Severed head of investigator in Lake Falcon case delivered in suitcase to military

[Ronstang]

How do you function in daily life?

Government check.

 

[Corn]

I guess he won't be heading the investigation anymore...

You win the best pun of the day award!

 

[hal2kilo]

They make the old mafia look like a bunch of Percy Dovetonsils

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmEuK_UNwSs

 

[Zebo]

Like the real wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

No that's a pathetic waste or MIC enrichment project depending on your point of view. You need to adopt methods like Taliban used or we used to use. Intimidation, torture, and brutal collective punishment tactics work. Proof is 98 percent of all crimes in Mexico go unpunished, according to CSM story I read today about this. Just turn the tables.

 

[lothar]

A decriminalization effort should include the government having a program to help cartel criminals move into normal legal society with employment.

You make it seem like the people participating in the drug trade do so because of unemployment or because they're poor.

I'm sure they make more money in the drug trade than GM pays it's factory workers in Mexico.
What government jobs do you plan to provide to them that will replace their 5, 6, and 7 figure salaries of the drug cartels?

News Flash: They are not smuggling drugs because they have a hard time finding employment in normal society.

 

[her209]

30 Years of the War on Drugs
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/cron/

 

[Craig234]

You make it seem like the people participating in the drug trade do so because of unemployment or because they're poor.

I'm sure they make more money in the drug trade than GM pays it's factory workers in Mexico.
What government jobs do you plan to provide to them that will replace their 5, 6, and 7 figure salaries of the drug cartels?

News Flash: They are not smuggling drugs because they have a hard time finding employment in normal society.

Actually, that's not the issue. You could be right, or they could have a terrible time finding work in Mexico (remember 10% of Mexico's population is here illegally).

I'm not saying to attract them away from the profitable drug trade by offering them more.

I'm saying, when you get rid of much of the drug trade, have a plan for their transitioning back to society - so they are less motivated to remain criminals in other areas.

You know, the old 'all they know is crime' excuse for recidivism, creating a huge pool of criminal labor making new criminal organizations that much easier.

Here is a story for you about something a little bit similar - how Yassir Arafat dealt with disbanding the elite terrorist unit Black September, instead of just killing them.

An excerpt from an article in the Atlantic Monthly (see my sig):

http://www.peace.ca/howterroristsstoppedterrorism.htm

The problem, however, was that Black September had served its purpose. The
PLO and its chairman had the recognition and acceptance they craved. Indeed,
any continuation of these terrorist activities, ironically, now threatened
to undermine all that had been achieved. In short, Black September was,
suddenly, not a deniable asset but a potential liability. Thus, according to
my host, Arafat ordered Abu Iyad "to turn Black September off." My host, who
was one of Abu Iyad's most trusted deputies, was charged with devising a
solution. For months both men thought of various ways to solve the Black
September problem, discussing and debating what they could possibly do,
short of killing all these young men, to stop them from committing further
acts of terror.

Finally they hit upon an idea. Why not simply marry them off? In other
words, why not find a way to give these men -- the most dedicated,
competent, and implacable fighters in the entire PLO -- a reason to live
rather than to die? Having failed to come up with any viable alternatives,
the two men put their plan in motion.

They traveled to Palestinian refugee camps, to PLO offices and associated
organizations, and to the capitals of all Middle Eastern countries with
large Palestinian communities. Systematically identifying the most
attractive young Palestinian women they could find, they put before these
women what they hoped would be an irresistible proposition: Your fatherland
needs you. Will you accept a critical mission of the utmost importance to
the Palestinian people? Will you come to Beirut, for a reason to be
disclosed upon your arrival, but one decreed by no higher authority than
Chairman Arafat himself? How could a true patriot refuse?

So approximately a hundred of these beautiful young women were brought to
Beirut. There, in a sort of PLO version of a college mixer, boy met girl,
boy fell in love with girl, boy would, it was hoped, marry girl. There was
an additional incentive, designed to facilitate not just amorous connections
but long-lasting relationships. The hundred or so Black Septemberists were
told that if they married these women, they would be paid $3,000; given an
apartment in Beirut with a gas stove, a refrigerator, and a television; and
employed by the PLO in some nonviolent capacity. Any of these couples that
had a baby within a year would be rewarded with an additional $5,000.

Both Abu Iyad and the future general worried that their scheme would never
work. But, as the general recounted, without exception the Black
Septemberists fell in love, got married, settled down, and in most cases
started a family. To make sure that none ever strayed, the two men devised a
test. Periodically, the former terrorists would be handed legitimate
passports and asked to go to the organization's offices in Geneva or Paris
or some other city on genuine nonviolent PLO business. But, the general
explained, not one of them would agree to travel abroad, for fear of being
arrested and losing all that they had -- that is, being deprived of their
wives and children. "And so," my host told me, "that is how we shut down
Black September and eliminated terrorism. It is the only successful case
that I know of."

In the years since, as terrorism has itself become more egregiously lethal
and destructive, seemingly more intractable and unrelenting, I have thought
often of that story, and I suspect that it is a less far-fetched plan for
combating terrorism than it at first seems. The authorities in Northern
Ireland, for example, pursued a somewhat similar strategy during the years
before the current cease-fire. Hard-core IRA and Loyalist terrorists serving
long prison sentences were often given brief furloughs during holiday
periods. The men to whom this privilege was accorded were carefully
selected. They were mostly in their thirties, and therefore at a time in
their lives when the perceived immortality of youth has been superseded by
the dawning realization of death's inevitability, if not for themselves,
then certainly for their parents.

