Mexican drug cartel's military strategy against America

An interesting review of a piece [pdf] by ex-Army generals Barry McCaffrey and Robert Scales. McCaffrey also served as Drug Czar during the first Clinton administration.

"In effect, the cartels seek to create a `sanitary zone' inside the Texas border -- one county deep -- that will provide sanctuary from Mexican law enforcement and, at the same time, enable the cartels to transform Texas' border counties into narcotics transshipment points for continued transport into the continental United States," Scales tells Battleland. "To achieve their objectives, the cartels are relying increasingly on organized gangs to provide expendable and unaccountable manpower to do their dirty work. These gangs are recruited on the streets of Texas cities and inside Texas prisons by top-tier gangs who work in conjunction with the cartels." [blog post here]

Some pretty scary reading. Hat tip to Time.com's BattleLand blog.
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Barbarization and Narcocultura

An interesting essay from Small Wars Journal. Mexican drug cartels are openly attacking Mexico's social institutions as well as its state apparatus just as the Colombian drug cartels did in the 80's and 90's.  Simply amazing. America has an essentially open border with a failed state who is engaged in a losing war with several drug cartels while  militarily and diplomatically protecting the territorial integrity of western Europe, Israel, Japan, Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq (amongst others) and using borrowed money to do it too.

Anti-nanotechnology terror threat emerges in Mexico

Copying the views and tactics of the Unabomber an anti-nanotechnology group (or so they/he/she/them/it claim) launches terror bombing campaign against university researchers in Mexico. Time will tell if this is a genuinely new eco-terror/Luddite individual or group,  some unbalanced nut-ball crazies, or a cats-paw false-flag operation who's true purpose is unknown.

Sign of the times...

"Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona'" - Washington Times

Slowly, but steadily, the USA is breaking down as a polity.

weblog

A scenario for American societal collapse according to Paul Craig Roberts.
It turns out you can't hide out from the law in Mexico anymore - LA Times
Colton Harris-Moore's, (AKA "The Barefoot Bandit") last moments of freedom - Seattle Times

Sign of the times...

CBS News is reporting that a Mexican drug gang set off a car bomb to ambush the police in Juarez a Mexican city right across the Rio Grande river from El Paso, Texas. This is a major escalation of the already violent narco war going on at the border. At least three officers were killed. This comes on the heels of reports of snipers popping off shots at the Border Patrol and of stray bullets from previous Juarez shoot-outs landing in El Paso.