Thanks to: Reuters
"Monte Alejandro Rubido, who recently joined President Felipe Calderon's National Security Council as a technical director, said troops would stay at the core of the war on drug cartels who have slaughtered nearly 2,000 people so far this year, mainly rival smugglers and police." (italics mine)
Facing a corrupt Mexican police force that, understandably, has in many cases chosen to supplement their income providing protection for the cartels', the Mexican government has resorted to using their army to fight the cartels' and retrain and modernise the police. Now Mexican officials are on record saying the Mexican army will be involved until at least 2013. The first question that comes to mind is how does Mexico plan to pay for this war? With a global recession that is showing no signs of ending, Mexico's defence budget will almost certainly have to be cut between now and 2013. The cartels' on the other hand have no shortage of cash flow and could in theory continue battling the Mexican army indefinitely wile simultaneously continuing their drug smuggling operation.
As I highlighted in the above quote the cartels' violence is mainly directed at those who stand in the way of profits. Most of the violence began as infighting between cartels' competing for the best smugging routes and landing strips. As the government of Mexico has tried to quell the fighting they have also become targets.
"Several high-profile arrests, including that of a presidential guardsmen who allegedly received $100,000 a month to track Calderon for drug traffickers, have also revealed drug cartel infiltration inside the military." (italics mine)
I love this part for so many reasons. Mainly the fact that it is the very last sentence of the article. Anyways, Hey guess what? The army is on it's way to becoming just as corrupt as the police force! I don't think that might be a bit of a problem in waging a 4 year against the same drug gangs that are "infiltrating" the army, do you?
Well, do you?
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