Mexico Starts Disarming Vigilantes - BBC
Mexican security forces sent to quell unrest in the western state of Michoacan have started disarming local vigilante groups, state officials say.
The "self-defence groups" took control of a number of towns in an effort to drive out members of a drug cartel…
Mexico Forces in Deadly Clash With Vigilantes - Associated Press
The Mexican government moved in to quell violence between vigilantes and a drug cartel in Michoacan state, but the campaign turned deadly early Tuesday with a confrontation between soldiers and civilians who witnesses say were unarmed.
There were widely varying reports of casualties, but Associated Press journalists saw the bodies of two men said to have died in the clash, and spoke to the family of a third man who was reportedly killed in the same incident. No women or children died, contrary to earlier reports by the spokesman of a self-defense group…
Injured Leader of Mexican Anti-cartel Militia Vows to Go On by Joshua Partlow, Washington Post
More than a week after surviving a plane crash, the injured Mexican militia leader Jose Manuel Mireles rejected the government’s call for his movement to disarm, vowing to fight on until the drug cartel leaders in his area have been arrested and the state of Michoacan establishes the rule of law.
Mireles, a 55-year-old surgeon who leads the militia movement that has spread rapidly over the past year across Michoacan and seized territory from the Knights Templar drug cartel, spoke to reporters late Monday night from a safe house after receiving treatment at an upscale private hospital in Mexico City…
Comments
carl---this came out of Mexico media yesterday concerning the SD ---check the last couple of sentences.
"The self-defense groups say they are popular with the people, and that their arrival is applauded. They say they have no ties to rival criminal gangs – something the Michoacán government and opponents leading protests against them allege.
“To say [self-defense groups are] purely people that want to protect themselves is an exaggeration,” says Father Patricio Madrigal, parish priest in Nueva Italia. Rival cartels certainly have reason to want to see the Knights Templar weakened, and could be taking advantage of the situation. But Father Madrigal adds that to his knowledge, any offers to vigilante groups by Knights Templar rivals have been rejected.
After Monday’s confrontation, the local bishop, Monsignor Miguel Patiño Velázquez – whose priests have supported the self-defense groups – issued a blistering pastoral letter saying, “The army and the government have fallen into discredit because instead of pursuing criminals, they have attacked the persons that defend them.”
Locals, many fearful to give their names, speak of crimes commonly carried out here before the arrival of self-defense groups, such as extortion, kidnapping, and rape.
Farmer Calixto Álvarez says he paid 1 peso per kilo of lemons [approximately $0.10 for every 2 lbs] he took to the packing plant and 3 pesos per kilo for each kilo of meat he sold to a slaughterhouse [about $0.25 for every 2 lbs].
“It got to the point that they couldn’t take deliveries anymore,” Mr. Alvarez says.
He supports the self-defense groups and, like many, says he wants them to stay armed and patrolling the region.
“The community is angry,” Father Madrigal says. He fears that if the government can’t keep citizens safe and simultaneously crack down on self-defense groups, “We could see a generalized uprising. We could see war.”
Outlaw & RC:
That Washington Post story was completely fascinating. What was as important, or more important than the illegals mentioned were the Americans who went down and became part of the autodefensas because they got ticked off at how they or their relatives have been treated. There are millions of Americans, green cards and illegals in the US who have relatives in Mexico and are concerned about them. And I'll bet tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of them are in the American military or have been in the US military and who have combat experience. And of those I'll bet there are hundreds who have been or are Special Forces guys like Outlaw. If only a portion of those people went down as private individuals to participate in whatever is going on or might go on, that is a huge thing to be reckoned with, not to mention all the money here that would go down there to support relatives.
So Outlaw, I concede, you are right. We can affect things. But the 'we' is individual Americans or people living in the US, not the US gov or any of its agents. There is a world of difference between my cousin from Chicago or Ft. Hood coming down to help us and those damn Yankee soldiers on Mexican soil...again. Help from relatives and friends is one thing, the chin...., er, the American government is another.
Outlaw,
From your posts you make the case for the possibility that SF may have a role in aiding a Mexican grass-roots Self Defense network. This vigilante effort aims to restore some form of basic law and order in many regions of Mexico plagued by drug related serious crime. I also glean from your extensive observation that there are numerous significant HN players who currently oppose these SD groups and in so doing would be inclined to oppose any possible SF mission.
