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Mexican Gov't Shuts Down Zetas' Secret Cell Network
Miniaturized stealth submarines purpose-built for smuggling are an impressive example of how much technological ingenuity is poured into evading the edicts of contemporary drug prohibition. Even more impressive to me, though, is news of the communications network that was just shut down by Mexican authorities, which covered much of northern Mexico. The system is attributed to the Zetas drug cartel, and consisted of equipment in four Mexican border states. "The military confiscated more than 1,400 radios, 2,600 cell phones and computer equipment during the operation, as well as power supplies including solar panels, according the Defense Department," says the article. Too bad — a solar-powered, visually unobtrusive, encrypted cell network sounds like something I'd like to sign up for. NPR also has a story.
If US would just let its citizen get high.
Stealth submarines, solar powered call communications networks, encrypted communications. They are equipped like a damn government.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
The cash cow for the Zetas is cocaine. Marijuana is a minor product.
I'm sure plenty of people said the same thing during alcohol prohibition, but somehow that was overturned?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
There are plenty of non-potheads who want to lift prohibition, for very sound reasons, not the least of which is halting the flow of money to the coffers of ruthless criminal organizations.
It would also create jobs, increase tax revenue, and increase safety to drug users (regulated businesses produce higher quality non-laced drugs).
Oh, this would also reduce the overcrowding of our prisons, thus reducing taxpayer expenditures thereupon, while freeing up law enforcement to focus on protecting us from more harmful crimes.
There is also that silly notion that freedom is a core American value. There must still be a few patriots who remember this.
It is a win all around, and many people are intelligent enough to see this.
But, as you rightly point out, it is an uphill battle because many powerful organizations have a vested interest in keeping many drugs illegal.
Why to hyperventilate.....
The Zetas, feature 31 ex-soldiers once part of an elite division of the Mexican army
31 guys out of how many thousands in the Mexican Army (who routinely train with the US), decide to get into crime
after leaving the army and finding no work.
How many ex-US Soldiers decide on a life of crime after exiting the Military? Are you going to jump up
and claim the US Government is training people to be Bank robbers?
Even the dumbest criminals usually make it thru the 6th grade.
Howbout US Schools training Murderers and car thiefs?
I can see why you post as an AC.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
At least a couple of guys in this zeta thing is far from being a thug.
I mean.. entire fucking cell networks... submarines and shit. You gotta give some credit to them for that.
Yes, hanging severed heads from traffic signs ain't cool, but they have a pretty nice amount of technology.
They should tell this guys there's great climate for planting coca on mars and we'll be there next month.
More dead folks.
You don't just confiscate things from these people without bad things happening to you.
You gotta get the drug cartels first. THEN their equipment.
You do if you are the Military.
For many years, the Mexican Navy was the only trustworthy service in the country. Lately some of the generals in the Mexican Army have been getting sick of what is happening to their country.
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Very true. I do not smoke pot and I think the prohibition against it is both stupid and very harmful to people on this planet. There are a LOT of people in prison for non-violent, drug related crimes. If you have not encountered this organization LEAP, you should.
So making cocaine legal (and regulated) would result in the worse violence that we see with it being illegal?
That's a bit difficult to believe.
Particularly since it was legal to purchase over-the-counter until 1914.
If that were correct then Prohibition would be preferable to the massive distribution of alcohol we have today.
I don't think so. I think it costs MORE lives. Again, as demonstrated with alcohol and Prohibition.
Look around the world. There are other nations that have different laws. And they are not exhibiting the behaviours that you claim they would.
They acomplish their strong communications network thanks to money, corruption and kidnapping of engineers.
Your argument is invalid. You fail to take into account the large amount of legal 'drugs' (prescriptions) that are widely available, and endorsed by the US government(not to mention many others).
So, tell me circletimessquare, how do you feel about a large amount of K-12 students being put on drugs like Ritalin or Adderall to control their 'attention span'? I'll remind you, that both of these drugs are amphetamines, and in the same class as Meth(logically, not necessarily by government standards).
I hate to inform you of this, but you do live in that totalitarian government that gives mind control drugs to its population. They just guise it as helping you through the 'wonders of modern medicine'.
