Mexico drug violence "out of hand": Obama

Sunday, 29 March 2009 12:13

SecurityCornerMexico.com Recommended READING: Mexicans are fleeing their country due to the drug-related violence (VIDEO) & All Articles in this link: Smuggled US Firearms Fuel Drug Violence in Mexico

March 30, 2009

A Mexican Federal policeman patrols the streets of Ciudad Juarez during an anti-narcotics operation

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Drug violence in Mexico has "gotten out of hand" and poses a serious threat to communities along the US-Mexico border, President Barack Obama said Sunday.

But Obama, in an interview with CBS television, said his administration would wait to see the impact of stepped up US law enforcement efforts before deploying national guard troops to the border.

"I don't think that it is what would be called an existential threat. But it's a serious threat to those border communities and it has gotten out of hand," he said.

Echoing comments in Mexico last week by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama called the drug crisis in the south a "two-way street" fueled by US demand for drugs and availability of weapons.

"We've got to reduce demand for drugs. We've got to do our part in reducing the flow of cash and guns south," he said.

Administration officials announced plans last week to send 360 more federal agents and officers to the border area to target the movement of drugs and guns and to beef up security and intelligence along the border.

Obama said the administration was considering calls for national guard troops in the border areas.

"But we want to first see whether some of the steps that we've taken can help quell some of the violence," he said. "And we want to make sure that we are consulting as effectively as we can with the Mexican government in moving this strategy forward."

Clinton delivered that message in Mexico City last week, vowing to stand with the government of President Felipe Calderon in the fight against powerful drug cartels.

She also pledged to provide Mexico with 80 million dollars to buy Blackhawk helicopters to pursue the drug cartels.

An estimated 6,300 have been killed in drug related violence in Mexico since 2008 in an intensifying war as Mexican troops go after drug cartels, and the gangs vie among themselves for lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.

Obama said the drug cartels were "undermining and corrupting huge segments of Mexico society," but he praised Calderon for taking on the drug cartels "in the same way that Elliot Ness took on Al Capone back during prohibition."

"Oftentimes that causes even more violence and we're seeing that flare up," Obama added.

In a separate interview, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Fox television that Calderon had acted with "enormous courage" in sending in Mexican troops to try to control the situation.

"I think that the chances of the Mexican government losing control of some part of their country or becoming a failed state are very low," he said.

Al Jazeera is probably the most watched news channel in the Middle East. Increasingly, Al Jazeera's exclusive interviews and other footage are being rebroadcast in American, British, and other western media outlets such as CNN and the BBC. The television network is headquartered in Doha, QUATAR. An inquiry at the Press Office, American Embassy in Mexico confimed that Al Jazeera is an international news service as any other, with offices, accredited reporters in the US: The War on Al Jazeera.

VIDEOS

Is Mexico spiraling out of control?

Latin America's struggle to cut drug route to US

Mexico's youth being lured into drug trade

Video: Mexico family's drug plight

Many Mexicans are fleeing their country due to the drug-related violence.
Al Jazeera interviewed a mother whose three adult children were recently kidnapped from their hometown in Mexico. She is now living with another son in the US state of Texas.
They did not want their names revealed due to safety concerns.

FOCUS: MEXICO IN THE CROSSFIRE

Inside Mexico's drug cartel armies By Ioan Grillo in Oaxaca, Mexico

Thousands have died in a wave of drug-related violence in Mexico [Reuters]

As part of "Mexico in the Crossfire", Al Jazeera's special coverage on the war between the government and drug cartels, we speak to one of the gangs' so-called "foot soldiers" about why he joined the organisation, the brutal nature of his work and why corruption is fanning the flames of violence.

With his warm grin and brown eyes, "El Cholito" does not appear to be a violent man.

But his face abruptly changes and his stare becomes harder when he describes how he was part of drug cartel hit squad that tortured rival traffickers for two days before shooting them in the head.

More, HERE.

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Drug-cartel fueled violence has turned into a war in Mexico, with thousands of deaths and the government battling well-armed gangs whose military-quality weapons come mostly from U.S. dealers. CNN' :

VIDEO by You Tube

© 2009 YouTube, LLC

The Big Picture: Mexico's Drug War

March 25, 2009

Mexico's drug war

In December of 2006, Mexico's new President Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels, reversing earlier government passiveness. Since then, the government has made some gains, but at a heavy price - gun battles, assasinations, kidnappings, fights between rival cartels, and reprisals have resulted in over 9,500 deaths since December 2006 - over 5,300 killed last year alone. President Barack Obama recently announced extra agents were being deployed to the border and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Mexico today to pursue a broad diplomatic agenda - overshadowed now by spiraling drug violence and fears of greater cross-border spillover. Officials on both sides of the border are committed to stopping the violence, and stemming the flow of drugs heading north and guns and cash heading south. (34 photos total)

Seized ammunition is shown during a presentation of suspected members of the Pacifico drug cartel in Mexico city's airport on March 12, 2009. (REUTERS/Jorge Dan Lopez

Baja California state police stand guard at a captured marijuana greenhouse in the basement of a ranch in Tecate, Mexico on March 12, 2009. (REUTERS/Jorge Duenes)

Numbered plastic markers are set on the pavement to determine the location of bullet casings found at the scene of a shootout where unknown gunmen opened fire and killed four police officers in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on Feb. 17, 2009. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

A police officer walks on packages of cocaine in Buenaventura, Colombia's main seaport on the Pacific coast, Monday, March 23, 2009. Colombian police had seized 3.5 tons of cocaine in a container of vegetable grease bound for Mexico. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Yaneth Deyinara Garcia (center) and Sigifrido Najera (2nd from left), members of the drug Organization "Cardenas Guillen", are presented to the press at the headquarters of the Defense Secretary in Mexico City on March 20, 2009. (LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images)

Suspected Mexican drug trafficker Vicente Zambada Niebla is presented to the media in Mexico City March 19, 2009. Zambada was arrested with five other suspected drug traffickers with weapons and money, police said. (REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar)

Federal police officers sit aboard an aircraft while flying to the border city Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, Monday, March 2, 2009. The deployment is part of a troop increase of 5,000 men planned for this city which has been hit hard by organized crime related violence. (AP Photo/Miguel Tovar)

Central American migrants being held in captivity react as Mexican Army soldiers, unseen, enter to liberate them in Reynosa, Mexico, late Tuesday, March 17, 2009. More than 50 migrants were being kept in captivity by a kidnapping gang in order to extort their families in exchange for their freedom, according to Mexico's Army. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

ALL Pictures, HERE.

As Clinton Visits Mexico, Strains Show in Relations - NYTimes.com 3/25

Mexican Drug Trafficking - NYTimes.com Topics Page

Mexican Drug War - Wikipedia entry