Good-bye Cartels

Two years ago, I was driving through the Mohave desert in southern California when I came upon an assortment of white canopied structures as far as the eye could see. What were they doing in this arid zone? They were illegally growing marijuana under the watchful eye and stern control of Mexican drug cartels – a patch of violent-prone Mexico transferred to the U.S. Don’t get too close, residents warned, or they will come out with guns and threaten you. As in Mexico, shootouts occur among rivals and dead bodies are a familiar sight. These alien occupants steal water from people in a parched land, destroy wildlife with overuse of pesticides and undercut legal American growers by avoiding taxes and burdensome regulations. A cartel paradise courtesy of the U.S.

Illegal marijuana farms in the Mojave Desert

But fortunately, not to last. On a recent trip back to the desert, these marijuana farms had altogether disappeared, not one to be seen wherever I looked. It seemed like magic but was the result of hard tedious work. People were fed up with the costly, dangerous cartel intrusion and officials of sprawling San Bernardino County acted accordingly. Sheriff Shannon Discus organized a task force with heavy machinery to smash green houses, machetes to cut plants and guns for protection that steadily eliminated one farm after another. By now some thousands have been destroyed containing over a million plants. The desert is back to normal.

And what a desert! Its austere serene beauty is fit for more than marijuana. How about tourism instead? A manager of a popular inn located in the pleasant town of Twenty-nine Palms says she can live in a bubble now undisturbed by outside commotion. Just add a fancy restaurant to traditional digs and here come the guests. A staffer at the same inn says life may be easier now for a close friend who made the mistake of leasing some land at $2,000 a month to friendly Mexicans who turned out to be cartel toughs, a familiar transaction in these parts where land is cheap. At the first sign of inquiring police they fled with all the equipment they could take ahead of demolition.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office raids on illegal cannabis farms

On my first trip I visited a dot of a desert town called Landers where a post office marks the center. There two apparently anxious women were discussing in hushed voices the latest doings of the local cartels. As elsewhere homeowners were possibly outnumbered and definitely outgunned by the intruding Mexicans who treated them, well, like Mexicans. So what if they were Americans. The land actually belonged to Mexico before it was appropriated by the U.S. in the 1840’s war with Mexico. Some cartel leaders want it back. The marijuana invasion is a start.

Today the once near deserted post office is bustling with activity. The farms are gone, says a relaxed resident who notes that the remains of one can be found down a dirt road at the foot of a nearby mountain. There I observed the hulk of a greenhouse that had seen better days of a prospering cartel. Elsewhere remains of farms consisted of heaps of ruble. Demolition had been thorough, making the emphatic point that the illicit growers should not think of returning.

While a cloud has lifted for the people of the Mohave desert, the drug cartels have suffered a genuine setback. This at a time when they are making aggressive advances on the border with drugs and migrants. They are virtually unstoppable. San Bernardino shows they can be stopped and furnishes an example. The outraged people of the county made their concerns clear to county officials. If nothing was done, they could take the law into their own hands. Indeed that’s a western tradition. Law enforcement got the message and went to work. There is much more work to be done as cartel farms continue to spread in California, Oregon and elsewhere.

Appalled by cartel violence, some hawkish Republicans talk of bombing drug labs in Mexico and other kinds of military action. It makes more sense to clean up the U.S. first, from eliminating all the marijuana farms to disrupting cross country drug and human traffic to closing the now open border. Hit the cartels where it hurts in the pocketbook. Their existence depends on U.S sales. Cut them, and the cartels may be weakened to the point that besieged Mexicans can finally rebel the way San Bernardino did.

The Shot That Explains the Caravan

While journalist Jesus Ramos Rodriguez was having breakfast in a restaurant in Mexico’s Tabasco state, a stranger approached and fired eight shots, killing him. The assailant then fled, avoiding capture. Rodriguez had been warned not to report drug cartel activity on his radio program for which the punishment is death. Continue reading “The Shot That Explains the Caravan”

Caravan from Hell

Whatever the degree of outside organizing and financing, the thousands of people trying to reach the United States are fleeing some of the most hellish conditions on earth, a violence equal to war zones that is not fit for life. The drug lords, financed by U.S. consumers, have taken over El Salvador and Honduras, not to mention Mexico, and it is they who pose this challenge to the U.S. border. Continue reading “Caravan from Hell”

Cartels Face the Wall

We’re not sure yet what the wall on the Mexican border will look like – something new and forbidding or, sensibly, an extension of the adequate steel-bar fence that already exists along parts of the border. Whatever it is, it will challenge the ingenuity of the drug cartels determined to keep their billion-dollar business going no matter what. And to be sure, there are many Americans just as anxious for the drugs and the drug money that can be put to illicit uses. Continue reading “Cartels Face the Wall”

Journalists Under Fire

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. In the last several years, 86 have been murdered by the drug cartels for covering their activities; that is, for doing their job. Among weapons used were knives, rifles, machine guns, grenades and fire. The choice is not the victim’s. Continue reading “Journalists Under Fire”

Hit Man

One of the most prestigious and high paying jobs in Mexico is the hit man, he who assassinates people on the order of the drug cartels. One of this illustrious group told how he went about his work to the late Charles Bowden, author of many books on Mexican drug violence, and Molly Molloy, a research librarian at Mexico State University, in their book “El Sicario” (Hit Man). Continue reading “Hit Man”

Trump’s Wall

Not content with some 500 miles of fencing along the US-Mexican border, President-elect Donald Trump wants to erect a wall over its 2,000 mile length. Preposterous, say critics. It would further divide two nations, two peoples. It would damage wildlife and environment. And would it work, after all, since nothing else has?  Continue reading “Trump’s Wall”