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- Hacker News
- Our heroic self defense group.
Their brutish narco terrorist cartel.
by tantalor - What’s their choices then? At least they got something to protect themby charlieyu1
- I'd recommend reading the history of Autodefensas and FARC/FLN in Colombia.
Anti-Drug militant groups have a habit of turning into drug lords as well.
by alephnerd - Highly recommend the 2015 documentary 'Cartel Land'by sriacha
- the real war the US should be fightingby Kalanos
- Maybe after the US annexes Greenland, for some reason.by nitwit005
- Why should the US fight Mexican cartels? They have their own armies and plenty of ammo.by hereme888
- And then we would get to hear about American imperialism forever....
- Why should the US be fighting Mexican gangs? Mexico should send their own army to fight the criminal gangs. If we want to send our army after gangs we have plenty of them right here in the US. We could start with the ones in our Sheriff's Departments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_Los_Angeles_Count...by autoexec
- There's no need to fight.
The proper solution is to end the war on drugs, allowing people to do what they will with their own bodies. Once people can legally buy their drugs, the cartels will starve.
Use the money saved from reducing our prison population by 75% to pay for widely-accessible treatment for addiction as well as mental health problems. Build more affordable housing so homelessness is less of an issue. As an added bonus: roll back the last half-century of disastrous trickle-down economics which gutted the middle class, so there's less incentive to start using in the first place.
Reminder: the Nixon tapes reveal that the war on drugs was started in the first place not to protect the public from harmful drugs but rather as a means to criminalize his political enemies (e.g., hippies and black people) in a way that couldn't be challenged in court on 14th amendment grounds.
The problem, of course, is those solutions are hard, it's a lot easier to get voters to root for building more walls and sending troops to kill more foreigners, and there's a lot of money to be made by the military industrial complex and private prison system by prolonging the problem.
by atmavatar - The article said they got their arms smuggled in from the US, but that only explains the small arms and drones. Where are they getting hand grenades?by MrDrMcCoy
- They make some of them, some of them are sold to them, some are traded to them for other things.
Mexican Cartels have gotten weapons from Russia before in several ways. This year the US took down a network connected to Viktor Bout and a $56mil arms trade for anti air launchers, automatic grenade launchers, rockets, drones, and military explosives.
by esseph - Related, Colombia's new president Abelardo d' Espriella is getting sworn in in a couple hours. He won a somewhat close election against a more peace process party, on a platform of radical violence & all out total war against the various cartels, gangs, and rebel factions.
Definitely huge echoes of El Salvador's intense crackdown. But it seems pretty uncertain that he actually has the military force capable of doing this. Colombia's wide array of insurgents are far more organized and well equipped than El Salvador, ala the Mexico situation here; this isn't like the nasty but kind of low level violence of El Salvador. Who all in all had a pretty easy time at it just built a ton of super brutal prisons, stripping legal protections, and then rounding up a couple % of the state's population immediately (and letting some go too, eventually, after months of brutal incarceration).
I'd love recommendations beyond War Fronts, who in tune into a decent bit. I need to subscribe, to support. They just had a video on Colombia today. https://youtu.be/OiQZCJmkmR8
- About 30% of Mexico is gang-controlledby hereme888
- Mexico has been like that for decades, I believe it's top 1 priority for most Mexicans yet it's still not fixed. What gives ?
At some point when your government is so corrupt, you got to take weapon and organize yourself. It's sad.
- >> Mexico has been like that for decades.
Back in the 60's and 70's my Dad worked or Lockheed Martin. He made frequent trips to Mexico to work with engineering teams there on projects he was working on. It only took him one trip to realize how corrupt the police were.
He had parked outside of his hotel with his rental car. Came out. It was surrounded by Policia. They told him he couldn't park here. "Sure thing, I'll move it and not park here again." "You don't understand gringo, you have to pay the parking fine now." He caught on, and asked how much it would cost to just park here, you know, rent this spot instead of paying their fine? The cops gave him an amount and he paid it and they left him alone the rest of the week he was there. He told me a bunch of other stories about the corruption there, not just the cops. It was pretty eye opening to hear some of these.
