El Paso highway closed due to Mexico-side shoot out

[Phoenix]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico;_ylt=AmVg2IukAO9Zqk0ip9rNMABzfN dF


1 dead in Mexico shootout on border with El Paso

By OLIVIA TORRES and ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press Writer – Sat Aug 21, 11:49 pm ET

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A gunbattle erupted between Mexican police and gunmen near the Rio Grande on Saturday, killing one person and prompting U.S. authorities to close a highway that runs along the border in El Paso, Texas.

There were no reports of bullets crossing into the U.S. side, El Paso police Detective Mike Baranyay said.

The gunmen attacked a municipal police patrol on a boulevard in Ciudad Juarez next to the border river, said Ramon Salinas, a spokesman for Mexico's federal police.

The fighting escalated when federal police rushed to help, he said. One gunman was killed and three municipal police officers were wounded.

El Paso police closed that city's border highway for about 30 minutes because of the shooting. City police said the U.S. Border Patrol asked for the shutdown.

Doug Mosier, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, said Paisano Street was closed "in the interest of public safety." He said that to his knowledge, it was the first time a street in El Paso has been shut down because of a shooting in Mexico.

Traffic was halted on a stretch running from downtown El Paso to the city's northwest, passing the University of Texas-El Paso, which overlooks the border.

The fighting occurred in the same area where a deadly shootout between gunmen and Mexican police sent seven bullets across the border and into the El Paso City Hall on June 29.

Ciudad Juarez has become one of the deadliest cities in the world amid a territorial war between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. More than 1,860 people have been killed this year in the city of 1.3 million people.

Despite concerns of spillover violence, El Paso remains one of the safest cities in the United States. The city has recorded just three homicides so far this year.

Still, the violence has at times raised tensions between the U.S. and Mexico.

After the bullets hit El Paso City Hall, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott wrote President Barack Obama to warn that the state "is under constant assault from illegal activity threatening a porous border."

That same month, a 15-year-old Mexican boy was fatally shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was trying to arrest illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. Some witnesses said a group of people on the Mexican side threw rocks at the agents.

Obama ordered thousands of National Guard troops to the border.

Elsewhere in Mexico on Saturday, authorities said the bodies of two security guards for Mexican bottling company FEMSA were found dead a day after a shootout in Santa Catalina, a suburb of the northeastern industrial city of Monterrey.

FEMSA said in a statement that four other guards who disappeared after Friday's shooting were located unharmed.

Police says the two slain guards were found Saturday in the trunk of a car. Three other guards were wounded Friday.

The company said the guards were on standard patrols when gunmen attacked outside a school. Police have not determined a motive, but the region is one of Mexico's most violent cartel battlegrounds.

___

Associated Press writers Olivia Torres reported this story from Ciudad Juarez and Alicia A. Caldwell reported from El Paso, Texas.

[Phoenix]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100821/wl_time/08599201236100;_ylt=Ahosfvf.R7KTym3CMuDkZXdzfNdF


Mexican Police Help Murder Their Own Mayor
Time.com

By IOAN GRILLO / MEXICO CITY Ioan Grillo / Mexico City – Sat Aug 21, 4:30 am ET

The murder scarred a part of Mexico that was supposed to be reasonably safe from violence and crime. Santiago is a picturesque town of waterfalls, colonial churches and holiday homes for the rich. Its mayor Edelmiro Cavazos was a blue-eyed 38-year old, educated in the United States. But it seems that no corner of the country is shielded from the relentless rain of drug-related bloodshed.

The killers came for Mayor Cavazos in the early hours of Aug. 16 when seven SUV's rolled up and men in police uniforms descended on his palatial home. Servants stood back terrified, as their boss was forced away at gunpoint. On Aug. 18, his corpse was dumped on a nearby road. There was a mercy of sorts in the manner of his killing - shot dead with two bullets in the head and one in the chest, and spared the mutilation and rape inflicted on so many other victims. The following day, hundreds of residents wept over his coffin in Santiago's central plaza, lining the stairs up to the church with candles and holding signs calling for peace. (See pictures of Culiac[a {a}]n, the home of Mexico's drug-trafficking industry.)

Then on Aug. 20, more disturbing news broke. State agents arrested six of the mayor's own police officers and said they confessed to involvement in the murder. The suspects had been working for a drug cartel that is fighting a bloody turf war with its rival throughout northeast Mexico, state prosecutors said. Another four alleged gunmen were arrested with automatic rifles and grenade launchers in their possession and accused of being involved in the plot. The revelation had very concerning implications: in Mexico's drug war, officials are now killing officials.

Cavazos - a member of President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party - was the latest in a series of politicians who have been killed or kidnapped this year. In June, a commando group of gunmen assassinated the front-running gubernatorial candidate in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas. In May, a former presidential candidate was kidnapped from his ranch in Central Mexico and is still missing. A mayoral candidate and state legislator have also been murdered. Following the latest slaying, President Calderon said that Mexico's very democracy is under threat. "The death of Edelmiro, makes us angry and obliges us to double our efforts in the struggle against these criminal cowards that attack citizens," he said.

But despite calls for national unity to face this challenge, Mexico's politicians keep slinging mud and trading mutual recriminations over who is to blame. Opposition deputies say that Calderon's policy of sending the entire army after cartels has been catastrophic, inflaming turf wars and shoot-outs. Since Calderon took office in December 2006, there have been an incredible 28,000 drug-related killings, it was recently revealed. Calderon has answered back, challenging the opposition to come up with a better idea. (See pictures of Mexico's drug wars.)

When the president called for a dialog with Congress this week to work out a national security plan, key leaders in two major parties snubbed him and said they had other engagements. An irritated Calderon then said that soldiers would stay on the streets until his last day in office in 2012. Politicians could not even manage to unify over the latest tragedy. As National Action Party militants prepared posters lamenting the death of Mayor Cavazos, the opposition accused them of political opportunism. (See pictures of Mexico City's police fighting crime.)