From what you have pointed out I have understood these HN opponents are :
1. The Cartels
2. The Army
3. The Police
4. The Commercial Elite
5. The Political Elite
6. Mexicans who don’t want US troops in their country
7. Mexicans who don’t like Americans for historical reasons
8. Mexicans who don't like Americans
IMO that list of hostiles would give you the equivalent of a Ia Drang every week for as long as we were there. Furthermore you could bet the lives of a whole generation that the individuals making up that list would not restrict the shit-storm to Mexico .
To me this level of institutional hostility to the rule of basic law and order in general and US law in particular suggests border controls similar to the Iron Curtain for a fixed period are the only hope. During this 'Iron Curtain' period we would have to initiate a massive public health effort to educate the US population in the responsible use of legally available cocaine in the same vein as we currently attempt to do with alcohol.
For all intents and purposes the wide usage and availability indicates cocaine is 'legal' anyways. There isn't a bar, nightclub or private party where Coke is not available and regularly used. It is not as restricted or expensive as it was - even teenagers have the resources and inclination to regularly use it. I don't believe it does them any good but it doesn't seem to do my friends (young and old)much more harm than booze.
Unlike heroin which in this 'enlightened period' would have to be attacked with a vengeance by all arms of the State.
JMO
RC
carl---we view the same timeframe but have different interpretations--still stand by the Wilson drive to "restore order to chaos" was real, still stand by the economic interests of elite investors inside Mexico was what was driving the "restore order", and still stand by that the mobilization of 110K US regular and National Guard troops to the Texas border was not just a "causal let's get to know Mexico and tour the countryside thing". We as an Army have a repeated history of marching up to borders and then "doing what"--touring the countryside?
Go back and reread a lot of the arguments made for NAAFTA by the same economic elites that now do business/manufacture in Mexico---they will actually overlap each other although there is over a 100 year difference in their comments--check it out---worth the read.
What is more interesting than Mexican history is the following from today's Washington Post (check similar comments being made in the csm.com who have a relatively good reporting team there)front page article on who is actively driving the self defense group in one of the Mexican States.
Former Mexican illegals who were deported back to Mexico are the ones driving the organizing, arming, and fighting the cartels.
That is far more interesting than historical events of 1917 from two perspectives---seems to me they absorbed something during they "illegal" stay in the US that we as Americans have simply forgotten ---although we "claim" to export it all the time to the rest of the world.
So in fact we have actually pro-actively contributed to the self defense group rise. Not all things have to necessarily come out of Mexico itself for change to occur.
That is worth a discussion.
Outlaw 09:
The occupation of Veracruz was begun and ended in 1914. The Zimmerman telegram was dispatched in January, 1917.
The original question that got all this started was you said the Army occupied Mexico in those years. I said no that is incorrect. What was going through Wilson's mind is not germane.
The reason Pershing used trucks so much during the incursion was the Mexicans said he couldn't use the railroads as he had planned. It was forced on him.
The AEF if France was quite hapless. It was almost completely unprepared for the type of war it ran into and suffered disproportionately high casualties because of this. What it learned it learned from the British and French and from bloody experience. The little Mexican adventure did almost nothing for the Army that helped it in France.
One 'what would have happened' that is interesting to contemplate is how the U.S. Army would have done against the Mexicans if there had been some kind of war between the US and Mexico in 1916. We would have gone in with almost nobody on our side with recent combat experience and nobody with large unit combat experience. The Mexicans had hundreds of thousands of men with recent combat experience and tens of thousands with large unit combat experience. And they would have had Obregon. I wonder what would have happened.
A whole lot of Whys there but none of them matter much. What happens in Mexico will be decided by Mexicans. They won't let us interfere inside the country nor should they. We would just screw it up.
carl--have you found the various comments referencing Wilson's potential decision to "invade" Mexico in order to restore "order" and that he only sidelined it when he declared war on Germany---the Veracruz incident was tied to the ongoing events in the European war as he was attempting and did stop a German weapons shipment into Mexico which he viewed as German interference in Mexican affairs and as challenge to the US especially after the Zimmermann letter became public.
There was a deep drive by the US economic interests in Mexico that were in fact pushing this idea under the guise of "restoring order" in order to take more land from especially northern Mexico.
Notice also from the internet search the inference that the US economic interests ie US elites had a large amount of agricultural land under their control---the 1910 revolt and later flashes inside the revolution were in fact driven by the message of "land reform".
