9 ms·

It's difficult to wage an information war with gangsters. The ones who get to the top by killing and torturing are not likely to be threatened by having a few e

It's difficult to wage an information war with gangsters. The ones who get to the top by killing and torturing are not likely to be threatened by having a few emails released. All the shit runs downhill to the relatively innocent civilians being extorted by the gangsters. If knowledge of who the crime bosses are was enough to take them down, they would not exist in the first place. Organized crime does not require secrecy to operate when the police are corrupted.

dylangs1030 15y ago
Yes, and actually the police need not be corrupt. Organized crime leaders can be in the public eye and unless there is evidence against them, they cannot be penalized by the legal system.
rdl 15y ago
The only way to fight criminals at a scale where they threaten the state is through intelligence and military techniques, not law enforcement. Find them, build up decent evidence, kill them; don't try to prosecute. The risk is turning into a star chamber or right wing paramilitary, but I would trust the professionalism and morality of an organization like the us military to resist that. Plan Colombia worked out ok, compared to Peru vs shining path, for instance.
- gyardley 15y ago
  Decent evidence often isn't. Remember those 'weapons of mass destruction' in Iraq? 4,482 dead American soldiers and counting. I'm not saying these gangs aren't full of horrible people, and I'm not saying all branches of the US government and military aren't perfectly good intentioned and well-meaning people, but mistakes do get made - which is why we need some judicial oversight here. We've already got one war on an abstract concept where the president can order the extrajudicial execution of a US citizen based on secret evidence. That's more than enough for me.
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    Well, on the other hand what are the costs of doing nothing in Mexico? What price do the Mexican people pay? This situation is a little different than the twin towers.
    - davekinkead 15y ago
      Wouldn't it be safer & a hell of a lot cheaper if drugs were regulated according to their harm? Grass is no worse than alcohol or tobacco, while cocaine doesn't cause any more social issues than those. The cartels only exist because the illegality of those drugs creates massive profit margins. Remove that and many of the problems are solved.
      - potatolicious 15y ago
        I'm going through a very good book right now that this reminds me of. It's more about the middle east than Latin America, but I think it applies: "Poppy cultivation had become an agribusiness and the dealers for the Afghan drug barons now had technical advisers who were visiting Nangarhar to advise on the crop and the product, paying in advance, and so concerned about the health of their workers that they had given them face-masks to wear in the opium factories. Some said they even offered health insurance. This was capitalism on a ruthlessly illegal scale. And when I asked a European UN official how the world could compete with it, he drew in his breath. "Legalise drugs!" he roared. "Legalise the lot. It will be the end of the drug barons. They'll go broke and kill each other. But of course the world will never accept that. So we'll go on fighting a losing war." -- The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk
        sliverstorm 15y ago
        Didn't China have big problems with opium use several hundred years ago which drove them to cut it off? (They may not have made it illegal, but they at least cut off trade routes)
        15y ago
- tjmc 15y ago
  Or end the futile prohibition on drugs and tax them instead. Worked for alcohol.
  - handelaar 15y ago
    For values of 'worked for alcohol' that include 'moved world's largest criminal organisation into non-alcohol-related activity without impacting its organisational capacity one jot'.