With Mexico's justice system failing to clear up the facts surrounding the the vast majority of killings, it is unclear exactly why politicians are being targeted. Federal agents say that gangsters are desperate after so many drug busts and arrests and are lashing back at the system in the hope the army will be sent back to the barracks. However, the government has also conceded there are cases of corruption with elected officials themselves in cahoots with drug gangs. In May, police arrested former Cancun mayor and gubernatorial candidate Greg Sanchez on racketeering and drug smuggling charges. On Aug. 19, gunmen attacked the judge in charge of Sanchez's case, killing his bodyguard. Calderon responded that Mexico should consider judges with protected identities to handle drug-related cases. Officials have also come under fire for attacking corrupt officers. Following an attack on the Public Safety Secretary of Michoacan this year, an arrested cartel member said she has been targeted for trying to shake up the state police force, threatening officers on their payroll.

There are fears that that many more officials could be in danger. Sen. Ramon Galindo, the former mayor of murder capital Ciudad Juarez, said he knew of dozens of mayors who had received threats. "It is clear that organized crime groups are not only threatening but are also doing great harm to local politicians," Galindo said. Back in Santiago, the fallen mayor's mother Rubinia Leal de Cavazos told reporters that her son had feared attacks. "I told him to watch out for traitors and to leave his job," she said, shielding her tearful eyes with sunglasses. "He never said he was scared. I hugged him and told him I loved him."

[MNeagle]

4 decapitated bodies hung from bridge in Mexico

CUERNAVACA, Mexico – The decapitated bodies of four men were hung from a bridge Sunday in this central Mexican city besieged by fighting between two drug lords.

A gang led by kingpin Hector Beltran Leyva took responsibility for the killings in a message left with the bodies, the attorney general's office of Mexico state said in a statement.

The beheaded and mutilated bodies were hung by their feet early Sunday from the bridge in Cuernavaca, a popular weekend getaway for Mexico City residents.

Cuernavaca has become a battleground for control of the Beltran Leyva cartel since its leader, Arturo Beltran Leyva, was killed there in a December shootout with marines.

Mexican authorities say the cartel split between a faction led by Hector Beltran Leyva, brother of Arturo, and another led by Edgar Valdez Villareal, a U.S.-born kingpin known as "the Barbie."

The message left with the bodies threatened: "This is what will happen to all those who support the traitor Edgar Valdez Villareal"

Authorities said the four men had been kidnapped days earlier. The family of one of the men reported the abduction to police.

In western Mexico, police found the body of a U.S. citizen inside a car along the highway between the Pacific resorts of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo.

A report from Guerrero state police said the man was shot to death and had identification indicating he was from Georgia.

The U.S. Embassy could not be reached to confirm the man's identity.

Police said they had no suspects and had not determined a motive.

Guerrero state has been wracked by drug-gang violence, including the strife within the Beltran Leyva cartel. There have also been a series of deadly carjackings this year along highways in the state.

Mexico has seen unprecedented gang violence since President Felipe Calderon stepped up the fight against drug trafficking when he took office in December 2006, deploying thousands of troops and federal police to cartel strongholds.

Since then, more than 28,000 people have been killed in violence tied to Mexico's drug war.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico

[Phoenix]

If America had a government, an ultimatum would be issued to the Mexican "government": control the violence that is affecting Americans, or in 72 hours, our military will control it for you.

[Book]

National Guard’s new mission: Agriculture
State team will advise farmers in rural war-torn Afghanistan

By Meg Jones of the Journal Sentinel

July 30, 2010

It might sound odd to send veterinarians, agronomists and horticulture experts to war, but if the goal is to turn swords into ploughshares, a newly formed Wisconsin National Guard unit will help farmers in Afghanistan improve the health of their livestock and boost crop yields.

Although it may sound easy to export Wisconsin know-how to a poor, war-torn country like Afghanistan, where 80% of its citizens work in agriculture, it's not a simple matter. There are language barriers, dangers and cultural differences. And much of the technology and improved farming practices that are common in the United States are unknown in Afghanistan.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/99671619.html

:oo-->

[mick silver]

in other parts of the world we have our troop there fighting , but in our backyard we dont stop the war going on there .

[Phoenix]

a newly formed Wisconsin National Guard unit will help farmers in Afghanistan improve the health of their livestock and boost crop yields.


And THIS is the crop:

http://blog.thegooddrugsguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/opium-poppies-afghanistan.jpg

[Fortyone]

If America had a government, an ultimatum would be issued to the Mexican "government": control the violence that is affecting Americans, or in 72 hours, our military will control it for you.


If they dont act, this will be next

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Columbus_(1916)

[Phoenix]

If America had a government, an ultimatum would be issued to the Mexican "government": control the violence that is affecting Americans, or in 72 hours, our military will control it for you.


If they dont act, this will be next

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Columbus_(1916)




I wish, but if the military is used at all, it will be to restrain Americans from "violating the Mexicans' 'civil rights'."

[sirgonzo420]

If America had a government, an ultimatum would be issued to the Mexican "government": control the violence that is affecting Americans, or in 72 hours, our military will control it for you.


If they dont act, this will be next

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Columbus_(1916)




I wish, but if the military is used at all, it will be to restrain Americans from "violating the Mexicans' 'civil rights'."


As a matter of law, a mexican national has a higher political standing than a Congress-controlled federal "US citizen".

[Phoenix]

As a matter of law, a mexican national has a higher political standing than a Congress-controlled federal "US citizen".


I don't agree with you on the reason for it, but what you say is true. Largely because Mexico defends its citizens.