Mexico, touching off firefights that killed 18 attackers.

The attempts to blockade soldiers inside their bases - part of seven near-simultaneous attacks across two northern states - appeared to mark a serious escalation in Mexico's drug war, in which cartel gunmen attacked in unit-size forces armed with bulletproof vehicles, dozens of hand grenades and assault rifles.

While drug gunmen frequently shoot at soldiers on patrol, they seldom target army bases, and even more rarely attack in the force displayed during the confrontations Tuesday in the border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon - areas that have seen a surge of bloodshed in recent months.

The violence mainly involves a fight between the Gulf cartel and its former allies, the Zetas, a gang of hit men. The cartel - which has apparently formed an alliance with other cartels seeking to exterminate the Zetas - has been warning people in the region with a series of banners and e-mails that the conflict would get worse over the next two to three months.

Read more: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100401/D9EQ2H400.html

[file83]

1. Sounds like Civil War is breaking out.

The drug cartels are attempting to acquire military weapons. That's usually not a good sign.

[PavePusher]

3. In large part, they already have military weapons.

(And no, they did not come from U.S. gun shops.)

Now, they are attempting to stifle the military attempts to fight them.

[proteus_lives]

5. They have the budget for it.

[EFerrari]

8. Investigation: US retailers fuel Mexico's drug wars

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/mexico/090401/investigation-us-retailers-fuel-mexicos-drug-wars

Study: U.S. lacks strategy to fight arms smuggling into Mexico
http://us.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/18/us.mexico.arms.report/index.html

Hillary Clinton admits US role in Mexico drug wars
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/26/mexico-hillary-clinton-drugs-weapons


US lobbies a hurdle in Mexico drug war - Calderon
28 Mar 2010 15:59:01 GMT
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, March 28 (Reuters) - Powerful groups in the United States appear to be blocking efforts to stem the flow of assault weapons fueling Mexico's drug war, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Calderon, who has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers and police to fight drug cartels, told Fareed Zakaria's "GPS" program on CNN that there was resistance in Washington to Mexico's demands that sales of such weapons be stopped.

"They (U.S. officials) say that they are facing strong opposition and there is powerful lobbies in the Congress in order to change that situation," Calderon said in a pre-taped interview in Mexico City.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28220571.htm

[PavePusher]

10. That myth has been debunked repeatedly.

Sorry you haven't been paying attention.

The cartels are not getting full-auto rifles, grenades, RPGs and mortars from U.S. gun shops. Is there some smuggling of non-military weapons? Sure, no-one claims there isn't. But the overwhelming majority are coming from the international arms black-market, and a significant percentage are stolen driectly from the Mexican military and police.

[Chef Eric]

16. Links? nt

[PavePusher]

28. The self-contradicting GAO report.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09709.pdf

See pg. 15, where they make the claim you are quoting, pg. 16, where they admit to fudging data and only tracing a fraction of weapons seized, and pg. 17, where they list the most common guns. This list also belies the claim they make twice on the same page of "high-caliber, high-power" weapons.

A government report at it's finest. :sarcasm:

Edit: Again, where is the military-quality weaponry coming from? Not from civilian U.S. gun shops.

Edit #2: Almost any rifle down to .22 caliber can/will penetrate soft body armor with standard ammunition. So that pg. 17 scare-phrase is moot as well.

[Euromutt]

29. The GAO and the L.A. Times good enough for you?

From the GAO report on arms trafficking from June 2009:

In 2008, of the almost 30,000 firearms that the Mexican Attorney General’s office said were seized, only around 7,200, or approximately a quarter, were submitted to ATF for tracing. (page 16)

Where the "90% of recovered guns" assertion comes from the fact that ~6,700 (see fig.3 on p.15) of those 7,200 were traced to U.S. sources, but that doesn't take into account the 22,800 firearms that the Mexicans recovered but did not submit for tracing. The guns traced to U.S. sources by the ATF form 93% of the guns submitted to the ATF, but only 21% of the guns recovered by the Mexican authorities; we simply don't know where the rest came from.

