Excellent piece by Ed Vulliamy in the Guardian UK. He's writing a book about Juarez and the Drug War there and tries to sum it all up:

... certain themes are inescapable: this brutality defines a war very much of its time, the first 21st-century war, because it is, in the end, about nothing. We have lived in a world where Arabs fight Jews, Hutus fight Tutsis, communists fight fascists, Serbs fight Croats, and British and American troops fight Islamist fundamentalists. They do so for a cause, faith or deeply etched tribal identity, however crazy.

But Mexico's war (some do not like calling it a war) has no such purpose. Mexicans are mutilating, decapitating, torturing and killing each other, ostensibly over money and the drug smuggling routes that provide it. But most of the ­violence revolves around the smaller profits of the domestic market and street corner. It is meted out for its own sake. Yes, there are regional and clan allegiances to the states of Tamaulipas, Michoacán or Sinaloa, but they are fluid and subject to far too many whimsical alliances and betrayals for the war to be compared to, say, tribal conflict in Rwanda.

The utter nihilism at the heart of Mexico's Drug War is shared by many young Americans today. Only our wealth and the insulation that our incredibly vigorous police state provide keep the lid on madness. And we can't afford to keep the clampdown on forever. Nor can we afford to provide gainful, meaningful employment to our young men.

And since the shared vision of our culture -- the "American Dream" of individual wealth with no responsibility to the larger community -- is utterly morally bankrupt, there is no mental barrier hold back evil. The Banksters who rule our society by shamelessly defrauding us all and then squandering the obscene profits on helicopters and high class prostitutes are just more polite versions of the killers in Juarez. They are in fact closer to the heart of the system that is producing the mega-violence in Mexico and profit from it via money laundering far more than any drug kingpin. When the "Masters of the Universe" of Wall Street are our highest vision of success it's just a matter of peeling back the mask to reveal the Death's Head behind the plastic surgery.

With no valid moral guidepost that is compatible with what we know to be true in 2010, we can expect nothing other than hedonism and selfishness, lust and greed and power and sexual violence to consume us all.

Another wise voice is that of the writer Cecilia Ballí, whose ancestors were once great ranchers around Matamoros and what is now Brownsville, Texas. "People say this is all about money," she says, "but it's about money and something beyond money; it's a social performance, a performance of power, of very male power. It's about being someone, a performance in a place and a country where that was not supposed to be possible."

The clock is ticking. Our turn is coming.

I was very pleasantly surprised at the excellent discussion that my last Mexico post inspired.

But there were some basic factual misunderstandings I need to clear up.

1) The Mexican Drug Cartels control the wholesale HARD drug networks inside the U.S. It's not just marijuana, they control most of the methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine sold in this country. From Wikipedia:

The Mexican Drug War is an armed conflict taking place between rival drug cartels and government forces in Mexico. Although Mexican drug cartels, or drug trafficking organizations, have existed for quite some time, they have become more powerful since the demise of Colombia's Cali and Medellín cartels in the 1990s. Mexican drug cartels now dominate the wholesale illicit drug market in the United States. Arrests of key cartel leaders, particularly in the Tijuana and Gulf cartels, have led to increasing drug violence as cartels fight for control of the trafficking routes into the United States.

Mexico, a major drug producing and transit country, is the main foreign supplier of marijuana and a major supplier of methamphetamine to the United States. Although Mexico accounts for only a small share of worldwide heroin production, it supplies a large share of the heroin distributed in the United States. Drug cartels in Mexico control approximately 70% of the foreign narcotics that flow into the United States. The State Department estimates that 90% of cocaine entering the United States transits Mexico—Colombia being the main cocaine producer—and that wholesale of illicit drug sale earnings estimates range from $13.6 billion to $48.4 billion annually. Mexican drug traffickers increasingly smuggle money back into Mexico in cars and trucks, likely due to the effectiveness of U.S. efforts at monitoring electronic money transfers.

