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In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

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Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#211

Post by rnd0 »

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #104
staplers wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where gangs and police forces have started to merge "By 1923 it was estimated over half of the PPB were also members of the Klan." If you research most municipal police forces in the United States, it's always been that way.. we just aren't taught that in American schools. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Police_Bureau

That was about 100 years ago. Do you have more recent numbers? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy

Not numbers, but it does appear that the problem far right radicals in law enforcement persists to this very day:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-i...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/27/white-suprem...

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#212

Post by julienreszka »

splittingTimes wrote: post #177

Is there any example in recent history, where a failed state managed to turn around and improve/start functioning properly? And if yes, how did they do it?

The way it was done is that crime was nationalized. For example in the USSR, the NKVD secret police nearly exterminated the criminal underworld completely, put the remaining in forced labor camps (Gulags) and used them to repress the political prisoners. Crime became a state monopoly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief_in_law

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#213

Post by Guthur »

juskrey wrote: post #134
Guthur wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which was always the reason I thought there was more to ISIS than the western portrait of a group of extremist ideologues. State construction and maintenance is not a trivial thing and their are not the sort of skills you stumble upon within a group of "madmen". The groups spontaneous arrival and near immediate success in this regard was a little remarkable imo, and raises interesting questions on support and backing…

More thoughtful commenters (e.g. Taleb) actually noticed early that ISIS and wahhabism in general is a deeply rooted and quite old political movement, not all-of-a-sudden religious cult and madness. Partly because of this conflation the whole narrative (heavily sponsored by oil money of course) have kept blind Western elites for very long time, especially in Europe, where they only start to understand that worship pl…

In the west it's common to take an overly reductive view and start throwing labels around as if they actually mean anything.

Wahhabist is not really actually something anyone would refer to themselves as. It seems to refer to really any Muslim group that has some links to Saudi Arabia which is a key player in the geopolitical arena of the Middle East.

Salafi is really anyone that would like to emulate the companions of the Prophet Muhammad and the immediate generation thereafter, Salaf meaning ancestors. This actually would have no more outward political ramifications than what has already been in Islam from the beginning, Islam is meant to encompass governance whether one would agree with that or not, it's part of the religion. Salafi would nearly exclusively refer to the Quran and Hadiths as their source.

I have seen the term thrown around as a label for individuals that have done terrible things but by all accounts were not even remotely close adherents to salafi like doctrine. It's not a political group it's more of a doctrine.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#214

Post by riekus »

lifeformed wrote: post #113
qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. First, just because the state loses its monopoly doesn't mean some other entity gains a monopoly. In Mexico, cartels aren't just fighting the state, they are also fighting each other. If the state collapsed, they will continue fighting each other, and the people of Mexico will effectively live in a semi-permanent warzone. Second, not all violent entities are created equa…

> Second, not all violent entities are created equal. Cartel members are motivated by greed and lust for power. Many are willing to employ tactics such as torture and terrorism to advance those goals First world governments are known to employ torture and terrorism to achieve their goals, but it's abstracted away as much as possible. While I think the same motivations of greed and power lust exist in governments too,…

Yes, look up Enrique Camarena

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#215

Post by jpmoral »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #75
qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #31

I'm reminded of this recent viral Youtube which depicts what is apparently a routine occurrence in South Africa: A professional gang, armed with heavy caliber weapons, executes a sophisticated highway ambush in an attempt to capture a vehicle loaded with cell phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAvqDF3Wujc I watched an interview with Leo Prinsloo, the star of the video. He mentioned that although this incident we…

When I lived in the Philippines a couple of years ago, Duterte was extremely popular on the street for this reason. He basically "cleaned the place up", when I asked people about it.

It's dehumanisation.

1. Many of the police's murder victims were children. People accept this because hey, it's not my kids.

2. The process by which victims are chosen is opaque. When you're dead, no one's going to listen to your family protest your innocence.

3. Early on Duterte promised to haul in big fish: generals, governors, and the like. So far the biggest fish have been mayors in small towns in far-flung provinces. Most victims have been from the poor and marginalised. Anyone who thinks the drug trade has been stamped out is kidding themselves.

4. What little statistics there were at the time the anti-drug campaign was launched showed that drug crime was not the bogeyman it was hyped to be.

