Read Online To Die in Mexico: Dispatches From Inside the Drug War by John Gibler - Free Book Online
Authors: John Gibler
Tags: General, Social Science, Mexico, History, Latin America, Political Science, Criminology, Law Enforcement, Violence in Society, International Relations, Globalization, Customs & Traditions
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might ask, what is the nature of the injury or ailment that causes this weakness?
And yet for all the cultural depth and uniqueness in attitudes, representations, and rituals of death in Mexico, it would be a mistake to look exclusively into Mexican history and culture to explain the particularly cruel and gruesome character or the increasing prevalence of drugland executions in Mexico.
“Any attempt to view it all with uniquely Mexican roots, rather than as part of something horizontal, global, is in error,” Claudio Lomnitz told me one afternoon in Mexico City. “In analyzing the forms of narco violence, Mexican history is not irrelevant, but it is necessary to know where it is relevant. Narco violence is related to other forms of violence and also influences them; the narcos import, but they also export. There is a dimension that is in dialogue with a globalized culture.”
The Zetas, widely considered the most spectacular, brazen, and heinous of all the hit men working in the narcotics marketplace, serve as a perfect example of Lomnitz’s point. The Zeta assassins first studied counterinsurgency strategies in the United States and Israel as part of the Mexican Special Forces. They also hired Guatemalan Special Forces soldiers known as Kaibiles—an institution that received decades of training in counterinsurgency tactics from the United States army—to serve in their ranks. The Zetas adopted Al Qaeda’s practice of video recording beheadings and posting the footage on YouTube. Other cartel assassins across Mexico soon followed their example.
It is an error to think that Mexico is either the principal location of or an isolated battlefield in the fiercely competitive global marketplace for illegal narcotics. Just like the trafficking of the drugs themselves and the prohibition policies against them, the drug market is transnational. Mexico’s current position in the so-called drug war can only be understood in a global context, taken together with the countries from which certain drugs originate and those where most drugs get sold to users and consumed, namely Colombia and Peru on the one hand, and the United States on the other, but also countries as far from Mexico as Argentina and Australia. Wherever drugs are banned by law and also grown, shipped, sold, smoked, swallowed, snorted, or injected the drug war zone extends its reach. 1
1 I take the term “drug war zone,” from Howard Campbell, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso, who defines the zone as “the transnational, fluid cultural space in which contending forces battle over the meaning, value, and control of drugs.”
Campbell’s 2009 book Drug War Zone: Frontline Dispatches from the Streets of El Paso and Juárez contains in-depth interviews with direct participants in what is now the bloodiest corner of the global drug war zone. Campbell speaks with retailers, wholesalers, smugglers, police, consumers, and witnesses to executions, all from varying backgrounds and life experiences. His introduction provides lucid definitions of several key concepts in the drug war zone, rare clarity that is useful in stepping into a world where, as Campbell writes, “The conflict is waged sometimes in the open, but more often in a clandestine, subterranean world, a social space in which truth is elusive and relative and in which paranoia, fear, and mystery are the orders of the day.”
First, consider the notion of “drug trafficking” itself, which, Campbell writes, “is an illegal form of capitalist accumulation. In some cases, it is an almost caricatured celebration of consumerism and wealth . . . facilitated by neoliberalism and collusion with elements of the state. . . . I argue that ultimately the drug trade is part of the U.S. and Mexican economic systems.” This should not come as much of a shock, but it is useful to keep at hand as a simple, clear definition of a complex and purposefully obfuscated transnational
And yet for all the cultural depth and uniqueness in attitudes, representations, and rituals of death in Mexico, it would be a mistake to look exclusively into Mexican history and culture to explain the particularly cruel and gruesome character or the increasing prevalence of drugland executions in Mexico.
“Any attempt to view it all with uniquely Mexican roots, rather than as part of something horizontal, global, is in error,” Claudio Lomnitz told me one afternoon in Mexico City. “In analyzing the forms of narco violence, Mexican history is not irrelevant, but it is necessary to know where it is relevant. Narco violence is related to other forms of violence and also influences them; the narcos import, but they also export. There is a dimension that is in dialogue with a globalized culture.”
The Zetas, widely considered the most spectacular, brazen, and heinous of all the hit men working in the narcotics marketplace, serve as a perfect example of Lomnitz’s point. The Zeta assassins first studied counterinsurgency strategies in the United States and Israel as part of the Mexican Special Forces. They also hired Guatemalan Special Forces soldiers known as Kaibiles—an institution that received decades of training in counterinsurgency tactics from the United States army—to serve in their ranks. The Zetas adopted Al Qaeda’s practice of video recording beheadings and posting the footage on YouTube. Other cartel assassins across Mexico soon followed their example.
It is an error to think that Mexico is either the principal location of or an isolated battlefield in the fiercely competitive global marketplace for illegal narcotics. Just like the trafficking of the drugs themselves and the prohibition policies against them, the drug market is transnational. Mexico’s current position in the so-called drug war can only be understood in a global context, taken together with the countries from which certain drugs originate and those where most drugs get sold to users and consumed, namely Colombia and Peru on the one hand, and the United States on the other, but also countries as far from Mexico as Argentina and Australia. Wherever drugs are banned by law and also grown, shipped, sold, smoked, swallowed, snorted, or injected the drug war zone extends its reach. 1
1 I take the term “drug war zone,” from Howard Campbell, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso, who defines the zone as “the transnational, fluid cultural space in which contending forces battle over the meaning, value, and control of drugs.”
Campbell’s 2009 book Drug War Zone: Frontline Dispatches from the Streets of El Paso and Juárez contains in-depth interviews with direct participants in what is now the bloodiest corner of the global drug war zone. Campbell speaks with retailers, wholesalers, smugglers, police, consumers, and witnesses to executions, all from varying backgrounds and life experiences. His introduction provides lucid definitions of several key concepts in the drug war zone, rare clarity that is useful in stepping into a world where, as Campbell writes, “The conflict is waged sometimes in the open, but more often in a clandestine, subterranean world, a social space in which truth is elusive and relative and in which paranoia, fear, and mystery are the orders of the day.”
First, consider the notion of “drug trafficking” itself, which, Campbell writes, “is an illegal form of capitalist accumulation. In some cases, it is an almost caricatured celebration of consumerism and wealth . . . facilitated by neoliberalism and collusion with elements of the state. . . . I argue that ultimately the drug trade is part of the U.S. and Mexican economic systems.” This should not come as much of a shock, but it is useful to keep at hand as a simple, clear definition of a complex and purposefully obfuscated transnational
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