2) No one wants to legalize marijuana because there is no money in legal marijuana. That goes for American farmers who grow the stuff, local American dealers, high end retailers, everyone. Anyone can grow high quality marijuana virtually anywhere. The canard that we could legalize it and tax it for considerable government revenue is just that, a canard.

3) The American War On Abstract Concepts that began with the "War on Drugs" and morphed into the "War on Terror" is financed to no small degree by the huge volumes of hot cash that are coming from drug transactions and the tax dollars that are diverted to paying for the DEA, CIA, ATF, FBI, Homeland Security, TSA, Customs, Border Patrol, Immigration, etc. The private prison industry is another big winner. There is far far too much money in "fighting drugs" for the American Info-tainment Prison Military Industrial Complex to give up. Not to mention the fact that the really savvy long term planners in that industry realize that we'll be forced out of the land wars in Asia business in less than a quarter century and will need to maintain a brisk level of military intervention in Latin America to have any pretext to maintain an enormous, and enormously profitable war machine. With communism gone, we desperately need drugs to justify meddling in our neighbors' affairs.

From the Washington Post:

The mayor of a violent Mexican border city said Monday he fears a shooting that killed 16 people in a working class neighborhood may have been random because many of the victims were "good kids" with no apparent ties to drug gangs.

The dead included at least eight teenagers, the youngest a 13-year-old girl.

Witnesses and relatives said armed men in two trucks blocked off a dead end street in Villas de Salvarcar, a neighborhood of modest cinderblock homes partly surrounded by a fence topped by barbed wire. The gunmen opened fire at three houses, ending their rampage at one home where young people had been gathered for a party.

What is happening in Mexico is the complete collapse of the social compact. This will not stop at the border.

A little bathroom humor from Guadaljara. And no, it's not what you think.

Jo Tuckman | Mexico City | Feb 1

The Guardian - • Further 17 wounded in what neighbours believe was case of mistaken identity
• Attack adds to 16,000 killings in war between government and drug cartels

A gang of heavily armed men stormed a party inside a house in the border city of Ciudad Juárez killing 13 teenagers in the early hours of yesterday morning. A ­further 17 young people were injured in the attack, which was apparently a mistaken drugs hit.

The gunmen arrived in a convoy of up to seven 4x4s, according to local reports. While some gunmen closed off surrounding streets, others burst into the party and started shooting to kill.

There were conflicting reports as to whether the victims were celebrating victory in a local American Football championship, or had gathered to watch a boxing match. It was unclear last night as to why they were targeted, but it was immediately assumed the attack was by one of the drug trafficking gangs struggling for supremacy in the city.

"The men were well-armed. They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around," a neighbour said.

Army spokesman Enrique Torres said the dead were from 15 to 20 years old, and an additional 17 party-goers were wounded, some critically. "They were about 15 men, they closed off the surrounding streets and began shooting at the house as they moved inside," he said.

Julian Cardona | Ciudad Juarez | Jan 16

Reuters - Mexico's army, facing accusations of rights abuses, will give federal police control of security in the country's most violent drug war city even as cartel killings escalate, police said on Friday.

Mexico is sending 2,000 elite police to try to quell the fresh surge in murders in Ciudad Juarez near the U.S. border, displacing the army that militarized the city early last year but whose presence has failed to curb violence.

"The general coordination of this operation will be via the federal police," Mexico's federal police chief, Facundo Rosas, told a news conference in Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, as helicopters hovered overhead.

Some 2,500 federal police, who are armed with semi-automatic weapons and wear body armor and helmets, will now lead security operations in the manufacturing city as reinforcements arrive over the next few days.

Army General Jose de Jesus Espitia, the top military commander in Ciudad Juarez and the surrounding state of Chihuahua, told Reuters the 6,000 troops in the city would not leave immediately and would continue to support police.

The move signals a new strategy by President Felipe Calderon in the government's crackdown in Ciudad Juarez, the bloodiest front in Mexico's three-year drug war where 2,650 people died in drug violence last year.

