Hitmen kill 17 in Mexico clinic on U.S. border

Source: Reuters

Thu Sep 3, 2009 12:15am EDT

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - About a dozen hooded gunmen burst into a Mexican rehabilitation clinic near the U.S. border on Wednesday, lining up patients before killing 17 of them.

Drug gangs have targeted rehab clinics in the manufacturing city of Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, accusing them of protecting dealers from rival gangs.

The attack was one of the deadliest in President Felipe Calderon's three-year war against drug cartels, despite the presence of 10,000 troops and federal police in Ciudad Juarez who constantly patrol the city's streets.

The suspected hitmen stormed their way into the drug and alcohol rehab clinic in Ciudad Juarez and forced patients into a line in a corridor before shooting them, the army and the El Diario newspaper said.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5810G220090903

The war on drugs has failed. Legalization is Mexico's only real hope.

n/t

In other threads, the talk is about "real journalism" in the MSM and how there are few practioners. Rachel Maddow and Bill Moyers come to mind. Add another one, Michael Ware. He cuts to the chase better than anyone covering international stories on American TV. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0903/25/lkl.01.html (about 3 full screens down the page).

Those poor people.

for work.

Luckily he hasn't had to go in a while.

That's scary.

will not make these criminal cartels just up and disappear no more than the end of prohibition brought an end to organized crime in this country. These gangs will migrate into other areas of crime and continue to traffic in drugs that are so dangerous to the user that they wouldn't be legalized, they just won't fade into the background.

Oh, did we already try that?

It was outrageous acts like these killings that stopped the war on alcohol.

triggered off a 70 year battle to eliminate the branches of the organized crime tree which has now encompassed almost every nation on the planet.

My argument isn't whether to legalize or not, my point is that these criminal groups won't just up and disappear, they will redirect into a new area of crime - possibly something worse

be legalized also. there will always be gangsters but super rich gangsters are way more dangerous then just street gangsters.

(Also, everything I know about Columbia's actions is from "Killing Pablo" so if my facts are wrong please correct me)

Anyway Columbia "allows" drug trafficking as long as it does not threaten the state. Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel started to threaten the state, bomb airliners, assassinate large portions of the government etc. It became an existential threat to the government (and the airliner thingy really pissed off Uncle Sam). So instead of trying to arrest Pablo Escobar they went to war. They grabbed his family. They sent out death squads to kill cartel members and their families. Seized the assets.

Mexico has not started the death squad/Operation Phoenix type actions yet. Until they do they will continue to lose this drug war.

I don't think we'll ever eliminate bad people, but, if we're smart, we might redirect them into something useful.

The CIA and NSA and the rest ARE NOT GOOD PLACES FOR THEM and they need to go away.

Source: NY Times

The attack, within sight of the border with the United States, marked a shocking new low in the unremitting wave of vicious crimes Mexico has endured since President Felipe Calderon launched a frontal assault on the nation’s drug gangs in December 2006. Rehab clinics have been a special target in Juarez, with cartels hunting for rivals who might be hiding in the clinics or recruiting in them.

After investigators had removed the corpses early Thursday morning and rushed the few survivors to the hospital, relatives of the victims pushed inside the Aliviane rehab center. A thick layer of blood covered the concrete floor from the entrance to the courtyard to the sleeping quarters. A dog chained to one side had been shot, while another huddled in the corner, unhurt. The smell of death hung in the air.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/world/americas/04mexico.html?hpw