The problem with the GAO report is that it assumes as its premise that the 7,200 guns submitted to the ATF form a representative, unbiased sample of the entire 30,000, but there's really no reason to make that assumption (thereby reducing the GAO report to "tooth fairy science" http://www.skepdic.com/toothfairyscience.html). For starters, it makes sense that, in choosing which guns to submit to the ATF, the Mexicans would give priority to weapons that show evidence of having come U.S. sources in the first place (specifically, the manufacturer/importer's marking that every weapon sold on the private market in the U.S. has been required to have since the Gun Control Act of 1968 went into force). Why bother submitting a gun that's not likely to be traceable?

Exhibit B is this article from the L.A. Times a year ago: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/15/world/fg-mexico-arms-race15

Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.

Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiautomatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Italics mine.

Edited because the "GOA" is not the same as the "GAO."

[EFerrari]

40. Smuggled from Central American countries -- sort of the same way Ollie North

smuggled in Soviet weapons for the Contras through Panama? Like that?

I can see how the GAO report doesn't really encompass all the possiblities.

[Euromutt]

45. That's one possibility

Actually, the weapons the CIA ran to the Contras (and the Afghan mujehaddin) were mostly Chinese-made, with some license-made FALs (probably Brazilian) mixed in.

The big difference between the Contras and the Mexican narcotraficantes is that the latter have plenty of money to buy weapons themselves, and they know a thing or two about shipping contraband items across national borders. Given that corrupt individuals in the arms manufacturing industries in places like south-eastern Europe, China, and possibly Russia are happy enough to supply weapons directly to local organized crime (who frequently funnel them to customers in western Europe), it's entirely possible that the cartels are getting some of their firepower via criminal organizations in those places. Why bugger about with straw purchasing $300 Romanian semi-auto-only Kalashnikov knockoffs in Texas when you can get the real thing almost directly from the factory at half the price?

[xsquid]

56. Exactly, you are exactly right.

They have pickups with 50 caliber machine guns attached to them, grenades and real full auto assault weapons. The assault weapons from here are in actuality just like any semi auto rifle but with grips, stocks, etc. like assault weapons. True assault weapons are full auto, lets see a military do an assault with semi auto rifles. That's m-14's, m1's, etc, They are rifles or carbines, not assault rifles. Calling the rifles sold here in the gun shops assault rifles is actually a misnomer, it's a carbine version of an assault rifle.

Anyway I am wondering how long it will take until people here finally accept that the narcos are getting heavy stuff from places you speak of and south america. I'm thinking there are those that will nener accept it.

[Rage for Order]

88. Always looking for a way to blame America, aren't you?

Your first attempt to make the weapons in Mexico - and by extension, the violence - the fault of the US was debunked, so your next ploy is to speculate that the US is smuggling weapons into Mexico via a different route...without a single shred of evidence to back it up. You're a piece of work.

:eyes:

[tburnsten]

84. INteresting how the LA times chose to word that

"semiautomatic and conventional weapons", as if semiauto firearms are somehow not "conventional", when they are extremely common and ordinary. Conventional in every sense of the word. Somehow 120 year old technology just doesn't seem that scary I guess.

Really semiautomatic rifles and pistols have existed since only a couple of decades after bolt action rifles came into existence, bolt actions in their modern form didn't really exist until the same decade as the first semiautos started being produced, less than ten years before they became common for sporting and defense purposes.

Lever action rifles only have three decades on semiautos. They are not some menacing new development, contrary to the misconceptions being spread by groups like the Brady Campaign and many media members.