Tijuana | Jan 12

Reuters - Mexican security forces captured a top drug trafficker behind much of a surge in violence in the northern border city of Tijuana on Tuesday in a fresh victory for the country's drug war, government and police sources said.

Teodoro Garcia Simental, known as "El Teo" or "Tres Letras" for the three letters in his nickname, was caught in the beach town of La Paz in southern Baja California, a police officer who participated in the operation told Reuters.

A government official also confirmed the arrest.

Garcia Simental is thought to have split off from the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel to help efforts by Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman -- head of the rival Sinaloa cartel and Mexico's most wanted man -- to wrest control of key smuggling corridors in northern Mexico from the Arellano Felix clan.

He and his hitmen are known to use gruesome killing methods including torture and then dissolving the bodies of his enemies in corrosive acid.

Judith Torrea | Ciudad Juarez, Mexico | Jan 9

DPA - Parishioners at Vision in Action, a church in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, have known for seven months the price of the life of their pastor and the survival of the mental hospital he runs: 2,000 dollars a month.

In Ciudad Juarez, just across the US border from El Paso, Texas, religious institutions are no different from restaurants, bars, funeral homes, butcher shops and used-car dealers, who risk being the targets of arson if they fail to pay their 'dues.'

'They have chased some 60 evangelical pastors away from the city,' says Vision in Action pastor Jose Antonio Galvan, 60, sitting in his office.

'They have had relatives killed for not paying, and others have opted to pay, 100 dollars per week and up.'

He did not have enough money to pay and fled to the United States, but returned three months ago.

'I couldn't be speaking about faith in the United States if I cannot make you believe that the bigger your problem, the bigger your faith should be,' Galvan says. 'Now, in Juarez, one is dancing with death, death hugs you, loves you, and if God stipulates that I shall be killed, I shall die.'

Demands for 'dues' have surged since the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared an all-out war 21 months ago on drug trafficking in Juarez.

My friend Tracy had a very worthy first mis-adventure in Mexico City.

Dec 22

BBC - Lawmakers in Mexico City have become the first in Latin America to legalise gay marriage.

City legislators passed the bill 39-20, with five abstentions. The city's mayor is now widely expected to sign the bill into law.

Gay marriage is only allowed in seven countries and some parts of the US. Certain parts of Latin America allow civil unions for same-sex couples.

The Catholic Church and conservative groups had opposed Mexico City's move.

The bill calls for a change in the definition of marriage in the city's civic code - from the union of a man and a woman to "the free uniting of two people".

Lawmaker David Razu had proposed the change to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples regarding social security and other benefits.

Mexico City's legislature is dominated by the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party, which has already legalised abortion and civil unions for same-sex couples.

Hannah Osborne | Dec 18

The Independent - Few of the Central American migrants looking to escape to the United States are prepared for the horrors they will endure along the way. Entering Mexico through one of its border states (most often Chiapas or Tabasco), they face a constant threat of persecution, and, at present, lack even the most basic of human rights.

Beatings, abduction, sexual assault, and murder are routinely committed by criminal gangs; most worryingly, there is also evidence of some complicity and involvement by Mexican officials. The prevalence of Los Zetas; an organisation made up of former federal, state, and local police officers, is a further menace faced. The notorious drug cartel has been known to kidnap and torture migrants, blackmailing families for their release.

Extremely vulnerable, Central American migrants slip into anonymity, and receive much less attention than is necessary. Perpetrators of violence are very rarely held to account.

Photographer Ricardo Ramírez Arriola followed these migrants along their journey, candidly discovering the horrors they endure. His images relay a sobering narrative; forced to leave their homes to support thier starving families, migrants must cling to freight trains for bouts in excess of ten hours, and in constant fear of being thrown onto the tracks by gangs demanding payment. His pictures, along with others, are to be displayed as part of a new exhibition.

In pictures: Central America's 'INvisible victims'

Dec 17

BBC - One of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords has been killed in a shoot-out with state security forces, officials say.

