Even Violent Drug Cartels Fear God By Damien Cave The New York Times Magazine “If the economy worked for the common good, there would be no Zetas. There would be no cartels,” says Robert Coogan, the chaplain at Cereso. Here the Zetas, Mexico’s most feared crime syndicate, run operations from the inside. And they […]
Word is that ICE agents (now tagged HSI, or Homeland Security Investigation agents) have been instructed not to draw attention to themselves or any efforts they may mount to interdict drugs trafficked in the the US from Mexico–or to advertise just how audacious cartel drug runners have become, trafficking openly on US soil. Downplay conflict with the Mexican cartels.
Indeed, ICE insiders say the current ‘standing order’ to US drug interdiction agents along the SW border is to ‘turn and run’ whenever confronted by drug-toting cartel members–‘Do not engage.’
ICE or HSI agents have even been advised not to wear identifying gear–hats or jackets marked ICE or HSI–while on surveillance.
Conversely, the orders issued to the Zetas, or whichever gang traffickers happen to be involved, is “lose a load and lose your life.’
In what was one of his longest speeches to date, last Friday Mexican President Felipe Calderón gave a resounding defense of his administration’s battle against organized crime and sought to compare critics of his governments’ security policies to those who doubted of Churchill’s resolve in confronting the Nazis. Calderón went on extend the comparison between […]
Early this morning (2-25-11), Mexican gunmen armed with short rifles and driving trucks equipped with strobe lights, and in one case, missing license plates, once more attempted to box in a US government-owned vehicle (OGV) driven by US anti-drug agents a short distance from the US border on the Mexican side.
One of the Mexican gunmen in the lead vehicle was also, according to reports, wearing a badge around his neck. . .
The sequence of events that occurred on February 15th and ended in the murder of ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata and in the shooting of Special Agent Victor Avila are as follows–evidence that the attack on two US federal agents was premeditated and planned, not a case of ‘being in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ or an incident triggered by the desire of the assailants to hijack a valuable vehicle.
President Obama has promised Zapata’s family that the US government will spare no effort to bring the Mexican gunman responsible for the attack to justice, and Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, has express outrage, declaring “The full resources of our department are at the disposal of our Mexican partners in this investigation.”
Given the dearth of substantive press coverage on both side of the border, and the muted attitude of US officials toward Mexico’s efforts to curb drug trafficking and cartel violence over the past five years—during which roughly 38,000 people have been killed, including scores of US citizens—the vocalization of even these stylized objections is noteworthy.