Legalization Of Drugs Won’t End The Border War

BY Herschel Smith
12 years, 4 months ago

This is why.

While the Obama White House and some of his disciple politicians disagree that Texas border counties may be in a growing “war zone,” the impact of drug cartel violence and power in Mexico could be affecting American households in more direct means than generally believed.

For instance, avocados and lime costs imported into the U.S. from Mexico are subject to a drug cartel tax, or “la cota,“ said a former cartel member, who talked with the Examiner,  provided we did not reveal his real name.

Carlos is a 28-year-old Mexican national moved to the San Antonio area to escape cartel torture, death and “before they killed the only family I have left.”

“They charge those farmers and packers ‘la cota’ for each truck they send out,” Carlos explained. “And before the trucks make it to the distribution, they might get stopped three or four times for la cota.”

Carlos described what happens to anyone that doesn’t pay the tax.

“They call it Mexican insurance,” he said. “They tell you they know who your wife is, or your mother, or your daughters and you better pay or we will rape and kill them.”

“They pay the cartels what they want, like a toll road,” Carlos observed. “We charged about 600 or 700 pesos for each truck about five years ago, but I don’t know any more what it is. It’s a common thing.”

“Americans think the drug gangs just make their money from the drugs, but they make money off of your food and imports that come from Mexico too,” claimed Carlos.

“Sometimes those terminals in Mexico and even here in Texas wait for the trucks to get there, but if the drug gangs don’t get paid, those trucks will not get there,” Carlos observed.  “You ask any of them (distributors or terminals) and they will tell you this is more common than people think.”

I advocated against the war on poppy in battling the Taliban; the Taliban make their money by various means, including (but not limited to) precious metal mines, pomegranates, timber, and extortion.  I advocated against the war on poppy for the same reason that I advocate seeing the war against the cartels and other insurgents as a border war.  Drugs isn’t the defining characteristic of the warlords and insurgents in Mexico (and increasingly North of the border), just as the Taliban won’t cease to exist if we destroy all of the poppy crops in the Helmand Province.

I have little vested interest in the final disposition of a war on drugs or whether drugs are legal, except as follows.  Drug users have hitched me to their wagon, just like 48% of the balance of the (non-tax paying) American public.  If the pro-legalization forces would simply unhitch the rest of the tax- and rate-payers from their wagon, we might be persuaded to side with them.  To do this, ensure that I don’t have to pay one cent of welfare for lost work time or support of out of work drug users, or one cent of medical costs associated with drug use, or any other cost not being discussed here but associated with drug use.  After pro-legalization advocates do this, then – and only then – will I consider supporting their cause.  Until then, I have a right and vested interest in the behavior of anyone and everyone whom my tax monies support.  If you don’t approve of my meddling, neither do I.  Remove my support and I won’t meddle.  It’s a win-win proposition.  You make the first move.

I will consider supporting their cause (and delaying my support until such time as my preconditions obtain), because drug legalization, or lack thereof, won’t significantly affect the insurgency to the South.  I can’t possibly lose in this deal.

See also Border War.


Comments

  1. On November 29, 2011 at 9:36 am, Warbucks said:

    Your proposition seems fair to me.

    And I have only marginal reservations about exercising a more muscular official posture to protect the boarders.

    The larger problem seems to be our national loss of perspective. We seem to be  driven as a nation as ROSS N suggested in the earlier link by corporate elites running their Congress and driving us, willing or not, to globalized One World Government, and always raising the bar of concerns to an endless stream of empire maintenance.

    God and Country for me, does not mean serving the needs of the military industrial frenzy of perpetual corporate addiction to the uber-state contract controlled by the banks to big to fail.

    We seem to need to redefine our purpose in human term and perhaps that starts by looking again at ourselves and where we are and what we seem to have become.

    Realizing these linkages are manifest and operating is the first step in our own national rehabilitation. It does not mean retreat into isolationism. It means instead returning the privilege of creating the national money supply to the people   http://tinyurl.com/3fa94u8)

    It means reeducating ourselves just a little on how to reform our currency carefully to free our nation from international money changers  tinyurl.com/44d89sd . It means understanding just a little, how and why our original 13 colonies prospered in world trade using its own Colonial Script.  It means we reset our understanding of freedom, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that government is to serve man not man serve government.

    And yes it must mean that if owning a snazzy tripod mounted, night scope sighted, high capacity magazine weapon to defend one’s house is your personal need, then you are free to do so……. my personal choice being the Barrett 50-calibre sniper but my boss keeps saying no.     
           

  2. On November 30, 2011 at 11:25 am, TS Alfabet said:

    This is another great example, by the way, of how hypocritical the Left is when it comes to the “little guy.”

    The Left loves to trumpet their compassion and concern for the little guy… the poor, the oppressed et al…. but that concern is driven mainly by the desire for “useful idiots” who will keep them in power.

    So, when it comes to the oppressed people of Mexico who are being brutalized by Crime Cartels (let’s stop calling them “Drug Cartels” since it is plain that they are much more than just a drug gang), the Left is silent. Where, for example, are the calls of public interest groups, Democrat politicians and universities to divest from Mexico in order to stop supporting the Cartels? It was fine to go on a righteous rant about “blood diamonds” and boycott them, but when it comes to products coming from Mexico that directly support the Crime Cartels on our very, own border, the Left can’t be bothered.

    At what point does Mexico reach the point of a failed state? Is it already there now? What does the U.S. do about it? A failed state, almost by definition, no longer has sovereignty if it cannot, for one, enforce its own borders. (OTOH, by this definition, the U.S. might be reaching failed state status).

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You are currently reading "Legalization Of Drugs Won’t End The Border War", entry #7970 on The Captain's Journal.

This article is filed under the category(s) Border War,Mexican Cartels,Mexico and was published November 28th, 2011 by Herschel Smith.

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