Casino set ablaze, allegedly over protection payments, Calderon blasts US for it

Casino set ablaze, allegedly over protection payments, Calderon blasts US for it

Mexico's premier blasts US after casino massacre (MSNBC)

"We're neighbors, we're allies, we're friends, but you are also responsible," a somber and angry Calderon said.

 

It is assumed the attack was carried out by the Zetas cartel, who allegedly set fire to the casino because the owners had not paid some $10,000 a week the organization had demanded, government officials told Excelsior.

 

"It's clear that we are not confronting common criminals, we are confronting true terrorists," Calderon said in a televised speech after meeting his security advisers.

That last statement by the president of our neighbor to the south is in stark disagreement with one of his guys. There was an, uhh, argument -- or, rationalization worthy of an immature, 13-year-old, stoned hippie cult member, not a nation's representative -- by Mexico ambassador to the U.S., Arturo Sarukhan in a letter to the Dallas Morning News in which he referred to drug cartel leaders as a type of businessman, stressing that they were not any sort of terrorist (see http://totally-political.blogspot.com/2011/04/morally-corrupted-yeah-that-fits-choose.html). 

So, is that Carlos Slim billionaire dude who's invested in the New York Times one of these "businessmen", too?

I'm glad Calderon calls them terrorists, but how'd the U.S. drug lust fit into the protection money racket, exactly? I'm not doubting that druggie losers int eh U.S. are helping build up the Mexican cartels, but I don't think this casino burned because some junkie in El Paso was lighting up a glass pipe. That is a lawlessness of another kind entirely. It's called owning your turf. We had a lot of that in this country about 80 years ago, when folks like Al Capone were chewing up enemies. 

- jR (aka AirFarceOne -- Twitter)

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