Arturo Beltran Leyva and four alleged members of his cartel died in a raid by troops on a flat in Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City.

The Beltran Leyva cartel, based on the Pacific coast, is one of Mexico's most powerful and violent drug gangs .

Meanwhile, the severed heads of six policemen were found near a church in the north of the country, police said.

They said the beheadings in Durango state were a revenge attack by the Gulf cartel for the killing of 10 gang members last week.

The severed heads, left in plastic bags outside the church before dawn, were discovered by garbage collectors, the state attorney general's office said.

Stratfor reports that 15 members of La Familia Michoacana have been indicted in Illinois:

LFM stands out among the various drug cartels that operate throughout Mexico for several reasons. Unlike other drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) that have always been focused on drug trafficking, LFM first arose in Michoacan several years ago as a vigilante response to kidnappers and drug gangs. Before long, however, LFM members were themselves accused of conducting the very crimes they had opposed, including kidnapping for ransom, cocaine and marijuana trafficking and, eventually, methamphetamine production. The group is now the largest and most powerful criminal organization in Michoacan — a largely rural state located on Mexico’s southwestern Pacific coast — and maintains a significant presence in several surrounding states.

Beyond its vigilante origins, LFM has also set itself apart from other criminal groups in Mexico by its almost cult-like ideology. LFM leaders are known to distribute documents to the group’s members that include codes of conduct and pseudo-religious quotations from Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, also known as “El Mas Loco” (“the craziest one”), who appears to serve as a sort of inspirational leader of the group.
...
In our April analysis, we identified several intelligence gaps in the interface between the Mexican-based drug traffickers (such as the Sinaloa Cartel, the Beltran-Leyva Organization [BLO] and Los Zetas) and the U.S.-based drug distributors (such as MS-13, Barrio Azteca and the Mexican Mafia). One question we were left with was: How deeply involved are the Mexican DTOs in the U.S. distribution network? While it appeared that narcotics changed hands at the border, it wasn’t clear how or even whether the relationships between gangs and drug traffickers had an effect on the distribution of narcotics within the United States. Although we suspected it, there was little evidence that showed cartel involvement in the downstream or retail distribution of narcotics in the U.S. market.

Now there is evidence. The indictment handed down Nov. 20 in Chicago clearly alleges that a criminal group in Chicago was directly conspiring with the drug trafficking organization LFM to distribute shipments of cocaine. The indictment specifically links the criminal group in Chicago to LFM and labels it a “command and control group” run by someone in Michoacan. While the indictment only referred to this person as “individual A,” we suspect that the unidentified person was LFM operational manager Servando Gomez Martinez, the second in command of LFM. The manager of the Chicago command and control group, Jorge Luis Torres-Galvan, and the distribution supervisor, Jose Gonzalez-Zavala, were allegedly in regular contact with their manager in Mexico, updating him on accounting issues and relying on him to authorize which wholesale distributors the group could do business with in the United States.

Now there is evidence. The indictment handed down Nov. 20 in Chicago clearly alleges that a criminal group in Chicago was directly conspiring with the drug trafficking organization LFM to distribute shipments of cocaine. The indictment specifically links the criminal group in Chicago to LFM and labels it a “command and control group” run by someone in Michoacan. While the indictment only referred to this person as “individual A,” we suspect that the unidentified person was LFM operational manager Servando Gomez Martinez, the second in command of LFM. The manager of the Chicago command and control group, Jorge Luis Torres-Galvan, and the distribution supervisor, Jose Gonzalez-Zavala, were allegedly in regular contact with their manager in Mexico, updating him on accounting issues and relying on him to authorize which wholesale distributors the group could do business with in the United States.

This is big news and bad news. LFM is a new type of cancer in Mexico, a violent organization with a world-view and philosophy beyond just "bitches and money" that is a drug trafficking organization second, dealers in mayhem first. They have initiated a dramatic uptick in violence in their home territory and I expect will do the same anywhere they operate, places like Chicago, IL.

