ON SUNDAY, IN the wake of a military operation to kill one of the country’s most infamous drug traffickers, clashes broke out across the Mexico, leaving dozens dead and producing shocking images of roadblocks, armed men in the streets, and panicked civilians ducking for cover.
Within hours of the operation in which troops killed cartel boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” in a rural hideout outside Guadalajara, gunmen loyal to his Jalisco New Generation Cartel group poured into the streets of several cities, burning buses and firing automatic weapons.
“The city was completely emptied,” said David Mora, an International Crisis Group analyst who happened to be in Guadalajara on Sunday, of the aftermath of the violence. “I mean it was a ghost town — there was no one on the streets yesterday.”
The fighting left at least 70 people dead, including 25 members of Mexico’s National Guard, which carried out the mission guided by intelligence from counterparts in U.S. military and law enforcement, according to President Claudia Sheinbaum.
I don’t think they were defending the cartel. I think they were saying that actually hunting the cartel members is almost pointless. The better solution in their opinion is to cut off their revenue source by providing a safe and legal route to drug access.
Making points about how sometimes government actions can cause indirect harm in a discussion thread about how the Cartel are threatening to harm innocents if the Government keeps fighting them is a defence of the Cartel.
I don’t think advocating for a course of action that dismantles an organization can be considered advocacy. I could see it being a critique of the current course of action, but saying we should change tactics is hardly an argument that our goals are wrong.if someone is trying to mine rock with a pencil, and someone comes over and suggests a mining drill, its not really a defense of the rock.
I’ve re-read your response a few times and it may be lack of sleep, but I’m struggling to mentally register what you were trying to saying.
My interpretation of what they were saying wasn’t in defence of the cartel, but that a different course of action would be more impactful. Fight them by targeting their revenue stream.
It’s always good to remove the head of a cartel, but you could argue the way it was carried out had no thought behind the immediate repercussions on civilians.