Americans Killed In Drive-By Shooting At Consulate In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Obama 'Outraged'

[Faygo Kid]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — A U.S. official says three people affiliated with the American consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, were killed in a drive-by shooting.

A U.S. official says two American citizens and a spouse of a Mexican employee were killed Saturday afternoon. The official spoke only on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

The White House says President Barack Obama is outraged by the news.

The State Department is authorizing U.S. government employees at six U.S. consulates in northern Mexico to send their family members out of the area because of concerns about rising drug-related violence, including the post in Ciudad Juarez.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/14/americans-killed-in-drive_n_498338.html

---

Mexico now has the wealthiest person in the world, Carlos Slim Helu, topping Bill Gates and Warren Buffett (only because the latter two have given so much of their wealth to charity). The violence and the gated communities are the vision that the Republicans and Faux News so dearly wish for the USA.

[Bicoastal]

1. I don't get what your editorial has to do with the story. nt

[Faygo Kid]

4. Check post #2.

[hlthe2b]

5. Well, while it wasn't my post, I'll give it a stab...

In the big picture, Mexico has so delineated and maximized the divide between the have nots and the uber wealthy-- with many of the latter having become so because of their drug cartel connections or other power-abusing and corruption-laden paths-- that those with the means opt for gated communities (knowing that their police forces are either inept, overwhelmed and understaffed, or paid tools of the drug cartels). The desperation of the increasing poverty once translated into illegal immigration into this country.

Now, given our crack down on illegal immigration and our own deplorable economic climate, the desperation is increasing the violence and criminal elements in Mexico, while strengthening the ability of the powerful drug lords to do as they please. It isn't a major stretch to see where the US, if it continues on its path, could not see similar trends. While I don't say that has anything to do with the newly anointed "richest" man on earth (that happens to be a Mexican), I can see the other points the OP was trying to make.

[flamingdem]

50. C'mon it has always been like that in Mexico nt

[hlthe2b]

52. Not to this degree...

Yes, there has always been a pretty high level of corruption in government, but the current drug-related violence is unprecedented.

[gtar100]

2. Agreed. Mexico is more of the model America is moving towards.

Very few excessively wealthy people and a large population living in poverty. I wouldn't say it's what republicans want; but it's what they're going to get.

[paulsby]

10. oh bullshit

please.

we are not moving towards that model AT ALL

mexico, fwiw, has been that way for decades.

[Faygo Kid]

12. Oh Bullshit.

With caps! That model is exactly what the Republicans wish for us.

And Mexico has deteriorated far worse than ever in recent years, not "decades."

[tabasco]

21. Au contraire.

Wealth is becoming more and more concentrated in the USA.

[a la izquierda]

30. Well, depending on what you're talking about...

Mexico may have. Or maybe it hasn't. See, nice and vague.
Mexico has always had a massive gulf between rich and poor. So has the US.
But Mexico's recent violence is rather new.

This is why I'll have a job when I graduate. So much ignorance on Mexico.

[Xipe Totec]

32. Strange, I used to live there. I don't remember the grenade shrapnel

Hitting pregnant women in the street, as it just happened a few days ago.

I don't remember having a permanent military presence just to try to keep the violence under some semblance of control.

I don't remember Friends being kidnapped, beaten, shot, and tossed by the side of the road as happened just a couple of years ago.

I lived there a few decades ago.

It certainly wasn't anything like this at all.

[boppers]

55. I worked in Toluca off and on around 1999-2003.

Minor executives already had armored vehicle convoys just to get to and from work, and just getting into my work required armed inspection, and a man-trap (with weapons pointed at you) while they checked credentials.

Based on your experiences, my experiences, and recent reports, it seems like this has been gradually heating up over time, and starting in some areas while leaving others alone?

FWIW, I also grew up close to Nogales (In Tucson), and people being shot/kidnapped/assaulted was near-daily in that area, but it was mostly localized in the 70's-80's, nobody expected it when they weren't near the borders, and it was mostly the poor that were the targets.

[ProudDad]

42. So has the USAmerikan Empire! (n/t)

[gtar100]

48. hahaha - I'm sure we'll have quite the 'american' flavor to our poverty.

and how long Mexico has been suffering under a selfish, self-serving gentry is irrelevant. But maybe I should have been more explicit. The wealthy in gated communities secured by private "security" companies, a very weak but standing middle class, and a very large population working at poverty wages. The point is the great disparity between a handful of rich people and millions of people struggling daily just make ends meet with very few opportunities to break out of the cycle. Not completely dead in the water like, sadly, many African nations, just a slow grind on those who live with very little while the elite party on.