You are right to a degree there still is resentment over the various outright land grabs by the US but the events of 1910 to 1920 were the final steps in that process and I keep going back to Wilson's various statements on Mexico---he did in fact lean to an invasion-so in fact just maybe Mexico was "saved" this event by the Germans if one thinks about it.
You also noted in the various internet searches that the US Army under Pershing actually was using the various Mexican incursions to test the newly created concepts of a Mobile Division using the "combined arms" concept. The exact same Army maneuver concepts deployed by the Army in France if one takes the time to actually compare.
Also notice the Mexican incursions were used to test mobilization/movement of the National Guard and regular Army units and check out the names of those future Army leaders that we all know of today who physically had "boots on the ground" inside Mexico.
Heck at one stage we had over 110,000 troops under mobilization for Mexico---in fact it does "appear" that we the US had an invasion army preparing to deploy into Mexico---think actually if you look at some of Pershing's personal writings that are available that he realized the complexity of that and just went into a holding pattern and used those forces inside Mexico from 1916-1917 to conduct training around the concept of "combined arms" maneuvers---check the literature on the use of airpower for the first time by the Army inside Mexico.
There was far more going on underneath the "supposedly" minor incursions and IMO Mexico was the "testing ground" for the coming entry into WW1 which Army senior leadership knew was coming---it was either going to be a Mexican invasion or on to France.
Reference the Mexican ability to take care of itself---would have agreed with you say about three years ago but here are the following items that point to a massive meltdown---with the self defense groups being both the "canary" in the mine tunnel and the latest example of the melt down in process.
So now in effect Mexico has armed cartels, an armed military and federal police, the State has an armed though corrupted security force and now you have the locals armed and angry.
AND they are all shooting at each other---the melt down is in fact in progress.
NOTE: Pro-actively yes we can support ie just WHY is it that the US "somehow cannot stop the weapon flows out of the US"---heck the large commercial military .50cal rifles are coming straight out of the US directly from the manufacturers---we know nothing about that---come on, WHY cannot the US using all available criminal laws stop the massive money laundering inside the US by the cartels---would mean that we get serious about US lawyers, businesses and banks doing business with the cartels, WHY cannot the US with it's massive NSA capabilities that seems to hunt for every worldwide jihadi not be turned fully onto the cartels WHEN the cartels are actually a far more serious security threat to actual Americans living in Iowa than say AQ ever will be.
We can find, track, listen to conversations of AQ inside say Yemen BUT we somehow cannot find, track and seize massive amounts of drugs coming into the US---come on if it was a national level strategic goal such as AQ is THEN it would happen. Mexico just is not of interest for some "unexplained" reason.
We can via the three letter agencies, military intelligence, and defense contractors track AQ/Iranian funds and businesses worldwide under the concept of counter threat finance, but we do nothing on Mexico---come on.
WHY is it that AQ appears to us to be the elephant in the china shop but WHAT 1600 US cities and towns having a cartel threat/influence is somehow ignored---come on.
WHY cannot the US crack down on US companies that participate in the corruption of various Mexican agencies in order to do business inside Mexico and WHY do they not inform the US of the "taxes" they are paying the cartels to ship their products out of Mexico---come on there is more that can be done BUT is not being done under the guise of "it is a Mexican thing".
NOW with the opening of the oil industry to outside investors---WHAT Exxon is not going to pay the cartels for "protection" of their pipelines and drilling sites and WHAT they are not going to pay bribes to get great production leases--come on.
Plus lets openly admit it there is WAY to much money involved for us to crack down on US interests assisting the cartels inside the US---again one should really look at how after NAAFTA was passed just how the cartels exploded into the open after that.
Let's look as well at the amount of money the DEA is taking in their raids and RICO cases that is flowing back into US coffers---in the 100s of millions of dollars annually by to the US government---WHY would we stop that?
Items:
1. cartels physically are holding States as territories in approximately 2/3rds of the country
2. the various local States where the cartels are operating are so corrupted that they cannot provide simple local policing effectively
3. the cartels have build a "shadow" governance through corruption, extortion, kidnapping, and out right "random" fear that rivals the Federal/State
4. even elements of the military and federal police are undermined via corruption
5. the drivers of economic development ie mining, farming, NAAFTA manufacturing centers, and oil are falling under control of and or influence now by the cartels
6. the Catholic church is being driven out of a number of States under deep cartel control
7. the youth are now being influence by via narco band culture and 13 year olds are earning 3K USD per month standing observation posts and doing surveillance for the cartels
8. Mexico is at a point where the younger generation is almost under total
influence of cartel cash flows
9. the narco culture ie bands are now extremely popular in US States with high Latino youth rates as well as a critical propaganda arm of the cartels inside Mexico
And this is the really important development that was not there three years ago---the cartels are now pushing drug consumption inside Mexico and it is hitting the streets hard now with rising drug consumption internally that was previously not known in Mexico.