Stratfor's punchline is after the break:

Mexico City | Dec 2

Reuters - Suspected hitmen wearing dark suits shot dead a protected state witness in a Starbucks cafe in Mexico City on Tuesday, days after another witness was found dead.

Two assassins shot former federal policeman Edgar Enrique Bayardo several times as he sat in the busy coffee shop, the capital's prosecutor's office said. Police said both assailants escaped.

Bayardo was arrested last year, accused of working for the powerful Sinaloa cartel and its drug kingpin Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, during an anti-corruption sweep of Mexico's federal police and its special organized crime bureau.

Bayardo, who raised suspicions with his luxury cars, art collection and upscale home, was made a witness under the protection of the attorney general's office.

Late last month, Zambada's nephew Jesus Zambada, another witness, was found dead in a house guarded by police.

Officials at the Mexico City prosecutor's office said hitmen had been following Bayardo for several days. It was unclear why the former policeman was not better protected or why he was out in public.

You really need to put on your Bizarro World filter to parse this Washington Post story celebrating the U.S. takeover of Mexican law enforcement and intelligence apparatus exciting new spirit of cooperation engendered between the U.S. and Mexico by the convenient pretext mutual enemy, the narco-cartels:

But now, for the first time, the U.S. and Mexican armed forces regularly exchange classified intelligence in real time, often through Mexican officers embedded at the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado Springs and at an interagency task force in Key West, Fla. The task force, which is responsible for military satellite and maritime surveillance over the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, relays information to the Mexican navy and air force to interdict drugs moving north.

In addition, Mexican technicians are using U.S. government software to help build Platform Mexico, a computer network housed in a new five-story bunker at the edge of Mexico City. When the facility opens next week, the network will connect Mexican authorities with U.S. law enforcement databases. The most useful information, such as traces of weapons used in crimes, is being translated into Spanish.

Rest easy everyone, now that Johnny G-Man is taking over from those lazy and corrupt Federales, I'm sure there will be a triumphant ending to the Drug Wars before this week's episode is over. See you in the funny papers.

And if you believe that, you'll have no problem accepting that the son of a major narco boss turned witness for the state, killed himself while in protective custody. Open and shut, nothing to see here folks.

Paul Harris | Dayton, Ohio | Nov 22

The Observer -
In the Midwestern heartland, police are encountering a new social evil: trafficking, often involving women and children who are forced to work as prostitutes or unpaid labour; and the outcomes can be brutal.

Human trafficking has become a major issue in the Midwest heartland of America, causing some campaigners to dub it a modern form of slavery.

Figures from the State Department reveal that 17,500 people are trafficked into the US every year against their will or under false pretences, mainly to be used for sex or forced labour. Experts believe that, when cases of internal trafficking are added, the total number of victims could be up to five times larger. And increasing numbers of trafficked individuals are being transported thousands of miles from America's coasts and into heartland states such as Ohio and Michigan.

"It is not only a crime. It is an abomination," said Professor Mark Ensalaco, a political scientist at the University of Dayton, Ohio, who organised a recent conference on the issue. In Ohio a human trafficking commission has just been set up to study the problem, while in the northern Ohio city of Toledo a special FBI task force is tackling the issue. For many local law enforcement officials, it is a bewildering new world.

CNN - The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 26 journalists have been killed since 2005 in Mexico -- most of them while covering the crime or corruption beats. By comparison, 10 journalists were killed in the same time period while covering the war in Afghanistan.

Helen Popper | Tegucigalpa | Nov 17

Reuters - Honduran lawmakers will wait until after a November 29 election to decide whether to reinstate ousted President Manuel Zelaya, delaying a vote central to a U.S.-led deal to end months of political crisis.

Zelaya, who irked the poor nation's elite by forming close ties with leftist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, was sent into exile in his pajamas by soldiers on June 28 and a de facto government led by Roberto Micheletti took charge.