We could avoid this scenario by changing several things on a macro level, such as banking regulations, public financing of elections, tighter regulations on corporations, stopping tax giveaways and subsidies to already solvent big businesses, changing to a more progressive tax system, changing to a single-payer health care system and stopping the excessive "defense" spending.

Of course, I could have kept this post to a minimum and just said, "It is TOO!"

[hlthe2b]

3. So if drugs were legalized and we stopped our ridiculous WAR

on drugs--what power would the drug lords have remaining? what incentive for this kind of retaliatory violence? (just asking....?)

[No Elephants]

8. Who do you think pays to ensure that the U.S. does NOT legalize drugs?

[ProudDad]

43. FBI, CIA, American Banker's Association,

Big PhRMA, The cowardly Dems, the bat-crap crazy Pukes...

TO name a few...

[BreweryYardRat]

51. Exactly. Drug lords.

They pay off politicians and media to prevent legalization, because while their product's illegal, they can charge whatever they damn well please.

[olegramps]

11. The situation parallels that which existed during prohibition.

As soon as it was repealed the gangsters turned to pushing drugs.

[ConcernedCanuk]

19. I'm not sure which came first, but I think you may be wrong.

.
.
.

Drugs were available, and noone gave a shit . .

When prohibition ended;

WHAT WAS HOOVER'S GANG SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL HIS MANPOWER/STAFF??

Government's hate giving up power/control/and FUNDING(taxes)

enter

THE WAR ON DRUGS

ponder that

OH

an afterthought

If many of the young got into Mary-Jane and were all peaceful and loving - -

WHERE WOULD THE USA GET ALL THEM AGGRESSIVE WARRIORS?

ponder that, too.

[mbperrin]

14. The real problem is that drugs have become so plentiful and cheap

that it's hard to make uber amounts of money with your old territories; people are smoking and shooting about all they can, so the only real way to increase profits is to enlarge the territory - do away with the competition.

Legalization would not solve this low profit problem, because putting these guys into suits won't change what they want - uber amounts of money. No reason to think they would change tactics just because their wardrobe is better. In fact, by taxing them and reducing profits further, it makes the need to expand territories even more imperative.

And some customers won't want to pay higher prices due to the taxes, so bootleggers will still exist, just as they do in modern-day USA. Moonshiners can still deliver the product more cheaply than Jack Daniels, and for a certain class of people, that's a fine solution. No use pretending legalization of alcohol in the USA solved every problem.

[lib2DaBone]

24. Oh brother.. so now what.. back to prohibition?

I dont understand you logic at all...

[naaman fletcher]

35. your post makes no sense at all. the drug warriors are getting desperate. nt

[mbperrin]

36. Why then are the drug lords shooting each other up? Fun?

I await your analysis.

[naaman fletcher]

38. The analysis of why they are shooting each other is correct.

But that it would get worse under legalization makes no sense. Please note that when prohibition ended, the violence stopped.

[ProudDad]

44. For the insane profits from the drug business

What else?

I await your analysis...

[ProudDad]

40. You're 100% wrong

It's the phony 'war on drugs(tm)' that holds the prices up...and makes the shit worth killing over...

When I was in Amsterdam a few years ago an OUNCE of PRIMO HASHISH was $10.00 or free (from folks who were preparing to travel through Belgium)

Here in USAmerica (last I heard) pot was many hundreds of dollars an ounce...thanks to the phony 'war on drugs(tm)'

Legalization of Alcohol meant that people were not getting machine-gunned in the streets by bootleggers...doofus..

[mbperrin]

49. Funny, seems to me Al Capone's days of machine-gunning people

were over when he went to prison, not because alcohol was legalized....

[sasquuatch55]

17. Legalize and decriminalize now!

nt

[tularetom]

6. Juarez was not nearly such a scary place 50 years ago

Before US drug and immigration policies led to the violence that has become an everyday fact of life there.

[Warpy]

9. It wasn't a scary place 10 years ago

when I was last there. In fact, I always felt a little more relaxed there than I did across the river in El Paso. People were open, friendly, helpful. Street food was great. The counterman at Benevidez was well trained and would slap the Mexican PDR on the counter for me when I'd come through the door, you can't beat that for service.