Lets not forget the human smuggling and counterfeit goods coming in out of Mexico---we cannot stop or slow that?---come on if we cannot stop then just HOW are we supposedly to stop AQ?
So IMO Mexico is already in their melt down and that is a lot of that can be pro-actively done but is not as it would interfere with "business as usual" or what some have called the current US foreign policy of the "do not rock the boat" approach.
Outlaw 09:
No, your history is still wrong. There were only two large deployments of US military forces in Mexico during those years, Pershing and the occupation Veracruz. When Pershing left he had about 11,000 men who had spent most of the last months they were there in defensive positions trying to stay out of trouble. From my quick internet search there was about a brigade of our troops occupying Veracruz for about 6 months. Only Veracruz could be considered an occupation. Other than some minor hot pursuit incursions chasing after Mexican raiders that was it. And like I said, other than the effect upon Huerta, there wasn't much. Even the article from which you got your last quoted paragraph says that.
That last paragraph mentioned us not trying to shape things pro-actively. The historical truth of that is in question but that is beside the larger point. The larger point is we, the US can't do much of anything at all to pro-actively shape events in Mexico, other than legalizing drugs which won't happen soon, if ever. What happens in Mexico will depend upon what the Mexicans do, not us. The best we can do is look on, offer moral support and hope and pray for the best. The country is too big and is brimming with energetic people who can handle their own affairs better without our help and who would resent it anyway.
That resentment doesn't come from events of 1910-1920. It existed long before that starting with the Texas War and especially the Mexican-American War when we actually did occupy large parts of Mexico and annexed about 1/3 of the country.
carl---we the US Army roamed into and out of Mexico for over three years in rather large numbers from 1914 to 1917 with Pershing remaining in Mexican territory from 1916 to 1917.
There is some historical evidence that if we had not declared war on Germany in WW1 which led to Pershing to be told to return to the US proper we probably would have declared war on Mexico in 1917.
In the last quoted para check the sentence referencing that we were reactive in that period---it has not changed since then. Notice any similarities in the paras referencing 1917 and now?
"Two main motives were employed to rationalize potential US military intervention. These included a pervasive anti-Hispanic ideology to justify militarily imposing order on the ‘chaos’. There was also pressure by American corporations who feared their interests would be jeopardized with Mexico’s restructuring."
"At the turn of the 20th century, United States citizens and corporations held about 27% of Mexican land. By 1910, United States investment in the country—such as land, railroads, mines, factories, etc.--had increased even more. This pushed President Woodrow Wilson to intervene in Mexican affairs because the revolution was negatively impacting the Mexican economy, thereby endangering United States business interests."
"But what did we accomplish from 1914 to 1917? No matter how well American troops did on the battlefield, the blunt fact is that the US succeeded, in three years, in alienating every single faction in a complicated, multi-faction civil war. This has to be some sort of record! One major problem was that our policy was always reactionary, in the literal sense that we always reacted to events in Mexico, rather than working to shape things pro-actively."
Outlaw 09:
Let's get the history out of the way first. The U.S. Army did not occupy Mexico. A small Army column blundered its way around Chihuahua for less than a year looking for Pancho Villa. Then they came home. They entered Mexico with the permission of the Carrancistas who most closely approximated the Mexican government at the time. American forces also occupied Veracruz for about six months, after which, to the great relief of both sides, they got back on their ships. The Veracruz occupation did hurt Huerta a bit but neither the punitive expedition nor it did much of anything to affect the big struggles between the factions after Huerta was driven out. If the Mexican Revolution that started in 1910 was incomplete it was because of what Mexicans did, not because of some Norte Americanos at the edges of the country.
Mexican sensitivity to American military intervention came long before that. It was affected by things like the Mexican-American War, the Texas War of Independence, filibustering, American Army forces chasing Indians into Mexico, with and without permission, things like that. Canada would probably be just as sensitive now to American troops coming into Canada to deal with Canadian problems with Canadians as Mexicans are to American troops coming into Mexico to deal with Mexican problems with Mexicans.