The U.S.-brokered pact to end the crisis stipulates a congressional vote on reinstating Zelaya, but it never set a date and the October accord collapsed within a week as the rival sides failed to form a unity government.

"We've decided to convene sessions for December 2," Congress head Jose Saavedra told reporters, adding that lawmakers expected the Supreme Court to give an opinion next week on whether Zelaya should be returned to power until a new president is sworn in January after the November 29 election.

Stephen Gibbs | Mexico City | Nov 12

BBC - Mexican authorities have dismissed almost a quarter of all traffic police in the city of Monterrey for failing corruption and competence tests.

It is the latest move by the Mexican government to clean up its police forces, many of which are suspected of having links to organised crime.

At the end of last month all 1,142 traffic police in Monterrey were pulled off duty to undergo extensive tests.

The tests assessed their honesty, mental aptitude and medical condition.

Their living circumstances were also reviewed - to see whether any evidence of possibly unlawful additional income emerged.

The end results have not been good.

More than 270 officers failed the exams outright. They have been dismissed.

Another 500 have been sent for more training. And, in a final insult, over half have been told they are overweight.

Tom Russell nails it on the head. Worth a read to summarize the current Wild West.

I’ll watch it all go down from Ardovino’s Desert Crossing, the great bar and restaurant which sits up near Mt. Cristo Rey, overlooking the lights of El Paso. (Okay, there are a few good bars here.)Trains roll cross the mountain at happy hour and border patrol trucks chase illegals through these desperate, yucca-choked rocks and rills. Over yonder the ugly black border wall snakes across the sandy hills. The wall is our knee-jerk attempt to intimidate Mexican illegals who want to do the dirty work we shun. But this is still the old west, amigo. Those class equations have always been such. The Chinese built the railroads with a shotgun at their head, and their opium was always available in the back of the chop suey joints and whore houses. The “greasers” and “chinks” did the dirty work; and those red devil Apaches raided our horse camps until we sent Geronimo down to Florida to chill out. We’re getting it under control, ain’t we? It’s the coked-up, Manifest Destiny politics of Methland.

Where God and the Devil Wheel Like Vultures: Report from El Paso

First off, Mauricio Fernandez, the mayor of San Pedro Garza Garcia, an exclusive community near Monterrey, announced as he was being sworn in for a new term that a feared drug cartel capo who had been threatening him had been found dead in Mexico City. Only one problem, the body hadn't been found yet. That would take another 3 1/2 hours. And it wouldn't be identified for two more days.

The mayor's explanation once the story erupted as a scandal in normally blase Mexico -- the DEA tipped him off:

When pressed, Fernandez said U.S. authorities tipped him off that somebody intercepted cartel communications and learned Saldana was planning to kill him, and he said unspecified intelligence sources told him Saldana was dead. Paul Knierim, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman, said Tuesday he couldn't comment on Fernandez's situation, but said American agents routinely coordinate with Mexican investigators trying to crack down on cartels.

Tracy Wilkinson | Mexico City | Nov 1

LA Times - A flamboyant farmworker organizer who called himself a modern-day Emiliano Zapata has been slain in a brazen ambush that also killed 14 members of his family and staff, officials said Saturday.

Prosecutors in the border state of Sonora, where the slayings occurred, said they were investigating a number of possible motives. Sonora, like much of Mexico, has been hit by a wave of killings tied to drug-trafficking gangs.

The union leader, Margarito Montes Parra, was killed in the southern part of Sonora bordering the state of Sinaloa, a major center for the production and transport of marijuana and heroin.

The farmers whom Montes represented often find themselves trapped in the drug war, with traffickers forcing them to work illicit crops. But Montes also had chalked up numerous enemies in tumultuous land disputes over more than two decades.

Montes, his wife and two children were traveling in a small convoy with at least 11 other relatives and staff members to a rural hacienda Friday afternoon when they were ambushed by several assailants armed with large-caliber weapons, investigators said. All 15 were shot to death, they said.