Mexico, modernizing and ahead of the US in quite a number of ways, has got to take the lead and end the drug war on their side of the border. Legalize it, put the thugs into suits, get them paying taxes. That's the only real solution for them, I fear, and the only rational solution for us, too.

They're consulting with the Colombians on what it took to end the drug war there. However, only telling the DEA to drop dead will work long term.

[ProudDad]

41. Decriminalize

And we not only would end this crap but we'd be able to leave Afghanistan immediately...no profit for the CIA...

[glowing]

7. Two things would help big time: Changing NAFTA in a way that makes

trade fair.. not free. AND getting rid of the Draconian War on Drugs. If shipments of marijuana were regulated and taxed, then guns and violence wouldn't be needed in Mexico or the United States.

[earcandle]

13. I am for legalizing drugs and regulating and taxing their recreational use, rather than prop up

penal and war economies to attempt to control them. Those tactics have been in place and failed.

Lets try something different!

[AlphaCentauri]

15. Funny how the system works, we make rich "philanthropist" with our money

and we give them all the credit for their charity. As we give the government our money to create programs for the poor and we credit politicians for such actions.

[EFerrari]

16. There's even a word for it that doesn't come to mind at the moment

but it's like "philanthro capitalist" because the "charity" has a way of enriching the donors. I don't quite get it yet but have been reading about the Gates a little bit recently.

[ProudDad]

45. You've got that right!

We've got a system that makes a few people OBSCENELY rich and then applauds them when they "give" away 1% of their booty to "charities" of their choosing, take a tax write off so we the real taxpayers are paying 30% of THAT for them...

Insane!

Humans are really freakin' stupid!

[Lagomorph]

18. Say what?

"The violence and the gated communities are the vision that the Republicans and Faux News so dearly wish for the USA."


Oh, Horseshit. Get a clue. There is a difference between "the opposition" and "the enemy".

There are people who want that, but they generally don't participate in government.

[Jakes Progress]

20. What.

Okay I said it.

Now you can get a clue. Neocons want a return to the robber baron era with no middle class and a wealthy elite who run the government. They don't really care if their is a lot of violence, but they don't mind it because they will just use private security and gated communities. That's when they don't have the government directly protecting them. Do a little study of social conditions during that period. Using the army and the police to break strikes and stop social protest and to enforce the privileges of the wealthy. The mess in Mexico is the obvious result of the kind of society that the neocons (the people who run the republican party since reagan) want to return to. That would be a society with high unemployment, no unions, very expensive higher education, and government policies that reward the wealthy. Sound familiar?

[Faygo Kid]

22. Well said. Might have written it differently, but you are right.

That is exactly what the Republicans want for our nation. ". . . no middle class and a wealthy elite who run the government." Pretty much sums it up.

[a la izquierda]

31. No, the Mexican government is irrelevant.

That's not what the Neocons want. The cartels made the Mexican government irrelevant, and funnily enough, Calderon is guilty of that-though he had no intention of it when he began taking out the mid-level cartel leaders.

The unions are very powerful in Mexico, by the way. The electrical workers union literally have the power to shut down cities.

[Jakes Progress]

34. Cartel, corporate culture.

They are essentially the same. The unions in Mexico are not really controlled by the workers. They are another form of cartel. Two of my friends now have come from Mexico, leaving the unions because the members were told what to do and when by the leaders of the union. They felt they were working for the union leaders and often against the people. They say that is not true of all unions there, but the more powerful ones seem to be that way to them.

Look. I'm not saying that the neocons want drug cartels. What they want is to be in the same position that the cartel leaders are, to be above the law, to be able to control the country without the voice of an electorate. They want to rule from palaces and from behind gates. They want the people to cower and fear for their lives and livelihood. The lawlessness in Mexico has its base in the fact that the government is ineffective at controlling (and is often in collusion with) the elite. When the citizenry lives in that kind of situation, crime will follow.

[ixion]

23. Notice how everyone is 'outraged' because the people were 'American', yet

when these same outraged Americans foot the bill for a daily slaughter, well, that's liberation. :crazy:

[ro1942]

29. Thanks,that's what I wanted to say

[rabs]

54. Speaking about Obama's outrage

Two Mexican senators today called on the Obama administration to assume its share of the responsibility for the deaths of the trio linked to the U.S. Consulate.

