Tuesday, August 17, 2010

90% of car bombs in Mexico come from US gun shows

I kid, I kid.

The drug cartels in Mexico have stepped up their game a bit with beheadings and car bombings. It works in other countries, so it's no surprise to hear about these tactics being used.

Also, there's this slideshow showing the little submarines that the cartels are using to smuggle drugs and, presumably, most or all of the grenades, mortars, machine guns, and rocket propelled grenades from Central America into Mexico - although the article doesn't say as much. It does say this:
Surprisingly sophisticated homemade "Narco subs" are the drug cartels' latest tool for smuggling drugs from Latin America into the U.S.
Just drugs, right ABC? Because cartels using these subs to smuggle weapons wouldn't fit the narrative, now would it?
The submarine could have had the capacity to carry at 150 metric tons of cocaine or heroin.
Or, like 5,000 grenades, 50,000 automatic rifles, or 1,000 rockets, which are used to supplement the firepower that the Mexican government bought from the US and gave to the cartels. Just a thought.

It's entirely possible that if the Russian mafia is helping the cartels build frickin' submarines, that they could also be supplying them with bona fide AK47s, which would be a way better economic venture than paying an "ant line" of American soccer moms to buy semi auto Olympic Arms rifles at full price at gunshows in the US, and then smuggle them South where they will have to be converted to full auto at the cartel's expense. I mean I'm not making a wild hypothetical shot here.

Oh, here it is down on slide 9:
" . .these vessels also could be used to ship weapons or personnel.
"That's it!?! Weapons and personnel?!?! I guess if it's in there, it's in there, right? Phenomenal.

Looking at the last picture shows just how dire the drug war is; that sub can go 65' under the surface, carry a 10 ton payload, and was built in a muddy creek in Ecuador by illiterate starving smugglers. And we're not talking the USS Fantastic here; this thing is a bare bones one time use rig, so it's not like the operators are going to fight for it. One of those slides shows a crew abandoning a sub via blow up life raft, and they often sink the sub with all the evidence. It looks to be a low risk operation.

I guess the obvious thing to do would be for the US to throw a billion or so dollars at the problem. That would be a way more beneficial use to Americans than buying down mortgages or such. The flow of drugs must stop.

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