Confident propagandists relentlessly play "Nothing to see here, move along."
Their don't-believe-your-eyes con game has despicable goals. No. 1: Suppress evident facts that expose their official worldview (narrative) as self-serving fantasy. No. 2: Buy time to peddle lies that blur the real-world situation that challenges their self-serving political, legal and economic agendas.
President Joe Biden's Jan. 8 outing in El Paso, Texas, was confident propaganda. He didn't see The Border -- a huge binational zone of chaos, human suffering and war of great strategic consequence we will examine in a moment. Instead, Confident Joe beheld sanitized areas in an American city. Prior to his arrival, cops and cleaning crews tore down illegal camps and moved migrants to out-of-sight holding areas.
Dishonest media failed to deplore this orchestrated case of "migrant cleansing" and very likely "people in cages" in out-of-sight places. But the scam helped Confident Joe suppress dreadful facts created by a porous border and hide the future-shaping war the U.S. and Mexico are both losing thanks to Confident Joe's far-Left-infected immigration and border security policies.
In early 2009 sensationalists claimed that Mexico was a failed state. Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa rebutted the accusation, pointing out the 2009 Mexican federal government was quite strong. Failed states have no real government.
At the time Mexico was having evident success in the Cartel War President Felipe Calderon launched in December 2006 after he decided Mexico's drug cartels posed more than a criminal challenge.
Calderon chose the Mexican military because it was his country's least corrupt institution. The Cartel War was and is a systemic struggle where political will and modernization were the decisive weapons. Winning for Mexico required systemic political and economic modernization. That meant corruption must be attacked and penalized. Endemic political, economic and judicial corruption shielded Mexican criminals. The cartels target the U.S. drug market. Multibillion-dollar drug profits in the U.S. give cartels political and cultural power within Mexico. Mexico needed U.S. security, political and moral aid. That would have required reform north of the border.
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President Enrique Pena (elected in 2012) had corruption issues and lacked Calderon's commitment. But he ended up using the military as his primary anti-cartel instrument.
December 2018: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) becomes president after winning an overwhelming electoral victory. In his inaugural address he invoked a word that transfixes Mexico: Impunity. Under his administration "Corruption and impunity" will end he said.
For angry and disenchanted Mexican citizens, "impunity" means embedded injustice within their nation's governing institutions and society.
Donald Trump gets credit for understanding a border wall not only hindered illegal immigration it obstructed cartel smuggling. AMLO eventually agreed that Trump's U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement was a good deal for Mexico -- real jobs and honest income.
The Jan. 5 shootout in Sinaloa state is a warning for Mexico that it still faces well-armed and well-financed internal enemies. Three days before Biden's El Paso photo op, 3,600 Mexican soldiers and security personnel captured Ovidio Guzman, the son of jailed Sinaloa (aka Pacific) cartel kingpin Joaquin Guzman. The operation resulted in a 10-hour battle with gunmen in a town near Culiacan. Security forces captured 50-caliber sniper rifles and two dozen vehicles with add-on armor.
Culiacan is 500 miles from the US-Mexico border but the cartel wages war throughout North America -- yes, the border war now reaches New York City. In December the DEA announced during 2022 the U.S. seized 50 million fentanyl-laced pills and 10,000 pounds of powder -- "379 million potentially deadly doses." The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels produced most of the fentanyl at "secret factories in Mexico with chemicals largely sourced from China."
When Biden opened the southern border, the cartels started using migrants to ship product. They also began making millions from human smuggling.
War on corruption? The cartel chiefs must chuckle at Hunter Biden's laptop revelations. So far Confident Joe's dishonest media pals have thwarted punishment.
An undefended U.S. border increases cartel profits and makes Mexico more vulnerable. Drugs, crime and social support costs sap the U.S. The demographic shifts present additional challenges.
Who benefits? Communist China, drug cartels and corrupt politicians. Quite a strategic consequence.
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