Mexico's Drug War Goes Down in Flames

[mojowork_n]

From the Widely Overlooked News Desk -- the one in the quiet corner, on the opposite side of the room from the LatestBreakingOhMyGodItsParisOrBritneyWithNoUnderpants News Desk:

http://www.counterpunch.org/ross12022008.html

The fiery November 4 crash of a private Lear jet here not a mile from Los Pinos, the Mexican White House, that killed President Felipe Calderon's closest collaborator Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino was largely buried by the U.S. press, coming as it did on Election Day USA.

As Interior Secretary responsible for internal security, Mourino who had just met with outgoing U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to map out bi-lateral drug war strategies, was the second most powerful official in Mexico.

Also killed in the crash that took a total of 19 lives was Mexico's former drug czar Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcellos, himself a frequent assassination target for Mexican drug gangs. Last spring Vasconcellos was replaced as top dog at the SIEDO ("Sub-prosecutor for Special Investigations into Organized Crime") which he had directed for eight years and appointed special drug war advisor to Calderon.

Despite public incredulity the Calderon administration has fought hard to spin the plane crash as an accident, pinning the mishap on the inexperience of the pilot and co-pilot of the privately owned Lear Jet, both of whom were killed on impact. Transportation Secretary Luis Tello has held serial press conferences presenting the black box retrieved from the crash and flogging expert testimony from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Aeronautics Administration. The bamboozlement campaign has been accompanied by a burst of government-bought print ads and electronic spots that are designed to boost the president's credibility as the second anniversary of his chaotic swearing in approaches.

Nonetheless, the public remains archly skeptical. In a country where the government and the media relentlessly fudge and lie about everything from unemployment numbers and the depth of the recession to its questionable successes in the drug war, no one quite believes the plane crash was an accident. Indeed, ever since writer Sara Sefchovich whose new hot title is "A Country of Lies", launched an Internet page inviting readers to list Calderon's biggest lies, the "accident" has been at the top of the list.

What a curious coincidence...

I'd have to rate the decades failed U.S. "Drug War" right up there, at the top of our own "Biggest Lies" list.

[amdezurik]

1. maybe the CIA got scared it's supply lines

might be cut off?

[Robbien]

2. Who would bring down this airplane?

It was full of Calderon's cronies, so is the scuttlebutt the drug lords brought it down? Caulderon is thus claiming it an accident because he doesn't want to admit the drug lords have that much power and control over the country?

[TreasonousBastard]

3. That would be my guess...

there are so many headless corpses now that the tourists are gagging and they finally have to do something.

Downing a Leajet is one hell of a shot across the bow by the real powers down there.

[Robbien]

6. An airplane full of high government officials crashes with no survivors

and it gets no press here in the States. Leader of country says whoops, accident. Nothing to see here, move on.

This whole story is very strange. No wonder it is on top of Mexico's lie list.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Mexico is this close to being a failed state

and the reason is the war on drugs.

And yes, the cartels have that much power

That said PRIVATE pilots? Officials used to be transported by the FAM (Mexican Air Force)... using a small fleet of Lear Jets... kind of like our own USAF VIP transport command

[hunter]

4. Treat drug addiction as an ordinary medical problem and the "Drug War" goes away.

Which is precisely why we still treat it as a criminal problem.

There are a lot of U.S. black ops and corrupt officials hiding behind the Drug War banner.

If every drug addict is getting their fix for $2.00 at a safe comfortable local drug treatment center, then the guns and the money stop flowing, the violence subsides, and a lot of very dirty spooks are stripped naked and paraded down main street for the evening news.

[DemoTex]

5. All eight aboard the Lear 45 were killed. The other 11 deaths were on the ground.

Mexico's transportation secretary says preliminary findings point to wake turbulence from a Boeing 767-300 as the likely cause of the crash, although the investigation is continuing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111802506.html

Washington Post 11/18/2008

[mojowork_n]

7. So it did make the WaPo

Thanks for looking it up.

November 18th, a full two weeks later. The whole thing is all of 4 sentences long, with the passing of the Interior Minister buried in the middle of the third.

According to one Google News result, from the Associated Press:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j-K-hAlJ07sX3xQ5xH6QZccbTMegD94ESJQG0

Poor pilot training, and the turbulence created by the passing of a larger jet caused the accident, seconds before the crash.

According to another G.N. result, from CNN:

The plane crashed because the engine on the left wing of the plane "fell off."

[DemoTex]

9. Any discussion of an engine "on the left wing" of any Learjet is suspect ..

All Learjets have fuselage-mounted engines (see photo below).

I have read other short reports of the Mexico City crash in aviation sources. Wake turbulence seems to be the prime suspect now. The US FAA and NTSB are parties in the official accident investigation, which is not uncommon (especially in accidents involving a US manufactured aircraft).


Learjet 45 similar to the one involved in the Mexico City accident.

[mojowork_n]

10. Sorry, that's my mistake.

I think the original report just said "left engine." I assumed it was mounted under the wing, without thinking about it when I wrote.

Still, it's curious how the reports differed, between the 'turbulence' theory -- which, by definition, is a pretty chaotic and invisible (and real) threat -- and the "mechanical problem," the missing engine.

[Uncle Joe]

8. The only thing worse than a failed U.S. or any Drug War would be a successful one, because

the only way such an asinine, illogical, immoral and insane concept could succeed would be via the total elimination of privacy and freedom, everyone would be in virtual concentration camps.

Government cameras would be in every room of your home, you would be required to take a drug test every day before leaving for work, shopping, visiting friends, etc.

For profit prisons would be the oil companies of their day.

No doubt government paid snitches would be the norm, even your children would be educated early in school to report any "abnormal," non governmental approved behavior by their parents.

Short of going to those extreme, draconian measures, the so called "War on Drugs" will be an eternal societal failure dividing and disenfranchising the American People by turning what should be a medical, educational and or privacy issue in to a criminal one.

Personally, I believe if organized crime takes over the government, it will be because of the ludicrous, Orwellian "War Against Drugs" not in spite of it.

[w4rma]

12. Agreed. (nt)

[TheKentuckian]

13. The "War on Drugs" is possibly the dumbest failure of a joke ever

Its a money sink and that's it. Nothing good will ever come from running away from logic.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Off to the greatest, this is important

not that I expect many people to understand why

[uponit7771]

15. I just learned that LSD was a US government created drug that got "out" to the public. Im now leanin

...towards the US government being involved in the "war on drugs" in a negative way.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Given that the CIA was found with hands in cookie jar

insofar as the Coke traffic to East Los Angeles in the 1980s during that grand time called Iran Contra

....