Red Cross workers arrived at the scene to find bullet-riddled bodies on the side of the road. There were reports that three people in the group had survived.

This is the first consequence I've yet seen in over a year of the American taxpayers putting enough money into the banks to buy a majority stake:

Citi's latest reason to be free of U.S. government ownership is that it could be forced to sell off one of its most profitable businesses.

In Mexico the pressure is on, where it's illegal for a foreign government to own a domestic bank. Citi's stake in Mexico's Banamex has fallen afoul of this law.

Citi now has to prove that its U.S. government ownership isn't long-term or overly influential, else it could be forced to discard a Mexican business that generates 15% of the company's worldwide profit.

It won't stop at Citi either:

Uncle Sam has dominant interests in companies like American International Group, Bank of New York Mellon and Bank of America, all of which also have major investments in Mexican banks.

Mexico City | Oct 17

Reuters -

Hurricane Rick strengthened to an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm off Mexico's Pacific coast on Saturday and could hit resorts on the Baja California peninsula next week, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Rick, the seventh hurricane of the eastern north Pacific season, was located about 255 miles (410 km) southwest of the resort city of Acapulco with maximum sustained winds near 135 mph (215 kph) with higher gusts.

Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 36 hours and Rick could be near a Category 5 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale by Saturday night, the center said.

Outer rain bands of the storm have been hitting Mexico's southern coast and that will continue on Saturday, it said.

Not sure how this one will turn out, but Mexican President Calderon has used military and federal police to shut down the power company Luz y Fuerza that serves Mexico City. 44,000 workers were fired.

Business Week makes the case for the shutdown:

It sold 730 megawatt-hours of energy per employee, compared with 2,500MWh per employee at the Federal Electricity Commission. LyFC had one worker for every 291 electricity clients, compared with one worker for every 627 clients of the CFE. And, the union demanded—and got—generous workplace benefits and pension perks that were unsustainable, Gómez Mont said: Retirees currently earn pensions that are 3.3 times the amount taken home by active employees.

Narco News sees it differently:

Calderon's Saturday night invasion of Luz y Fuerza's facilities in the capital and four states is reminiscent of other recent joint police-military operations against drug cartels. Since Calderon deployed 40,000 soldiers and thousands of militarized Federal Police, one of the campaign's hallmark operations has been the sudden takeover of police stations in towns and cities where drug trafficking organizations are believed to have corrupted entire police forces. In these operations, soldiers and federal police surround a police station, relieve the local police officers of their duties, and occupy the building. When 6,000 soldiers and federal police suddenly invaded Luz y Fuerza's buildings and then occupied them to prevent the workers from retaking the facilities, one would have thought that Luz y Fuerza was a drug cartel's base of operations. But it wasn't.

Mexico is becoming increasingly militarized under the pretext provided by the war on drugs. Mexican citizens are becoming correspondingly desensitized to such blatant displays of state military power in the civilian realm. Mexico's Constitution expressly prohibits the military's use in times of peace; however, this was not Mexicans' principle criticism of the operation against Luz y Fuerza. Mexicans consulted by this reporter complained that the operation was a blow to the country's democratic unions, as well as a step towards privatization of the energy sector. When this reporter commented on the barbarity of deploying the military and riot police against a civilian union--one that wasn't even on strike, as if that were to justify such represion--the response was, "Tienes razon. You're right. I hadn't even considered that."

It's not just Mexico where they're getting used to a dramatically expanded definition of the normal role of the military in society. Andrew Bacevich points out what our military adventures are doing to our national psyche:

As the fighting drags on from one year to the next, the engagement of US forces in armed nation-building projects in distant lands will become the new normalcy. Americans of all ages will come to accept war as a perpetual condition, as young Americans already do. That “keeping Americans safe’’ obliges the United States to seek, maintain, and exploit unambiguous military supremacy will become utterly uncontroversial.

Doesn't it seem like we have always been at war with Eastasia?