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Onlooker

(5,636 posts)
Tue Oct 21, 2014, 02:41 AM Oct 2014

Great article: Mexican drug cartels are worse than ISIL

Last edited Tue Oct 21, 2014, 03:14 AM - Edit history (2)

This article has some excellent information and makes some great points that could be used politically by those candidates who oppose the neocon mentality that currently exists in both parties. But, it also underscores our Islamophobia. The Mexican Drug Cartels are far bigger threats to us than ISIL and are crazier than ISIL. It's worth reading the whole article, but I've posted an excerpt.

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/10/isil-vs-mexican-drugcartelsunitedstatesislamophobia.html

...

A recent United Nations report estimated nearly 9,000 civilians have been killed and 17,386 wounded in Iraq in 2014, more than half since ISIL fighters seized large parts on northern Iraq in June. It is likely that the group is responsible another several thousand deaths in Syria. To be sure, these numbers are staggering. But in 2013 drug cartels murdered more than 16,000 people in Mexico alone, and another 60,000 from 2006 to 2012 — a rate of more than one killing every half hour for the last seven years. What is worse, these are estimates from the Mexican government, which is known to deflate the actual death toll by about 50 percent.

Statistics alone do not convey the depravity and threat of the cartels. They carry out hundreds of beheadings every year. In addition to decapitations, the cartels are known to dismember and otherwise mutilate the corpses of their victims — displaying piles of bodies prominently in towns to terrorize the public into compliance. They routinely target women and children to further intimidate communities. Like ISIL, the cartels use social media to post graphic images of their atrocious crimes.

The narcos also recruit child soldiers, molding boys as young as 11 into assassins or sending them on suicide missions during armed confrontations with Mexico’s army. They kidnap tens of thousands of children every year to use as drug mules or prostitutes or to simply kill and harvest their organs for sale on the black market. Those who dare to call for reforms often end up dead. In September, with the apparent assistance of local police, cartels kidnapped and massacred 43 students at a teaching college near the Mexican town of Iguala in response to student protests. A search in the area for the students has uncovered a number of mass graves containing mutilated bodies burned almost beyond recognition, but none of the remains have been confirmed to be of the students.

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merrily

(45,251 posts)
1. And just as non-white. Hmm. What could possibly account for the difference in treatment
Tue Oct 21, 2014, 03:51 AM
Oct 2014

of ISIL and drug cartels?

Ask any cop where the majority of drug deals in his or her neighborhood tend to go down. Bet he or she can tell you exactly.

mucifer

(23,374 posts)
2. I am a home hospice nurse who speaks Spanish. I frequently hear these stories
Tue Oct 21, 2014, 05:18 AM
Oct 2014

from my patient's families. Not all of them. But, a lot of them tell stories about narco trafficers mutilating children in their villages, kidnappings and people just disappearing. They don't want to go back. For some reason our government and the press tell us that they are here to take our jobs. It seems to me that they are here as refugees.

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