[a la izquierda]

18. actually, not according to gun dealers IN TEXAS...

you should watch Laura Ling's investigative report on the border. can't recall the name offhand-but you can google it. gun dealers in Texas know the guns are going south from their shops and others in the US. jeez, what's there to debunk? yes, i'm sure there are other places the weapons come from. but heavy firepower *is* most definitely coming from the US, and sticking your head in the sand because you don't want to acknowledge it doesn't make it not true.

[Shallah Kali]

27. Is this the report? - Vanguard: Narco War Next Door

http://current.com/shows/vanguard/89845362_narco-war-next-door.htm


Ruthless drug cartels in Mexico are battling against each other and against the government for control of the drug trade. 2008 was the most violent year in Mexico, with around 6,000 drug-related murders. 2009 looks like it could be even worse. And there are fears that Mexico's narco-violence could spread north of the border into the U.S. In this one-hour Vanguard report, Laura Ling travels to the border towns of Juarez and Tijuana, Mexico where drugs gangs are fighting for control of the drug routes into the United States. Ling also goes to the city of Culiacan in Sinaloa State, a region that's known as the birthplace of narco-trafficking in Mexico. Despite the 40,000 federal troops that are patrolling cities across Mexico, violence is increasing and the methods of killings are becoming even more brazen and grotesque. Ling speaks with gun dealers in El Paso, Texas and U.S. officials about the illegal smuggling of weapons into Mexico--90% of the weapons seized in Mexico have been traced back to the U.S. She examines the culture of corruption and lack of public trust in a police force that has become known for working with the cartels.

[Euromutt]

33. That's a good example of the "90% myth," yes

Specifically the line "90% of the weapons seized in Mexico have been traced back to the U.S." In actual fact, 90% of weapons seized and submitted to the ATF for tracing have been traced back to the U.S., but the weapons submitted to the AFT comprise less than 25% of the total seized. As the GAO report on arms trafficking (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09709.pdf) acknowledges, in 2008, the Mexican authorities claimed to have seized some 30,000 guns, of which 7,200 were submitted to the ATF. That leaves 22,800 guns of which the provenance is unknown.

[friendly_iconoclast]

43. I'll take the GAO over some random dude in a gun shop.

Ling forgot the rather important caveat that it was 90% of the guns submitted not 90% of the guns seized.

And frankly, most of those interviews are what Snopes calls a 'FOAF'= "Friend of a friend". Or what Euromutt calls
"The College of It Stands To Reason".

[Threedifferentones]

51. So, you are alleging that Mexicans are buying military grade equipment from American gun stores

We are pointing out that it is impossible to buy mortars and hand grenades in American gun shops, and that fully automatic weapons are only legal here if they were produced before bans went into effect. Hence, they are VERY expensive, thousands of dollars a piece for guns that cost a small fraction of that to make elsewhere.

It is horribly impractical to supply a small army with military grade firepower from American gun dealerships, that is a FACT. Have some American guns been used to do awful things in Mexico? Hell yes! Would those awful things have still happened without American guns? Hell yes!

Sticking your head in the sand because you don't want to acknowledge it doesn't make it not true. Are you always this ironic, or is today your lame humor day?

[EFerrari]

25. International arms black market, hmm. So, is there a new Pentagon program

that funnels arms to both sides for profit?

[Merchant Marine]

31. Izhhevsk, Norinco and the Khyber Pass

There's more than one country out there making guns.

They did not get their machine guns, grenades and rocket propelled grenade launchers from the United States, unless they were originally sold to the Mexican Military or sent to some revolutionary group during the Cold War. South and Central America have no shortage of military grade arms left over from US and Soviet "Aid".

I can understand why the Cartels would come to the US for some forms of weaponry such as precision rifles and handguns, but that sort of activity should be controlled by increased BATFE and Border Patrol activity. Our own laws already adequately provide penalty for the illegal trafficking in small arms, straw purchasing and etc. All reports have indicated that US arms make up a minority of the supply in Mexico. Why buy a thousand dollar AR-15 in the US when you can get real deal copies shipped in by the crate over the southern border for a few hundred a unit?

