Hell is a Place Called Mexico

Mexico continues to descend into hell. Last week the Zetas doused a casino in Monterrey with gasoline, burning over 60 people to death. In Acapulco, officials are closing schools because of extortion threats from criminals demanding protection payment from teachers. Borderlandbeat.com and Blogdelnarco.com both have excellent coverage. Acapulco used to be a playground for the rich and famous. Now the narco's hang butcher corpses from bridges on the main roads and dump bodies on the beaches.

The Sinaloa cartel is moving into meth production on an industrial scale. A security expert says the cartels control half of Mexico's territory. Carlos Fuentes says "They should decriminalize drugs and get help from the Israeli, French or German police forces who have proven effective in combating crime," he said.

Tom Clancy wrote a novel a few years back about the U.S. fighting a secret war in Columbia against the cartels. Harrison Ford starred in the movie. The venture ended in disaster with the troops abandoned by the politicians (sound familiar?).

General Sherman advised Lincoln that the only way to end the Civil War was to kill an entire generation of Southern males. As a Southerner, I hate Sherman almost as my grandmother did, and her father was shot by a Yankee musket (he survived). But the old psycho (Sherman that is) was right about one thing: when you go to war it has to be total war. Otherwise we get into disasters like the Black Hawk Down tragedy. It may take some power with the ruthlessness to go into Mexico and do what the Chinese would do - round up the criminals, try them and shoot them the same day.

It will never happen. The truth is that the drug trade provides the cash that keeps the world economy limping along. If the flow of money into Mexico was shut off, Mexico would collapse, dragging down the U.S. banks with it. Mexico gets more money from illegal drugs than it does oil and tourism combined.

Frisco drug dealer sentenced to 10 years in teen’s fatal cheese heroin overdose
From Dallas Morning News -
A 21-year-old Frisco man was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for supplying drugs to a 16-year-old who died from an overdose of cheese heroin in October 2009.
Jaime Cesar Navarro Jr. appeared in federal court Wednesday for sentencing after pleading guilty last year to selling drugs to Andrew Dillon Young.
According to a Frisco police affidavit, Dillon went with a friend to Navarro’s house to buy Xanax but instead paid $20 for cheese heroin. He went home and returned later with two friends to trade an Xbox 360 and a digital camera for more drugs, according to the affidavit. The affidavit stated that Dillon bought heroin mixed with Tylenol and Xanax.
Dillon’s mother found him unresponsive the next morning at the family’s home in Frisco.
Navarro pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin, resulting in death. His sentence includes enrolling in a residential drug abuse treatment program and obtaining his GED while in prison. Once out of prison, he will have five years of supervised release.
Defense attorney Robert Arrambide told the judge that Navarro was not a drug kingpin but an addict who sold drugs to others to maintain his own habit.
“I was very lost in drugs,” Navarro told the court, adding that he was remorseful about what happened.

The teen's father, Fernando Cortez Sr., says: "All I can do is try to help people now."
A cheap, highly addictive drug known as "cheese heroin" has killed 21 teenagers in the Dallas area over the past two years, and authorities say they are hoping they can stop the fad before it spreads across the nation.

"Cheese heroin" is a blend of so-called black tar Mexican heroin and crushed over-the-counter medications that contain the antihistamine diphenhydramine, found in products such as Tylenol PM, police say. The sedative effects of the heroin and the nighttime sleep aids make for a deadly brew.

Ex-Chief Pleads Guilty
Sunday, August 28, 2011 | Borderland Beat Reporter Chamuko213
By Rene Romo / Journal South Reporter
LAS CRUCES — Former Columbus Police Chief Angelo Vega, handcuffed and dressed in a red prisoner jumpsuit, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy, smuggling and public corruption charges.

The charges are in connection with a federal gun-smuggling case that also snared the border town’s mayor and a trustee.