Mexico Updates Death Toll in Drug War to 47,515, but Critics Dispute the Data
The Mexican government updated its drug war death toll on Wednesday, reporting that 47,515 people had been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón began a military assault on criminal cartels in late 2006.
The new official tally provided by the attorney generals office included data only through September, and it showed that drug-related killings increased 11 percent, to 12,903, compared with the same nine-month period in 2010. Still, a government statement sought to find a silver lining, asserting that it was the first year since 2006 that the homicide rate increase has been lower compared to the previous years.
But that will hardly calm a public scared by the recent arrival of grisly violence in once-safe cities like Guadalajara, nor will Wednesdays limited data release silence the increasingly loud call for better, more transparent government record keeping.
The Mexican government has failed to create the tracking system it needs to understand criminal trends and improve security, experts say, even as it has become more secretive with the limited information it has.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/world/americas/mexico-updates-drug-war-death-toll-but-critics-dispute-data.html
msongs
(67,465 posts)hang a left
(10,921 posts)Prohibition. it is all about a new Jeffe in town. Our intelligence agencies need the black budget money, that is what is going down in Mexico. it is a changing of the guard. It's bloody, it's inhumane, and the craziness will not stop until there is a new order.
AlecBGreen
(3,874 posts)"I don't think it has anything to do with prohibition."
So if drugs were legal, Mexico would still have the same level of drug/gang violence we have today?
hang a left
(10,921 posts)I think you responded to the wrong post. Viva el Mexico
AlecBGreen
(3,874 posts)Poster upthread said "prohibition doesnt work" and you said "I dont think it (drug-war deaths) has anything to do with prohibition." I think it does. If prohibition ended today and drugs were legalized, I think there would be far fewer deaths from drug-related violence. Dont you?
edit - spelling
hang a left
(10,921 posts)About unicorns and rainbows, right?
Uncle Joe
(58,481 posts)a segment of the people from their government.
hang a left
(10,921 posts)No different than our involvement in South America and Central America.
Who wants organized crime to survive??? No no but the twisted thing about it is, the drug cartels are in bed with our government. Always have been always will be. Unfortunately, our government finds brown people expendable, and at alarming rates. There will be NO justice, only carnage.