[rabs]

14. Hillary's Spring Break in Mexico a few days ago

The US secretary of state, left, during her Mexico trip called for a joint strategy
to confront the drug cartels (did they go to the wrong podium re flags?)

snips ---

This time last year, as US college students headed to the beaches south of the border for the annual holiday known as Spring Break, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, delivered a very sober and contrite speech in Monterrey, the northern Mexican city.

She acknowledged the central role US demand for drugs played in the rise of the narco-cartels in its southern neighbour, and the battle for control of the trade that was destabilising both Mexico and the region. It was a frank admission, and appeared to herald a new approach to a transnational problem.

This dramatic change in perspective, however, has so far not yielded any new policy.

The Bush-era Merida Initiative, which funds an almost exclusively militarised approach to the supply side of the drug trade, continues to be the sole mechanism by which the US confronts its shared responsibilities
--------------

But the US policy has continued to be one of containment, focussed on encouraging Calderon from afar, with money and hardware, and securing the border.

There has also been official recognition that much of the cartel's firepower is smuggled from the north, but the emphasis on the border is in response to the national hysteria over illegal immigration, and the fear of spillover violence from the drug war raging to the south.

When asked whether she would contemplate the legalisation of drugs, she answered with a single word answer - "No".

More

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/03/20103272749905814.html

[AlphaCentauri]

22. Mexico's political roadmap

‘‘Mexico has come through this crisis and I think it’s been a real vote of confidence in the Mexican democratic system, which after all, is relatively, it’s just now maturing in a kind of two-party system,’’

Condoleezza Rice remarks

[EFerrari]

24. Did she say this after the torture president helped Calderon steal the election?

I think so. It's so funny. Whenever one of these people uses this kind of condescending language, a piece of their mendacity is usually very near by. lol

[Euromutt]

38. It's an annoying legacy of the 2000 election that every unwelcome outcome gets called "stolen"

Two counts of the ballots, and a recount of 9% of the ballots, all indicated that Calderon won, albeit by a very narrow margin. Lopez Obrador never managed to produce any evidence that the election result was illegitimate, and it's worth noting that a number of his own campaign staff were implicated in election fraud back when they were all with PRI (and overseeing elections was the job of the Interior Ministry, rather than an independent electoral tribunal). And if the election had been rigged, why did the PRD do better than they'd ever done before in Congress?

I'm frankly more than little tired of people dismissing any election in which the guy they preferred didn't win as "stolen." It pissed me off during the 2004 gubernatorial election here in Washington state when it was the Republicans doing it, and it honks me off when the other side does it.

And speaking of condescending, it's pretty condescending to think that the electorate of another country couldn't possibly have decided for themselves to vote for the guy you don't like, and bad things in other countries can only happen because of American meddling.

[EFerrari]

39. Apparently you're too "tired" to know the facts.

Bush send everything down there to make sure Calderon got in, including speech writers.

When the election was STOLEN, the people were out on the streets for weeks. In the Election Reform forum, we followed the story very closely.

http://www.davidcox.com.mx/imgs/General/mexico/0,1020,655710,00.jpg

And the electoral tribunal produced the desired result. They had no choice.

This has nada, nadita, to do with what I like or don't like.

[PavePusher]

46. Speech writers can now steal elections?

Wow, the pen really is mightier.

Whodathunkit.

Now, do you have some evidence to submit, or merely your personal assertions?

[EFerrari]

78. You don't access to the archives, so I'll see if I can dig up some of those

threads for you today. In the ER forum, people are watching for election integrity, not for a result, btw.

[EFerrari]

79. Here are some places to start:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=454149

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=448241

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=448239

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=447827

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=445931

[a la izquierda]

47. when you get your PhD in the subject, come talk to me

talk to experts in mexican history-across the board-who live and work there, and the story is the election was stolen.
i live and work there part time.
so go honk yourself off all you want. you don't know shit.