5. Street crime and violent crime is still rampant. Wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be the same cops now emboldened with a license to murder.

The human cost has been appalling, for no benefit that I can see.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#216

Post by jpmoral »

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #31

I'm reminded of this recent viral Youtube which depicts what is apparently a routine occurrence in South Africa: A professional gang, armed with heavy caliber weapons, executes a sophisticated highway ambush in an attempt to capture a vehicle loaded with cell phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAvqDF3Wujc I watched an interview with Leo Prinsloo, the star of the video. He mentioned that although this incident we…

It's not a 'disregard of due process'. It's straight up murder. The drug crime situation in the Philippines was never as bad as what we're seeing in Mexico. Voters were shown a bogeyman and many fell for it.

Also, the victims of the anti-drug campaign are suspiciously mostly small-fry (or worse, innocent). Anyone who thinks that this is any sort of systemic solution is kidding themselves.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#217

Post by odiroot »

vagrantJin wrote: post #183
qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #31

I'm reminded of this recent viral Youtube which depicts what is apparently a routine occurrence in South Africa: A professional gang, armed with heavy caliber weapons, executes a sophisticated highway ambush in an attempt to capture a vehicle loaded with cell phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAvqDF3Wujc I watched an interview with Leo Prinsloo, the star of the video. He mentioned that although this incident we…

The article is about Mexican cartels taking the fight to the police. As a South African, I worry that our crime levels probably get more attention than they deserve. The are certainly not much more than any other country. Even on platforms like HN, a few people watch a few videos and see a few social media posts. Conclude the country must be rife with violent crime and proceed to happily spread the word, even when no…

Not trying to offend any party here but the violence in Mexico seems more organised, targeted but brutal and extreme. The violence in ZA seems more random, more opportunity crime and more about property than people.

At least this is how media show it. I may be wrong here.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#218

Post by riekus »

edgyquant wrote: post #74
zionic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cartel bosses have fancy cars and luxurious homes. We could drone them all day every day if we wanted, but we don’t because they are employees of our intelligence services. They pay their tribute and they get to be rich, while “our” side gets a fat black budget not accountable to congress. The banks who launder the money only get fees and no jail time because they are working under the table for the same agenci…

This is a serious accusation you have no proof of, it doesn’t belong here.

There is plenty of proof that the CIA facilitated cocaine transports to get their weapons in Nicaragua?

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#219

Post by mulander »

alex_sf wrote: post #38
esyir wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big mistake you're making is that legalising it also magically brings all the infrastructure to neuter the cartels.

Of course it doesn't, they just transfer to other illegal activities, see: bootlegging by organized crime during prohibition. The problem the cartels will face is that there is no other business that makes as much money, and it would require a retool of the entire organization (or scale up, at a minimum) to get back to even a fraction of their power. Cartels are not some unstoppable juggernaut: they run on capital, s…

> The problem the cartels will face is that there is no other business that makes as much money

This is not true. See this article[1] and HN thread[2]:

> “It’s good business,” El Polkas says with a shrug. “It makes a lot of money.” When I ask how gasoline compares to narcotics, in terms of overall revenue to Los Zetas, he rubs his index fingers together. “Fifty-fifty,” he says. “It’s approximately as profitable as drugs.”

[1] - https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/drug-w...

[2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18101141

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#220

Post by Sacho »

vagrantJin wrote: post #201
Sacho wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to compare crime statistics due to the nature of what is criminalized being different, but the numbers for South Africa are stark enough for this to not matter. Here's a report from the SA police on crime for 2020 - https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/421424/south-afri... I can see that there were 22k murders on a population of about 60 million. I couldn't find USA crime statistics for 2020, whi…

For comparison the USA... Therein lies my problem. You are going to compare one of the wealthiest, most powerful countries in human history, with South Africa?

Umm okay. Which country do you want me to compare it with? How about some from Africa?

SA - 36

CAR - 20

DR Congo - 13.5

Uganda - 10.4

Nigeria - 10

How about some poor countries from Europe?

Ukraine - 6.1

Bulgaria - 1.3

War-torn countries in Asia?

Iraq - 10

Afghanistan - 6.6

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