The corruption can't be fixed. Its engrained in the system. It was rampant fifty years ago, there is no fixing it - its completely normalized now. The cartels simply used the system against itself to gain total control and power.
- Because of their neighbors to the north having an insatiable appetite and willingness to spend large amounts of money on illicit goods. Mexico should probably legalize and bring these into a regulated state of the United States would not allow itby redwood
- > At some point when your government is so corrupt, you got to take weapon and organize yourself. It's sad.
At that point you might as well point those weapons at the failed government that forced you to have to play soldier instead of protecting you. Not allowing your own citizens to be enslaved by roving bands of criminals is like the single most basic thing a country's government is for. Since the Mexican government has abandoned them and ceded control of that land to hostile armies I hope those poor farmers aren't still paying them taxes.
by autoexec - A characteristic of most of Latin America is that the Police and the Army were created to protect power, not the people, and there hasn't really been an effort to change the mentality.by forinti
- Many countries are effectively ruled by gangs and cartels. That’s why kings became kind of a big deal in Europe. The states monopoly on violence was solidified back theby rayiner
- These self defense groups sound great until you think about all the problems with vigilante groups. Also they have a history of turning into cartels.
That and all things being equal I suspect most of the people in these groups would rather not be fighting.
by int0x29 - Based on all the historical events, I'm guessing it'll eventually balance itself out. The violent vigilante groups are one critical weight on the scale. Without it, the cartels will have free-range to commit whatever atrocity they want without needing to think about the consequences.
Now, with these vigilante groups that speaks the exact same language that the cartels too understands, it gives those cartels a reason to think before they bully civilians. Because if they did it wrong, there's a chance some of them will start to lose bodyparts in a very unanesthetical way. If a few once incontestable cartel leaders puts on a show of crying and begging for mercy in a darknet video, it tends to educate everyone on what power really means potentially in a good way.
Of course, none of it is reasonable and civil, it's the darkest part of human behavior, but sadly sometimes it's the only way to communicate with the bad people. Mr. Hitler didn't surrender because the allies did a good job showing him that killing is bad, instead they bomb that rat in his own hole and scared him to death.
I don't like violence and I don't like people who uses it unnecessarily, but it's still a tool in the toolbox just in case the opponent is that unrecoverably bad.
by nirui - What other choice ? Politics are yet to give a solution after decades of problems.
- What choice do they have?
This is not your usual vigilante group. This is a reaction to an overwhelming force of criminal gangs killing citizens and the government being powerless to stop them.
by e40 - It's not an ideal situation, but since the Mexican government refuses to do its job and protect their people and uphold the law what choice do they have?
Right now these people are just doing whatever they can to survive but it's just treating the symptom. The source of the problem is the Mexican government who is either incompetent or happy to take bribes to look the other way while their citizens are left the mercy of paramilitary gangs.
by autoexec - So you're forced to join a gang and fight their rival gangs, or you form your own gang equipped with rifles and grenades ready to commit violence, so that you can fight against joining that gang, or any other gang. Either way you're in a violent gang.
I guess I'd rather have the state maintain a monopoly on violence.
by tejohnso - This is a bad take. When the stste is either unable or unwilling to offer security, what is the alternative? The 'vigilantes' are doing the honorable thing, protecting their communities from criminals and oppressors. I wish them all good luck as it seem like they need it.
The danger always is that these militias can themselves become corrupt and oppress their own people.
by groos - > I guess I'd rather have the state maintain a monopoly on violence.
Like the Taliban?
by esseph - These gangs are states. We can tell this because they have monopolies on violence.by inigyou
- Mexico has gun laws which are significantly more restrictive than the USA. There is only one legal gun store in the country, they must all be permitted, calibers are limited, and only permitted within the place of residence. "Monopoly on violence" is an illusion that's propped up mostly by the culture of the people who live in a country.
Sweden's gun homicide rate has increased by 400% since 2010 due to nothing other than demographic change.
by Dig1t