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Mexico sees 13th journalist murdered so far this year

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11–20 of 41 posts

Re: Mexico sees 13th journalist murdered so far this year

#11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If securing the border differentially cuts off small-time operations more than it cuts off the cartels (even if it partly cuts off some cartel routes), it will raise the cartel's profits by causing prices to rise over and above the decline in sales. That's the basis of the argument that if you really wanted to get rid of cartels, you'd legalize drugs and let small operations make all of them.

They're making $13b/yr from human trafficking alone due to sheer volume. People already cannot pay the prices so they work it off once they get over to the US. The higher the price the less people they can convince to exploit. Make it more difficult for them, or is the strategy to just let them keep trafficking?

Oh, when you said securing the border I thought you meant against smuggling.

Re: Mexico sees 13th journalist murdered so far this year

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're making $13b/yr from human trafficking alone due to sheer volume. People already cannot pay the prices so they work it off once they get over to the US. The higher the price the less people they can convince to exploit. Make it more difficult for them, or is the strategy to just let them keep trafficking?

Oh, when you said securing the border I thought you meant against smuggling.

Yes, secure it against all types of smuggling. Drugs, humans, guns, etc.

Cartels are diversified, but currently a big section of profits are from human exploitation and that's the easiest to stop.

Re: Mexico sees 13th journalist murdered so far this year

#14

Designate the cartels as terrorists and cut off their profits by securing the border.

The war on drugs is not winnable, but the cartels can be defeated by legalizing all drugs.

"Legalize all drugs" is de-facto policy in some large west coast cities. It is also an abject failure. Easier access to drugs is not a solution, it is merely calous / criminal negligence.

Re: Mexico sees 13th journalist murdered so far this year

#15
post #6
post #2

How many of these were targeted by Pegasus?

It seemed weird, so i checked, and of course Pegasus was used by cartels - https://citizenlab.ca/2018/11/mexican-journalists-investigat... . I knew NSO group were an unscrupulous bunch, but working with cartels against journalists is a new low. Saudi persecution of dissidents is one thing you can try to excuse if you have shit for morals (they went against the law of the land), but cartels?

The way I read that report: NSO has a policy of only selling to governments for anti-terrorism and law enforcement purposes; the Mexican government is a customer; the cartels have insiders in the government and/or have obtained the software from the government.

Sort of a corollary to government-mandated encryption backdoors, any offensive software under the control of a government should be considered public knowledge and integrated into your threat model.

Re: Mexico sees 13th journalist murdered so far this year

#16

Dead Mexican journalists have only become interesting to the US again as a way to attack AMLO. I wonder how the poor cartels managed to murder so many journalists before AMLO implicitly gave them permission by sometimes criticizing the right-wing papers that scream for his head every day.

Thirteen dead journalists is inconsequential to AMLO, who uses a significant part of his daily conferences to attack, call names, and expose private data of journalists who criticize him. He has even called them "traitors to the motherland".

He's such a clown dictator wannabe. He always seeks the way to become the victim of any negative event. When the line 12 of Mexico City Metro crumbled for lack of maintenance, killing 26 people, he said people were exaggerating the event to attack him personally.

If you're curious, the one who built it was Marcelo Ebrard, current Secretary of Foreign Affairs. The one who should have done maintenance on it was Claudia Sheinbaum, actual major of Mexico City. Both are close to AMLO, none has been questioned, and he has publicly vouched for them. Thirteen dead journalists is small news.

Re: Mexico sees 13th journalist murdered so far this year

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The war on drugs is not winnable, but the cartels can be defeated by legalizing all drugs.

"Legalize all drugs" is de-facto policy in some large west coast cities. It is also an abject failure. Easier access to drugs is not a solution, it is merely calous / criminal negligence.

Even in cities where drugs have been somewhat decriminalized, the production and distribution remains illegal enough to allow cartels to flourish. You can disagree that legalization is the answer, but it hasn't been tried and failed.

Re: Mexico sees 13th journalist murdered so far this year

#18

Designate the cartels as terrorists and cut off their profits by securing the border.

Not gonna happen during AMLO's presidency. He has been recorded eating tacos with the mother of "El Chapo" and her operators, he negotiated the extradition of Secretary of Defense Salvador Cienfuegos when he was arrested in USA, and promptly exonerated him, and has publicly declared that cartel members are human beings and deserve respect. "Hugs, not bullets" is still his "strategy".

His almost two decades of presidential campaign had suspicious and illegal funding, I wouldn't be surprised if narco money reached his hands too, with the implicit compromises. He and his accomplices haven't seen any consequences for his many blatant, which speaks volumes of the weak justice system in Mexico, or of the overpowered presidential figure.

Re: Mexico sees 13th journalist murdered so far this year

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Legalize all drugs" is de-facto policy in some large west coast cities. It is also an abject failure. Easier access to drugs is not a solution, it is merely calous / criminal negligence.

Even in cities where drugs have been somewhat decriminalized, the production and distribution remains illegal enough to allow cartels to flourish. You can disagree that legalization is the answer, but it hasn't been tried and failed.

We fundamentally disagree on what the larger problem is.

a. Easy access to drugs.

b. Cartels.

As terrible as cartels are, easy access to drugs is easily a much bigger problem.

Edit: I'm using an admittedly simplistic heuristic: How many people are going to have their lives destroyed by a. compared to b.?

Re: Mexico sees 13th journalist murdered so far this year

#20

Not trying to justify anything, but does know how many journalists there are in Mexico? Is 13 journalists murdered so far above the murder rate?

Doesn't need to be framed in a statistical context to be troubling. If cartels are murdering journalists for reporting on their activities, that is a serious problem.
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