    - dylangs1030 15y ago
      Exactly. Crime would adjust itself, or find a new market. Compromising by legalizing something which has a purpose in being illegal is detrimental to solving the problem.
      - r0s 15y ago
        Bullshit. As if criminals simply avoid other vice because it's less profitable, totally false. Dangerously false. There are not open markets just floating around waiting for criminals to suddenly discover them.
        dylangs1030 15y ago
        I disagree. I believe there are plenty of avenues of criminal activity. Trouble is, most criminals aren't visionaries, and why would they have an incentive to fond other profitable crimes of they can practically earn money doing what they do now?
        r0s 15y ago
        By that logic they will all suddenly take up investment banking.
      - Karunamon 15y ago
        Thing is, there is no real purpose for many/most controlled substances to be illegal, unless you choose from the following list: * Excuse for government overstep of constitutional provisions * Money to the prison-industrial complex (i know, trite, but it's true) * One more step in the notion that you don't own your own body And those aren't legitimate reasons, IMAO.
- jfoutz 15y ago
  Has that ever worked? In the U.S. anyway, gangs only seemed to disappear after pretty intense FBI work. I'm thinking of stuff like http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/italian_mafia http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/itali... but maybe there's much more militarized approach that's been effective that i'm forgetting.
  - rdl 15y ago
    There aren't criminal organizations in the USA which can credibly threaten state governments, let aloe the Feds. This is different in other countries. Hence, law enforcement to solve crime in the USA; targeted killings in Mexico.
    - guelo 15y ago
      There used to be, the mob was practically running several cities and literally owned Las Vegas. It took many decades to reduce the threat.
      - InclinedPlane 15y ago
        That was because prohibition funneled gobs and gobs of money into the hands of criminals. See also: the current Mexican civil war.
    - jfoutz 15y ago
      The point i'm trying to make, the super glamorous "send in the military and take out the boss" kind of tactics are ultimately doomed to fail. You have to do the sucky work of grinding away at the base. a tax evasion conviction here, a conspiracy charge there. Keep enough pressure on the base of the pyramid that it starts getting a little tougher to find people willing to deal or be mules or enforcers or whatever. It's not a huge change, it just ups the cost of doing business a few percent, but that's a few percent that would be making a larger organization, that now they're spending staying the same size. Those sorts of tactics, over decades seem to really effectively grind down gangs. Swooping in with helicopters and m-16's is expensive and (i think) not very effective. Perhaps there's a counter example i'm overlooking. However, if you take the long view of the question how do you fight organized crime? I think you'll see the only effective solutions take generations. Just slowly tightening the noose around more and more unacceptable activities.
- AJ007 15y ago
  Plan Colombia worked = the problems in Mexico right now. The only way to fight criminals is to get them to go to another neighborhood.
  - eipipuz 15y ago
    That's not accurate. the people and the way they work, is completely different. When colombia had problems, Mexico already was in its own track.
- ruethewhirled 15y ago
  "I would trust the professionalism and morality of an organization like the us military" Are you being sarcastic when you say that?
- tintin 15y ago
  The only way to fight these big organizations is to start at the bottom. Take a look at Libya for example. People at the top most of the time have the resources to hide and still run the company. But when there is nobody left that would like to work for them the will fall.