One senator said Mexico should not have to provide the "bodies" while the United States provides the demand for the illegal drugs and open exportation of weapons to the cartels.

Btw, reports in the Juarez press says the woman who was shot worked in the anti-narcotics section of the consulate, which presumably would be the DEA. It would seem the cartels knew that.

[lib2DaBone]

25. The War On Drugs is simply another means of control...

..another way for the camel to get his nose under the tent.

The war on drugs is all about political control of ideas and controlling the unwashed masses.

[rabs]

26. Update with identification of victims

http://www.diario.com.mx/


U.S. citizens killed identified as Lesley A. Enríquez and her husband Arthur H. Redelf. There was a 3-month baby girl in the back seat who was not harmed. The couple lived in El Paso where Redelf was an employee of the El Paso County jail.

The headline on the OP is incorrect; the killings were not at the consulate. The couple were followed by the sicarios (killers) from the consulate and shot on a Juarez street.

The Mexican citizen shot at a different location at almost the same time was identified as Jorge Alberto Salcido Ceniceros, 37, husband of an employee at the consulate.

No motive, no claim of responsibility from anyone as of today.

[ProudDad]

46. Lotta drug dealing in USAmerikan jails and prisons...

just noticing...

[bemildred]

27. 17 killed as Acapulco tourist idyll shattered by growing drug violence

---

In the early hours of the morning, six police officers were also shot dead as they patrolled the outskirts of the city. Five died instantly and another later in hospital. The discovery of four other bodies in the city, including one dumped in a canal, brought Saturday’s death toll to 17 — just as thousands headed to the resort for a three-day public holiday.

The Acapulco resort, and the surrounding state of Guerrero, is largely under the control of the brutal La Familia cartel. But as President Calderón increases pressure on drug traffickers with the deployment of about 50,000 troops across the country, battles between gangs over smuggling routes have intensified, bringing more bloodshed to the Pacific paradise.

The Government is sensitive to reports of rising violence in holiday areas such as Acapulco and Cancún — until recently mostly untouched by turf wars. Tourism is one of Mexico’s most important industries and has already suffered in the economic downturn. Authorities are keen to prevent the drug war further deterring visitors.

Heriberto Salinas Altés, the head of public security in Guerrero state, said authorities were aware of growing violence from power struggles among drug gangs. “But the army, the navy and the police are working together for the arrival in the port of thousands of Mexican and foreign tourists,” he said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7061705.ece

[bemildred]

28. U.S. Consular Aide and Husband Killed in Mexico

TRONCONES, Mexico — Gunmen believed to be drug traffickers shot an American consulate worker and her husband to death over the weekend in the violence-racked border town of Ciudad Juárez, and killed the husband of another consular employee and wounded his two young children, the authorities said Sunday.

President Obama expressed outrage at the “brutal murders” and in a statement from the White House vowed to “work tirelessly” with Mexican law enforcement officials to bring the killers to justice.

It was not the first attack against American interests in Mexico by traffickers. Unknown attackers shot at and hurled a grenade that never exploded at the American consulate in Monterrey in 2008. But the killings in Ciudad Juárez on Saturday afternoon of two American citizens and a Mexican national married to an American government employee appeared to take the violence to a new, brutal level.

President Obama was quick to laud the anti-drug war launched by his Mexico counterpart, Felipe Calderón, who had scheduled a visit to Ciudad Juárez for Tuesday to address the spiraling violence there. Mr. Calderón also issued a statement on Sunday condemning the killings and promising to “dedicate all available resources” to improve security in the city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/world/americas/15juarez.html

[valerief]

33. Hey, Obama, how many people die every day becasue we don't have universal healthcare? nt

[ProudDad]

47. Answer: at least 120 (n/t)

[NickB79]

37. With their oil reserves running out, Mexico's current government cannot last

With 40% of government revenue coming from oil exports, and their oil production faltering as the easy-to-extract reserves are drained, expect Mexican society to continue on a downward spiral for the foreseeable future.

[ProudDad]

39. Decriminalize and it won't happen again

DUH!

it's the phony "war on drugs" idiots!

[Generator]

53. I know! No one ever dies in America from guns

Some retired talking head on teevee said that Mexico was worse than 9.11. Still going my vacay though. Risking it all, I am.