SuperDudeBT

Well, it was bloodless only because Hawaii had no forces to combat us with. Basically (this is only what I can remember), we dropped some special forces by air, and told queen Lil that it was ours. A coup d'etat. We wanted their sugar crops.

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TG-9th SuperDudeBT - Brandon
1x Lieutenant General, 1x Major General

Boot

Consider these facts about Old Mehiko before you decide if this is a good idea or not:

• Mexico has the highest incidence of kidnapping in the world, with an unofficial estimate of 3,000 kidnappings during 2004, some with alleged police involvement.
• At the national level, the rate of homicides varies between 11 and 14 per 100,000 people, depending on data from the justice or health sectors. This places Mexico slightly above the category of 10 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, which the World Health Organization considers “epidemic.”
• The issue of police corruption and collusion with drug cartels has been an ongoing problem. Some 400,000 police are employed in the country. In an attempt to keep themselves safe, citizens and business owners employ 75,000 private security guards annually.
• There have been credible reports that police, immigration, and customs officials are involved in trafficking of children and women who are often sold into prostitution.
• The movement of people, drugs, weapons, and other illegal substances is a major reason gang members come together in the southern border area. The Guatemalan National Police, the Mexican police, and the Consejo Municipal de Seguridad Pública from Tapachula all agree that in the southern border towns, at least 200 gangs of MS-13 and 18th Street gangs, with some 3,000 members, both Mexican and Central American, are operating.
• On the northern border... Criminal activity seems confined to the trafficking of drugs and people. Gangs, where they do exist, seem to be at the service of established drug cartels. In an interview with the press, one MS-13 leader stated that their job was now to protect the illegal immigrants, collect their fees, and ensure that no one else harmed them, or they themselves would be killed.
• In the Seligson survey for 2004, some two thirds of victims do not report the crime and only 37 percent of Mexicans believe that the judicial system will punish violators. Mexico has the highest levels of criminality in comparison to the other countries dealing with gang problems in Central America, so the fact that most people do not report crimes has an important social cost.

All facts above are quoted from a US Agency for International Development report.

The ones below are from the CIA world factbook.

• Mexico: major drug-producing nation
• major supplier of heroin and largest foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamine to the US market
• continues as the primary transshipment country for US-bound cocaine from South America, accounting for about 90% of estimated annual cocaine movement to the US
• major drug syndicates control majority of drug trafficking throughout the country
• producer and distributor of ecstasy
• significant money-laundering center

Mix all this in with crappy power and transportation infrastructures, per capita income of $10,100 -- 1/4 of that in the US, and 40% of the population living under the poverty line. Katrina cleanup is nothing compared to what we'd inherit in Mexico. This would be more in scope of what Western Europe inherited when the walls fell... but here we'd have active and wealthy gangs, better armed and suddenly with less borders to cross.

I say put the wall up. Faster.

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Boot.

In Soviet Russia, TV watches YOU.

leejo

Eh. Well I don't think they're going to solve this problem themselves. The US is going to have to transform their institutions. It is inevitbre....inevit, inevitabre...it's Inevitebre!

Boot

I don't think they're going to solve this problem. In fact, I don't think they want to solve this problem. The government has shown very little effort and zero effectiveness at going after the gangs, drug trafficking and corruption. They have shown some progress on home grown drugs, but they have not replaced the need for these activities with viable economic alternatives. Instead, they legalized drug possession on April 28th.

Vicente Fox has been trying to spend on infrastructure but his legislative body blocks the efforts. On par, these guys like what they have there. Maybe they'll change manana, but not until the money runs out.

But the money doesn't run out. The DEA estimates that up to $25 billion cash generated through drug sales in the US is laundered and repatriated back to or through Mexico. What's more, the US gives Mexico $20-30 million in foreign aid each year. In 1994 the US gave them $50 billion to bail out their economy. Basically, Mexico has every reason to see the US as a big pile of money. Just sit back, enjoy a siesta, and send a couple million people up north to bring back the cash.

Mexico is a beautiful place, with millions of fantastic people. I have family living there. But I get extremely frustrated with nation states that are happily corrupt and internationally disingenous. The problems in Mexico are deep, generational, and not something the US will be able to solve.

__________________
Boot.

In Soviet Russia, TV watches YOU.