Once at home with their families, these men, as the authorities had
correctly calculated, developed a keen appreciation of elderly parents whom
they might never see again once they were returned to prison, and also of
children growing up too fast and of still young and attractive wives wasting
their lives waiting. When the men returned to prison, they were asked if
they would be interested in an expedited release. The Northern Ireland
Office relied on a combination of factors to wean these men from terrorism:
family pressure to forsake violence and secure an early release and the
men's having seen with their own eyes how much the province had changed. To
qualify for this form of parole, the men were required to move out of
segregated prison wings (where they lived with only fellow IRA or Loyalist
prisoners) and into fully integrated cell blocks, where Protestants and
Catholics mixed freely -- and nonviolently. This was a critical first step
on the road to parole, followed by vocational training (not provided in
segregated wings), counseling, and more-frequent family visits and
furloughs. No one who had taken advantage of this opportunity for early
parole ever returned to violence or to prison. The program was so successful
that the option could be offered to only a limited number of prisoners, lest
the terrorist organizations, fearing the loss of too many senior veterans
and commanders, forbid their members to participate in the program. To a
great extent, accordingly, the climate of peace that emerged in Northern
Ireland in the mid-1990s may have owed as much to the creativity and
foresight of the Northern Ireland Prison Service as to the political
dexterity and visions of Gerry Adams and David Trimble or Martin McGuinness
and Senator George Mitchell.

The lesson here is not that the United States should host a series of mixers
in the Arab world in hopes of encouraging the young men of al Qaeda or other
terrorist organizations to forsake violence and embrace family life. Rather,
the lesson is that clever, creative thinking can sometimes achieve
unimaginable ends. Indeed, rather than concentrating on eliminating
organizations, as we mostly do in our approach to countering terrorism, we
should perhaps focus at least some of our attention on weaning individuals
from violence.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Let us turn this question around, suppose the the severed head of Guitar Daddy turned up somewhere.

Did his parents do it out of the shame of their parentage, or did some significant other do it, or did Mexican drug cartels do it? Or is it none of the above?

Speculation leads us no where, we need hard facts and not headless Guitar Daddy speculation. Guitar Daddy, what is the use of you having a head if you don't bother to use your brain?

So it was a secrect Isreali conspiracy?

And leave my severed head out of this

 

[werepossum]

You make it seem like the people participating in the drug trade do so because of unemployment or because they're poor.

I'm sure they make more money in the drug trade than GM pays it's factory workers in Mexico.
What government jobs do you plan to provide to them that will replace their 5, 6, and 7 figure salaries of the drug cartels?

News Flash: They are not smuggling drugs because they have a hard time finding employment in normal society.

All problems are due to an insufficiency of government. If you reach near-100 percent government and things are not yet Nirvana (e.g. Cuba, North Korea), then the problem is the existence of other nations who, because of their own willful insufficiency of government, exert an evil influence that prevents those countries with a proper 100 percent government from achieving their proper Nirvana (e.g. America.)

Craig did tell a great inspirational tale though, about how a man who really wanted to terrorize and murder non-Muslims somehow miraculously managed to integrate a group who really, really wanted to terrorize and murder non-Muslims. Will Arafat's greatness not stop growing even after death?

 

[shira]

Sadly it may take a real war now to put an end to the cartels.

No war will ever put an end to the cartels as long as drugs remain illegal. The insane profits made possible by relegating drug sales to the black market are a much stronger force than the fear of imprisonment and death, and if one major criminal group is defeated another will quickly rise up in its place.

The only way to end the carnage, greatly reduce the U.S prison population, end corruption of law enforcement, unburden the criminal-justice system, stop destroying lives, fund meaningful anti-drug-use programs, and even make a profit for government is to legalize non-public, adult use of the major illicit drugs (MJ, cocaine, opium, heroin, and possibly even methamphetamines) and regulate/tax sales at the state and federal levels.

But that's just too damned rational.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

how about we hold these banks accountable for laundering all this drug money.......ooops can't do that....without world economic collapse.

 

[lothar]

All problems are due to an insufficiency of government. If you reach near-100 percent government and things are not yet Nirvana (e.g. Cuba, North Korea), then the problem is the existence of other nations who, because of their own willful insufficiency of government, exert an evil influence that prevents those countries with a proper 100 percent government from achieving their proper Nirvana (e.g. America.)

Craig did tell a great inspirational tale though, about how a man who really wanted to terrorize and murder non-Muslims somehow miraculously managed to integrate a group who really, really wanted to terrorize and murder non-Muslims. Will Arafat's greatness not stop growing even after death?

Similar to how Hugo Chavez is blaming "The West" for the problems he created in Venezuela through price controls leading to food shortages and causing rampant hyper-inflation?

 

[lothar]

Here is a story for you about something a little bit similar - how Yassir Arafat dealt with disbanding the elite terrorist unit Black September, instead of just killing them.

An excerpt from an article in the Atlantic Monthly (see my sig):

http://www.peace.ca/howterroristsstoppedterrorism.htm

If that was such a successful strategy, why didn't Arafat and the PLO offer that to Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and other Palestinian terrorist organizations?

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is an armed fraction of Fatah, just like Black September was. Why would they offer that to Black September and not Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades? or the other Palestinian terrorist organizations?