[Euromutt]

87. Nothing like an appeal to nameless authority to convince people

You have no clue about my background or my qualifications, so it's fair to conclude the only basis you have on which to conclude that I "don't know shit" is because I happen to disagree with you. You'll have to excuse me if I refuse to take your dismissal of my opinion seriously.

Now I'll concede I have no particular expertise on Mexico, but I do know a thing or two about political corruption and rigging elections, and I know that if I were going to rig an election, I'd make sure the margin by which I "won" would be a wider than the wafer-thin 0.58% that Calderon got, thereby avoiding the need to have a recount at all. The very fact that the election was as closely contested as it was was a first for Mexico.

I live in Washington state. I've encountered plenty of people (more than I cared to) who live here and insist the 2004 gubernatorial election was stolen, after Rossi (R) appeared to have won by a 291-vote margin (out of almost 3 million), which shrank to a 42-vote lead after the first machine recount, and then into a 129-vote lead for Gregoire (D) after the Democratic party requested a manual recount (as they were legally entitled to do).

It's perfectly natural to not want to accept that your preferred candidate lost a closely contested election, especially if it initially looked like he'd won. Yes, Lopez Obrador was ahead in the opinion polls, but opinion polls can be wrong; yes, he was leading in the earlier returns, but when different regions lean toward different candidates, that's no major surprise. What concrete evidence is there that Calderon stole the election, or that someone stole it for him? Or is the lack of evidence in itself evidence of the conspiracy (except for one really obvious mistake), as it usually is with cockamamie conspiracy theories?

[PavePusher]

83. And the silence is....

thunderous.

Quelle suprise.

[DeSwiss]

2. K&R

[Oldenuff]

4. I know exactly what will happen...

The US will agree to send a big old pile of money to Mexico to help them fight their War On (some) Drugs.That will fix the whole thing.Whew,That was close!We almost had to agree that the War on Drugs is a complete and utter failure,and to try to look at it with different eyes.

[Rapier09]

6. Drugs are bad

But loading your kids on prozac and ritalin makes them good citizens.

[Fruittree]

7. Isn't that a bit of a simplistic take on the whole thing?

The overuse of drugs - legal and illegal - are both negatives.

[pundaint]

17. Maintenance of the Drug war is good for some corporations, ending it only helps People

[AlphaCentauri]

21. Maybe not piles of money but a new military base in Mexico n/t

[LarryNM]

9. Considering the Time Posted for the Story at the Link

Is this an April Fools item?

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Looks pretty believable to me, and AP wouldn't joke about people being killed (nt)

[LarryNM]

12. Yes, Looks Legit

as several news agencies are now reporting on it.

[rabs]

13. The attacks happened ...

... the AP story is a plagiarized-translation of an article and related stories that appear today (April 1) in the major Mexico City newspaper El Universal.

Note the AP gives it a dateline of Villahermosa instead of Mexico City and gives the AP reporter a byline as if he had done the reporting. Villahermosa is way down in southern Mexico, while the attacks happened a couple of thousand miles away in northern Mexico.

Below link to El Universal story; readers of Spanish will notice some word-for-word similarities in sentences.

Ejército repele ataques; 18 muertos

Los atacantes lanzaron siete agresiones contra el ejército, incluidos tres bloqueos, informa el general Edgar Luis Villegas

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/670003.html

[timo]

34. stupid writer

I live on the border and valle hermosa is just 2 hours or less from the fronterra here this stuff is in my backyard, and yes I CAN SEE MEXICO FROM MY FARM!!! and by the way there may be multiple towns with the same name just in different states in Mex

[rabs]

37. It's VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico

as per the Associated Press, and not "valle hermosa" as you say.

Villahermosa, one word, and not "valle hermosa," two words.

Whatever.

