Tags
arms smuggling, iron river, Latin America, mass migration, narcotics, North America, transnational crime, violence
This post continues my practice of trying to make accessible and somewhat permanent useful observation composed in passing elsewhere online or in correspondence. In short Twitterese, I’ve diagrammed the argument as, approximately (NA=North America; LA=Latin America), “NA cash->LA narcotics->NA; NA arms->LA cartel & gang violence->migrants->NA.” Close enough. “NA”=”North America”, of course, and “LA”=”Latin America”.
Here follows an online comment already made plus short associated and supporting reference.
Our narcotics habits and black market enthusiasms fuel the cartels and gangs of Latin America, and those are not known for healthy governing practices. The abused, impoverished, terrified, and threatened migrate to El Norte where they believe there will be at least better security, order, and rule-of-law.
We Americans (and Canadians) are not only a powerful market for everything that may be obtained only through smuggling, we’ve had a business going in running arms into Latin America (along with all the outlaws of the world). Term for exploration on the web: “America, arms, iron river”. I have collected articles on the subject dating back to 2007.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/opinion/international-world/guns-mexico.html (2021)
The sad truth about my Fellow Americans is that we’re greedy as sin, –or desperate and both–and we pay a high price for it x addictions x homelessness x social failures x social pathologies. Neither our Far Out Left nor Rabid Reactionary Right seems to have a clue as regards the full ecology of corruption, crime, narcotics, trafficked labor (2nd largest abuse of all), and above all our most prized possession: money–would that our ethics, principles, values, and general American spirit modify the national appetite for good times and loot.
Related Online
Abbany, Zulfikar. “Report: EU spends 31 billion on illicit drugs.” DW, April 5, 2016.
Gaynor, Tim. “‘Iron river of guns’ flows from U.S. to Mexico.” Reuters, July 13, 2007.
Grillo, Loan. “Slow the Iron River of Guns to Mexico.” The New York Times, February 26, 2021.
Oppenheim, James S. “An American Report Card.” BackChannels, October 4, 2019.
VICE News. “How the US Fuels Mexican Cartel Violence.” Video. YouTube, August 22, 2021.
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