AP Interview: Guatemala prez urges drug legalization while escalating war on cartel gangs

Source: Associated Press

AP Interview: Guatemala prez urges drug legalization while escalating war on cartel gangs
By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, September 25, 3:07 PM

UNITED NATIONS — Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina is advocating the international legalization of drugs even as he is moving to fight narcotics cartels with the biggest military buildup in the Central American country since its long and bloody civil war.

There’s no contradiction, the president said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, a day before he plans to address the U.N. General Assembly.

~snip~
Perez Molina has approved the creation of two new military bases and the upgrading of a third to add as many as 2,500 soldiers. He also signed a treaty allowing a team of 200 U.S. Marines to patrol Guatemala’s western coast to catch drug shipments.

~snip~
The new Marine operation is the largest in Guatemala since President Jimmy Carter sharply cut U.S. military aid to the country due to concerns over atrocities committed during the country’s civil war.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/ap-interview-guatemala-prez-urges-drug-legalization-while-escalating-war-on-cartel-gangs/2012/09/25/89cf3f4e-0742-11e2-9eea-333857f6a7bd_story.html

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2 replies	Author	Time	Post
AP Interview: Guatemala prez urges drug legalization while escalating war on cartel gangs (Original post)	Judi Lynn	Sep 2012	OP
Legalizing at least Cannabis goes along with fighting Cartels	nikto	Sep 2012	#1
The US has had a major drug war operation going in the region for a few months now.	Comrade Grumpy	Sep 2012	#2

Response to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Wed Sep 26, 2012, 06:42 AM

nikto (673 posts)

1. Legalizing at least Cannabis goes along with fighting Cartels

Last edited Wed Sep 26, 2012, 06:43 AM USA/ET - Edit history (1)

We need to do that here, before Cartels and our Elites get too entangled with each other,
as is the case in Mexico.

In the USA, Legalizing Cannabis alone would take away well over 50% of Cartel profits.

Then you marginalize the cartels into having influence only with the hardest drugs (cocaine, heroine, meth),
where there is a societal consensus to enforce against these.

Partly de-funded, the weakened cartels could be fought more easily.

The way things are now, foreign drug cartels are HERE--NOW, and moving in on America
with more & more strength as we speak, abetted by
the illegality of cannabis, especially.

Using their mountains of cash to buy weapons, often from US dealers,
and to bribe US officials in politics and law enforcement, cartels are growing, albeit in
the darker corners of America, right now.

All this is taking place.
And no one (outside of CurrentTV reports, perhaps) seems willing to point it out,
or try to stop it.

The general public is totally out of the loop on this ongoing story,
which US media seem to be avoiding like the plague.

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Response to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Wed Sep 26, 2012, 12:21 PM

Comrade Grumpy (3,383 posts)

2. The US has had a major drug war operation going in the region for a few months now.

Operation Martillo. Highlights include DEA agents along on a raid where the Hondurans killed four civilians in a boat, a DEA agent shooting and killing a Honduran suspect in a different raid, the Hondurans shooting down civilian air craft, and now, several hundred Marines doing their thing in Guatemala.

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