[timo]

48. whatevers ass

http://www.maps-of-mexico.com/tamaulipas-state-mexico/tamaulipas-state-mexico-map-d1.shtml

you knowit all so your saying that the town on this map which I have been to thousands of times right here close to the border does not exist????
as per the associated press?????
people on this board read an article or two and think they know something about the border??!?!?! WTF ever clown!! I live 20 minutes from where one of the army bases that was attacked is located and listen to the local mexico news out of Rio Bravo and Reynosa and VALLE HERMOSA is just south and between the two towns MATAMOROS AND REYNOSA!!!!!!!! wheras VILLAHERMOSA is way south in the state of TABASCO!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Javaman]

20. ?

That would be a pretty sick april fools joke.

I live in Texas, this is real. It's in all the papers here.

The rest of the nation doesn't get half of the stories coming out of Mexico. The rest of the US just gets the "big" stories. You know, the ones with high body counts.

But every single day the boarder patrol and in conjunction with Mexican authorities are finding bodies along the border that show the tell tale signs of drug/gang executions.

It's been going on for years, but it's only recently, that it has gotten really really bad.

What we are seeing is the very first narco civil war.

[geckosfeet]

15. Attacking a military installation - or - "how to get killed the easy way".

Not too smart.

[MidwestTransplant]

19. That was clever.

[bemildred]

23. Sounds like it was an educational experience:

Troops fought back, killing 18 gunmen, wounding two and detaining seven more suspects. One soldier suffered slight injuries.

Soldiers also seized 54 rifles, 61 hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, eight homemade explosive devices and six bulletproofed vehicles used by the attackers.

[daleo]

30. In my mind, there is some room for doubt

I don't know if the army would admit to casualties, or at least be 100% forthcoming. That's just a hunch, though.

[bemildred]

32. True.

But it's always a risky proposition to pick a fight with conventional arms against a (presumably) well prepared military position, and it doesn't really sound like the attackers had their shit together. I mean they are out there in the road trying to "stop them from leaving", and the guys inside presumably have some cover and organization. I don't have the impression that the drug guys are in the habit of doing combat in the military way. But we don't really know. On the other hand, if these events become routine, we will likely find out. What we really need is some artillery duels and trench warfare.

[daleo]

41. The very idea of a drug gang attacking an army is weird

We live in strange times. Drug lords with armored columns and air support may be next.

[bemildred]

53. Strange times indeed, and likely to get stranger yet. nt

[tburnsten]

85. Which they will probably buy in the backroom of dozens of Texas gunshops

[xsquid]

62. Conventional arms???? Bwahahahah

They have the same firepower as the military, full auto assault weapons, grenades, rocket powered grenades, bullet proof vehicles. We are not getting the full story, they are keeping a lid on casualties and funerals since the sailor was killed then the day after the funeral the narcos killed his whole family.

Go spend some time in juarez, the very much have their shit together very much. Spend some time in mexico period to get the full picture, we have a house here and down not far from mexico city but have spent time in juarez. A guy was killed in dennys next to us, the narcos calmly walked in and killed mid day. The military rides around as targets in open trucks and shows up to clean up after its over, people there dislike them as much as the narcos.

[bemildred]

65. Blah blah blah blah .... nt

[xsquid]

67. Great comeback bewildered nt

[bemildred]

68. Thank you. nt

[xsquid]

71. Ignorant left wingers are just as bad as ignorant wingnuts nt

[bemildred]

72. Oh good, more insults and name calling.

:popcorn::popcorn:

[xsquid]

75. Bewildered now on ignore, blather away little fellow nt

[bemildred]

77. Getting tired?

:popcorn:

[tburnsten]

86. Equipment=/ tactics

They know how to run an ambush, but apparently they were completely unprepared for a pitched battle with actual soldiers.

Why do people hate the military as much as the narcos destroying their country? Because they can't be everywhere at once? Because they are not law enforcement and can't keep murders under control?