dylangs1030 15y ago

Yes, and actually the police need not be corrupt. Organized crime leaders can be in the public eye and unless there is evidence against them, they cannot be penalized by the legal system.

rdl 15y ago

The only way to fight criminals at a scale where they threaten the state is through intelligence and military techniques, not law enforcement. Find them, build up decent evidence, kill them; don't try to prosecute. The risk is turning into a star chamber or right wing paramilitary, but I would trust the professionalism and morality of an organization like the us military to resist that. Plan Colombia worked out ok, compared to Peru vs shining path, for instance.

gyardley 15y ago
Decent evidence often isn't. Remember those 'weapons of mass destruction' in Iraq? 4,482 dead American soldiers and counting. I'm not saying these gangs aren't full of horrible people, and I'm not saying all branches of the US government and military aren't perfectly good intentioned and well-meaning people, but mistakes do get made - which is why we need some judicial oversight here. We've already got one war on an abstract concept where the president can order the extrajudicial execution of a US citizen based on secret evidence. That's more than enough for me.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Well, on the other hand what are the costs of doing nothing in Mexico? What price do the Mexican people pay? This situation is a little different than the twin towers.
  - davekinkead 15y ago
    Wouldn't it be safer & a hell of a lot cheaper if drugs were regulated according to their harm? Grass is no worse than alcohol or tobacco, while cocaine doesn't cause any more social issues than those. The cartels only exist because the illegality of those drugs creates massive profit margins. Remove that and many of the problems are solved.
    - potatolicious 15y ago
      I'm going through a very good book right now that this reminds me of. It's more about the middle east than Latin America, but I think it applies: "Poppy cultivation had become an agribusiness and the dealers for the Afghan drug barons now had technical advisers who were visiting Nangarhar to advise on the crop and the product, paying in advance, and so concerned about the health of their workers that they had given them face-masks to wear in the opium factories. Some said they even offered health insurance. This was capitalism on a ruthlessly illegal scale. And when I asked a European UN official how the world could compete with it, he drew in his breath. "Legalise drugs!" he roared. "Legalise the lot. It will be the end of the drug barons. They'll go broke and kill each other. But of course the world will never accept that. So we'll go on fighting a losing war." -- The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk
      - sliverstorm 15y ago
        Didn't China have big problems with opium use several hundred years ago which drove them to cut it off? (They may not have made it illegal, but they at least cut off trade routes)
        15y ago
tjmc 15y ago
Or end the futile prohibition on drugs and tax them instead. Worked for alcohol.
- handelaar 15y ago
  For values of 'worked for alcohol' that include 'moved world's largest criminal organisation into non-alcohol-related activity without impacting its organisational capacity one jot'.
  - dylangs1030 15y ago
    Exactly. Crime would adjust itself, or find a new market. Compromising by legalizing something which has a purpose in being illegal is detrimental to solving the problem.
    - r0s 15y ago
      Bullshit. As if criminals simply avoid other vice because it's less profitable, totally false. Dangerously false. There are not open markets just floating around waiting for criminals to suddenly discover them.
      - dylangs1030 15y ago
        I disagree. I believe there are plenty of avenues of criminal activity. Trouble is, most criminals aren't visionaries, and why would they have an incentive to fond other profitable crimes of they can practically earn money doing what they do now?
        r0s 15y ago
        By that logic they will all suddenly take up investment banking.
    - Karunamon 15y ago
      Thing is, there is no real purpose for many/most controlled substances to be illegal, unless you choose from the following list: * Excuse for government overstep of constitutional provisions * Money to the prison-industrial complex (i know, trite, but it's true) * One more step in the notion that you don't own your own body And those aren't legitimate reasons, IMAO.
jfoutz 15y ago
Has that ever worked? In the U.S. anyway, gangs only seemed to disappear after pretty intense FBI work. I'm thinking of stuff like http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/italian_mafia http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/itali... but maybe there's much more militarized approach that's been effective that i'm forgetting.
- rdl 15y ago
  There aren't criminal organizations in the USA which can credibly threaten state governments, let aloe the Feds. This is different in other countries. Hence, law enforcement to solve crime in the USA; targeted killings in Mexico.
  - guelo 15y ago
    There used to be, the mob was practically running several cities and literally owned Las Vegas. It took many decades to reduce the threat.
    - InclinedPlane 15y ago
      That was because prohibition funneled gobs and gobs of money into the hands of criminals. See also: the current Mexican civil war.
  - jfoutz 15y ago
    The point i'm trying to make, the super glamorous "send in the military and take out the boss" kind of tactics are ultimately doomed to fail. You have to do the sucky work of grinding away at the base. a tax evasion conviction here, a conspiracy charge there. Keep enough pressure on the base of the pyramid that it starts getting a little tougher to find people willing to deal or be mules or enforcers or whatever. It's not a huge change, it just ups the cost of doing business a few percent, but that's a few percent that would be making a larger organization, that now they're spending staying the same size. Those sorts of tactics, over decades seem to really effectively grind down gangs. Swooping in with helicopters and m-16's is expensive and (i think) not very effective. Perhaps there's a counter example i'm overlooking. However, if you take the long view of the question how do you fight organized crime? I think you'll see the only effective solutions take generations. Just slowly tightening the noose around more and more unacceptable activities.
AJ007 15y ago
Plan Colombia worked = the problems in Mexico right now. The only way to fight criminals is to get them to go to another neighborhood.
- eipipuz 15y ago
  That's not accurate. the people and the way they work, is completely different. When colombia had problems, Mexico already was in its own track.
ruethewhirled 15y ago
"I would trust the professionalism and morality of an organization like the us military" Are you being sarcastic when you say that?
tintin 15y ago
The only way to fight these big organizations is to start at the bottom. Take a look at Libya for example. People at the top most of the time have the resources to hide and still run the company. But when there is nobody left that would like to work for them the will fall.