Free Talk Live

A new monument was unveiled in Mexico on Friday to memorialize the tens of thousands of Mexicans and visitors killed since the start of the drug war in 2006.

MEXICO CITY—In the latest incident of drug-related violence to hit the country, all 111 million citizens of Mexico were killed Monday during a shoot-out between rival drug cartels.

Mexico’s drug cartels depend on smugglers to move their illicit wares. But to listen to the U.S. Border Patrol, you’d get the impression that most of the smugglers are Mexicans. In fact, most are born-in-the-USA Americans, as the cartels prefer that their mules look like Walter White. And the Border Patrol knows it.

There it was on video: Five heavily armed policemen barge into a hotel in western Mexico before dawn and march out with three handcuffed men in underwear. But police weren't making an arrest. Prosecutors say they apparently were taking orders from criminals. Just hours after the three were seized, they were found asphyxiated and beaten to death. Mexicans have become inured to lurid tales of police collaboration with narcotics gangs during 5 1/2 years of a drug war that has cost more than 47,500 lives.

American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.
Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that some victims were handcuffed before being killed.

In Mexico, where criminals are armed to the teeth with high-powered weapons smuggled from the United States, it may come as a surprise that the country has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world.

From the UK, more fodder for the debate over the US drone assassination campaign and the acceptability of killing citizens: In early February, a leaked white paper from the Obama Justice Department caused a small stir, because it laid out an expansive set of circumstances under which the president could order a citizen killed abroad. In September 2011, the US killed Al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both US citizens, and a few weeks later a US drone strike in Yemen also killed Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman.

Now 9 years into this occupation, coordination still remains a problem between NATO, US, and Afghan forces. Yahoo front page article contains disturbing quotes such as NATO commander Blitz "We were obviously not absolutely clear whether there were Afghan national security forces in the area."

Also last month was the deadliest for international forces since the war began, with 103 killed, including 60 Americans.

"We have in our country today a big presence of the Mexican cartels," Pryor said. "With about 50 percent of the nation's methamphetamine and marijuana coming through Mexico and about 90 percent of the cocaine, there is a huge financial incentive for cartels to try to corrupt our people."