[xsquid]

59. You are right, and there are multiple reasons for doing it.

For one thing the media is closely controlled by the government. For another bad things can happen. Example, when a sailor was killed the the battle with arturo beltran leyva (where he was killed) the narcos found out who his family was and killed his family (mother, etc.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/world/americas/23mexico.html

[timo]

35. mexico is full of lies

who knows how many soldiers got killed, they never publish the REAL story

[bemildred]

36. So what place is not full of lies?

Are the drug soldiers paragons of honesty?
Is everyone in the USA Mary Poppins?
I mean who gives a fuck about that?

[timo]

49. my point being

is that the government there wont publish the true stats, who knows if how many soldiers or innocents got killed or narcos for that matter you can't trust ANYTHING that the Mexican government puts out.

"who gives a fuck about that" ????? your a tool!!!

[bemildred]

52. Daleo and I already discussed that, but I can see you prefer name-calling to reading. nt

[timo]

80. well whoop deee dooo

because you already discussed something excludes any one else from doing so, damn thats some pretty serious poer your wielding there, this place has more pricks than a second hand dart board!!

[xsquid]

54. Buenos dias timo. Timo is right, the government controls

the news in mexico big time. You can try to compare it to the US as much as you like but it does not even compare.

Example, there are multiple demonstrations every day in mexico city. Many times there are entire pueblos there protesting, traffic is always messed up from it, and they do not get in the mainstream media. The wife stays aggrivated by it all the time, we have a house close to toluca which is about 40 mi from df (mexico city).

There were 3,268 there in 2009, yes this includes religious events, etc, but by far most are protests.

http://www.cronica.com.mx/nota.php?id_nota=478370

You can see how many that equates to every day. If you do not drive through there you would not know there are protestors there taking off their clothes, etc.

[bemildred]

55. Yawn.

Some of us have known that governments lie routinely for some time now. It must be exciting for you newcomers.

[xsquid]

57. Newcomer? You are a joke unless you are saying obama

controls everything that goes into the news here like is controlled there. I am old and retired, live in both countries. Maybe when you get out of school you might experience both places and know the difference. Yawn, another juvenile that thinks they knows it all but knows nothing.

I think there are those on the left just as ignorant as the wingnuts.....and have no intention if clearing up that ignorance. Get out and actually experience other countries.

[bemildred]

66. Please see post #65. nt

[xsquid]

69. Please see post #67 nt

[bemildred]

70. Please see post #68. nt

[xsquid]

73. Please see post #71 nt

[bemildred]

74. Please see post #72. nt

[xsquid]

76. Please see post #71 nt

[Flaneur]

60. We also have demonstrations in the US that don't get any media attention.

But, true, it's pretty busy at the Zocalo.

[xsquid]

63. Yes I agree, but not to the extent as there.

They pretty much ignore them there.

[timo]

81. hola

xsquid, que tal??? por eso los cabrones aqui me vale madre, they think they are soooo damn smart about everything!!

[xsquid]

82. Lo mismo como siempre amigo, y claro

they think they have it all figured out and are clueless.

[superconnected]

26. Good!

[Democat]

42. Why did they attack military bases?

Were they trying to get a hold of more weapons or was it revenge or going after someone specific?

The story doesn't make much sense.

[Alamuti Lotus]

44. Demonstrating their ability to do so?

Apparently not too terribly successful in this case, but the attempt of the act sends a strong message in itself.

[timo]

50. thats the enemy

Mexicos army/navy is also used as another branch of their police force, they have several branches of police local, state, etc like we have but they use their armed forces against the cartels, also some speculation here that the army IS the 6TH cartel.

[xsquid]

64. Yep, ask the people in juarez how much they like the military nt

[Yeahyeah]

58. They have jumped the shark.A little too Tony Montana,hombres.

[Flaneur]

61. "Hey, let's get all coked up and attack the army!"

I really think that has something to do with it, and with some of the really horrific violence.