Alcohol prohibition was never about money. It was about the moral uptight getting their way.
Perhaps, but it did serve a purpose.
Ken Burns recent documentary on Prohibition, and the reasons for the movement that eventually got the amendment passed.
The amount of Alcohol consumed in the US was utterly staggering prior to prohibition.
By 1830, the average American over 15 years old consumed nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol a year – three times as much as we drink today
Public drunkenness was rampant. We can't comprehend the amount of alcohol that flowed in that era, because people simply don't believe you can drink that much and get anything done, which, of course, was precisely the problem.
There was very little medical science and even less education available at that time to control this epidemic, and moral indignation was just about the only tool available. After the civil war, things got much worse, and the anti slavery movement turned its sights on alcohol.
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Given the levels of organization, sophistication, business savvy, and ruthlessness needed to run a modern day, world wide drug organization, why haven't they gone legit and taken over Mexico's politics? Seriously, at some point it just be easier to influence the Mexican government into passing laws that legalize drugs and turn Mexico into a legitimate drug clearing house for the world.
I leave it up to an economist/historian to point to relevant examples in History where the only way to increase the profit of an illegal market was to legalize the market.
Would you support prohibition if it caused more problems than legalization?
You're misunderstanding the difference between evidence based policy and rationale based policy.
You can make a rationale for almost anything. Most issues are not 100% black-and-white, so simply emphasizing the negatives can be used as a rationale when you want to push your own agenda.
The evidence indicates that when prescription-grade cocaine is used, the negative effects are minimal. Most of the corporeal damage comes from the substances used to dilute (ie - cut) the drug, and the true expense of maintaining a habit comes to pennies a day. The rough equivalent of drinking a 2-liter soda per day.
The evidence also indicates that people can keep a family and a job and a cocaine habit. Again, most of the social damage comes from the high expense and low quality of the illicit product.
On the other hand, making illegal something that much of the population wants gives authoritarians the perfect excuse to curtail our freedoms. The police enjoy the ability to root around in our cars, houses, and personal effects looking for drugs. The government gets to regulate how much cash we carry, where our money comes from, and how we travel because we "might" be smuggling drugs.
Don't buy into the "we need to do this because it might lead to that" mentality; don't submit to the fear.
Go where the evidence takes you.
That history repeats itself. Baptists and Bootleggers opposed the repeal of Prohibition too.
Seven gallons works out to about 2-3 1oz drinks a day.
I don't drink myself, but I know people who put away several times that.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
"You gotta get the drug cartels first. THEN their equipment."
Power abhors a vacuum, and deleting one source simply means more profit for other logistics providers.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Pure alcohol isn't what your friends drink. More likely, beer, which would be about 4-6 of those per day. Then, consider the fact that this was the national average rather than the high end of the spectrum, and you can see where the problem was...
First, "hyperventilate" that word doesn't mean what you think it does (although I suspect you may have been, while you wrote your reply; unfortunately, that mental image also includes copious amounts of spittle). If not a native speaker you did pretty well, otherwise.
Second, zetas were _founded_ by US trained killers. These were folks trained _in the U.S._ by Americans and Israelis. So, yes, the US _is responsible_ for zetas existence. Any argument to the contrary must address this fact. The thousands of Mexican soldiers you reference are irrelevant-- you are not suggesting that the entire Mexican military trains in the U.S., are you? Also, none of the thousands of Mexican soldiers who were not trained in the U.S. founded a rival to the zetas.
Your second statement about US soldiers robbing banks is just a straw man. But, I will indulge you:
A band of US soldiers in Afganistan were recently outed for killing civilians as sport, and cutting off and saving body parts as trophies. Yes, here too the US military has responsibility. Maybe they recruit blood-thirsty psychopaths, and then just provide the means for these atrocities to occur, or perhaps it is the training which is intended to condition the soldier to view the "enemy" as "other" non-human, to make it easier to kill them. Either way, yes the US military has blame here too.
