How Drug Wars and Drug Warriors Are Born

    Adam Elkus of Rethinking Security sent me the article "U.S." Student Became Mexican Drug Kingpin" which contained this picture under the heading "Maybe a good postgrad option for you?"

    This was just one of several recent exposes on the Mexican drug war and the gangsters and traffickers involved. Some focus on the recently released government report tracing the wave of violence back to clashes between 7 cartels,  which is hardlyvaluable or surprising, as most of the killings are between gangsters. Yet elsewhere the report explains the conditions which allowed inter-cartel conflict grow into such a bloodbath, citing poorly paid, coordinated, and equiped law enforcement officers who proved easy to corrupt or coerce, shoddy courts, and obsolete laws. In other words, the Mexican legal sytstem did not adapt to new threats and essentially allowed Mexico to become a cartel safehaven and, as far as the powerful criminal groups were concerned, a hollow state.

    Why anyone could become involved with such a life danger and bloodshed has also been explored lately. In one must-read interview, a former gangster explains what pushed him towards crime and brutallity. After his first killing, he remembers, "All my friends congratulated me. They said it showed I really belonged in the gang. I felt a part of the neighbourhood,"  reinforcing the idea that organized crime and terrorism are as socially driven as they are political and financial.

    Another explains the rise of Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a leader of  Beltrán-Leyva gang known as "La Barbie" for his Ken doll looks. Describing his upbringing, the article notes "his father was a shop owner in downtown Laredo who emphasized church, hard work and the value of a college education. He grew up in a well-appointed brick home with a wooden swing set in the backyard. Most of his siblings went to college and started businesses." This is similar to the misguided belief that all terrorists and their supporters are poor and uneducated, when in fact studies have found no evidence for possitive correlation and, in the case of education, found that attending secondary school increased the chance of terrorist activity.

By Alex Olesker