Mexico Imposes Martial Law Lite. Still.

“Some 310,000 police from Mexico’s 31 states and the Federal District will stage next week the first-ever nationally coordinated operation against street crime, the National Conference of Governors said,” laht.com reports. “Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, who holds the conference’s rotating chairmanship, said the deployment will take place June 13-19.” I know calling the police crackdown martial law is a bit of a stretch, as the American-rifle-equipped Mexican cops aren’t controlled by the military. But the idea that the “exercise” wasn’t approved by the Mexican military is ridiculous. The idea that it will have any effect on the lawlessness which grips our neighbor to the south is even more absurd. To wit . . .

The plan aims to attack vehicle theft, robbery and sales of stolen property, as well as to recover vehicles reported as stolen, Ebrard said.

It will also combat kidnapping, attempt to dismantle criminal gangs and will check the ownership of vehicles with darkened polarized windows or without license plates, he said.

The capital mayor promised that the operation “will get results” that will be announced on June 20.

Mexico has 427,354 police agents among its federal, state and municipal forces, of whom 45.87 percent are state troopers.

Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle has an interview with a self-professed drug trafficker who says that the drug cartels are staging gladiatorial death matches to choose hit men—or just for the hell of it. If any of his account is true, Mexico and Mad Max have morphed.

If what he says is true, gangsters who make commonplace beheadings, hangings and quartering bodies have managed an even crueler twist to their barbarity.

Members of the Zetas cartel, he says, have pushed passengers into an ancient Rome-like blood sport with a modern Mexico twist that they call, “Who is going to be the next hit man?”

“They cut guys to pieces,” he said.
The victims are likely among the hundreds of people found in mass graves in recent months, he said.

In the vicinity of the Mexican city of San Fernando, nearly 200 bodies were unearthed from pits, and authorities said most appeared to have died of blunt force head trauma.
Many are believed to have been dragged off buses traveling through Mexico, but little has been said about the circumstances of their deaths.

The trafficker said those who survive are taken captive and eventually given suicide missions, such as riding into a town controlled by rivals and shooting up the place.

As for the military, Juan said, “They are not helping,” noting that the soldiers, like the gangsters, seem to kill whoever they want.

And we’re worried about the Taliban?