More indulgence:
Yes, the US society has responsibility for crimes of poverty. Those silly rich kids who shoplift for the thrill excepted, most folks who find themselves stealing to feed themselves / their families are not very well educated. And, the single most reliable predictor of education outcome is economic status of the family. So, our society that perpetuates wealth disparities has responsibility for the inevitable result.
Nice ad homonym.
You have a lot of words and emotion in your response, but nothing that contradicts my points. In fact, there was nothing in your reply but a string of logical fallacies. It was probably you who modded my first post as troll, but I think it is you who are trolling.
Even if it is legal there will be people like the Zetas. They will simply sell it cheaper than other companies and pocket the almost 100% profit. A good example of this is moonshine. If legalising something would do away with all illegal trade in that item moonshine should not exist. Another example is black market cigarettes purchased by people to get around paying taxes on them. Do you not think the government would tax marijuana. And if you only legalised marijuana the Zetas would be around to still smuggle in other drugs. Where there is money to be made crooks will make a counterfeit or sell the same thing cheaper to make money for themselves.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
Maybe it's because society ends up paying for your care after you've drunk your self into oblivion.
And don't pretend it would be fine with you if government left you there to freeze to death where you fell. You'd be the first in line to bitch about the rotting corpses.
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Rather than shutting it down, why not tap into it?
Tomorrow, when the Zeta pick up their mobiles and get a 'No Carrier' message, they'll start working on the next network. Better to have them yak away while the Mexican and US gov't listen in. Yeah, they still use codes. But being able to do the traffic analysis is a whole lot better than having no clue of who is speaking, where, and when.
Heck, maybe we can even get CarrierIQ to push an update to their phones.
Have gnu, will travel.
I can see right where the problem was: sanitation. Through most of the past couple thousand years, almost everything you drank had to have some alcohol in it, or it would kill you. Strangely, we started to drink a lot less alcohol once the tap water became safe.
Oh, and any decent beer has just under an ounce of alcohol in it, so we are talking 3 beers here. A bit high by today's standards, but then we have other forms of entertainment and pain relief now (and safe drinking water).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It seems strange to smuggle drugs (very violent enterprise) to purchase illegal cigarettes (low violence enterprise) in order to smuggle the cigarettes (low violence enterprise).
Rather, I'll guess that the smugglers were smuggling cigarettes AND drugs. And rather than outright purchases, the exchanges happened more on the barter system. With smugglers X trading an excess of item A for item B which smugglers Y and smugglers Z had an excess of.
$8 million paid for 388,000 cartons of cigarettes means ... ... the numbers just don't add up.
$20.61 per carton.
Which, depending upon where you live, is probably better than half-price of what you'd get in a store.
But since the smugglers probably WILL NOT be getting full price for the cigarettes when they sell them
Unless they sell them in stores that they own. In which case this becomes more of an issue of tax evasion. They buy at the source and sell in a high tax area without paying the taxes so they make more profit on each pack sold.
Interestingly, some research shows that cocaine may be an excellent med for ADHD. Where it buzzes most people out, it settles the mind of ADDers and helps focus bringing them back into the 'real world', possibly better than any of the 'speed' drugs (Ritalin, Adderall, etc.) However research is limited.
Also (not particularly relevant), cocaine (and, IIRC, procaine and relatives) are the only anesthetics that are not central nervous system depressants.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
I've never touched pot. I've never touched cigarettes. Hell, I've never even consumed alcohol. I am also firmly for the legalization of pot and other drugs based on the very simple principle that my body belongs to me and the government has no fucking right to tell me or anyone else what they can do with their own body.
From The Onion:
April 13, 2005
DEA Seizes Half-Built Suspension Bridge From Bogotá To Miami
http://www.theonion.com/articles/dea-seizes-halfbuilt-suspension-bridge-from-bogota,9607/
To be fair, the 'miniaturized stealth submarines' are every bit as cutting edge as something you might find post-Civil War. Most of them aren't even submarines, but rather have a sealed top that sits a foot or so above the surface. Those that are fully submersible operate on snorkels, with no air-independent propulsion. They are 'stealth' merely by the fact that they are so flat against the surface waves, meaning it gets lost among the noise on RADAR and active SONAR.