That said, I am enthusiastic agreement in wondering what the heck has happened to us. The two 'Wars on...' you cited may have incited a cultural change or just been manifestations of it but our culture has changed. One indication of that is I think the Malcolm Nance piece here on SWJ saying waterboarding is torture still may be the most viewed SWJ piece ever. And half the comments were in favor or waterboarding either arguing it isn't torture or that it's A-ok. We've changed.
You're right, the Mexican government is in serious trouble when the middle age guys take up the gun. It is bad because historically, when things fall apart in Mexico, they really fall apart. And when they do that a lot of Mexicans head north for safety, so it affects us to.
carl---your comments are interesting in that some that blog here would argue another point and claim that it is not an "insurgency", "crime insurgency" or it is a "US drug consumption driven problem" and the list goes on and on and on.
Robert hit something on the head with his occupation resistance and you are right it is a continuation of 1810, 1910 and the now although for this particular State it stated in 1979---if one remembers 1910 we the US Army spent a period of time occupying Mexico something that one does not hear about much in our current history books but fully understood in Mexico thus they flatly refuse to allow US boots on the ground.
There was an intel analysis support team sent down to support the Mexican Army which had to be in civilian clothes because of 1910 fears---they called it not boots on the ground but rather "wing tips on the ground".
The Mexican government is in serious trouble and it is getting worse while these middle aged individuals fully believe now that the military, security and SF forces are colluding with the cartels---that is what is flashing now in this particular State.
By the way if one looks at the federal reactions one can in fact argue they have not been actively moving against the cartels---yes against their leaders which get replaced and replaced but not actively against the foot soldiers in every village and town---SO there is a perception that the military is in fact colluding with the cartels. The SD units on the other hand actively push all members of the cartels out of their areas to include the narco music groups.
Again back to Robert---the populations in the battle hardened cartel States are slowing moving to open revolt not because they want to but simply in order to survive as the Federal/local State is not providing basic functioning governance and simple levels of security allowing them as you rightly point out "feed the kids and work to provide for their families".
In some areas of Africa and the ME we would call this failure of the Federal and State governments to be actual symptoms of a "failed State".
I personally would argue that we are seeing a return to the "finishing" of the revolution from 1910 which was stopped by US military intervention.
My question is WHY we do not use the same terms for Mexico---it would in fact panic Americans is the simple answer---right now most of the American population really does not care unless they have families there, take vacations there, have retired there, and or drug consumers.
There are though some that would argue that the cartels exploded because of NAAFTA not drug consumption, and there is some evidence that this argument might be indeed true.
What is interesting is that the ISR assets provided by US federal and military agencies to Customs and Border Patrol and to a degree DEA used against the cartels is now being "loaned too/used by" US State and local police agencies INSIDE the US ---NOT though against the cartels in Mexico.
We as Americans in the last ten years really seem to not care about the loss of civil liberties in the "name of the war on drugs" just as we have lost a large number of our civil liberties in the "global war on terrorism".
That is what is scary about Mexico--we as Americans simply do not care what is happening to either Mexico or ourselves.
A Mexican woman told me once that the Mexicans will take it and take it and take it, so much so that you would think they will take it forever. Then in an instant they'll go off like a bomb and kill everybody in sight. I've always remembered that. I don't know if it is true but I've always remembered it.
The striking thing about the self defence groups is that from what I read and see in photos there are a lot of middle aged, middle class men men in their ranks. These are productive guys who at that stage of life don't go in for adventure and have a lot of pressing things to do, like feeding the kids and paying the bills. For them to drop all that and actively take up arms means this is an extremely serious thing for Mexico. Their prime spokesman is a 55 year old doctor for pete's sake! I figured Col. Q was done for in Libya when I read that so many merchants and engineering students took up arms against him and now middle class, middle age men are taking up arms in Mexico.
There was big trouble in Mexico in 1810, in 1910 and now it is three years past 2010. I hope there isn't a pattern there.
Caught this comment today that reflects what the violence in Michoacan appears to the author to be.
"I thought this article would be useful in understanding of the Michoacán situation. Although the government (or 'governments', state and federal) refuse to use the term 'war' to refer to the conflict in Michoacán, there is really no other word that is as appropriate to a situation that involves military forces, armed groups and police forces shooting it out for control of territory. It sure looks like a war to this Mexican. -- un vato."