This is a timeline as published by Reuters on May 20, 2009. While a casual observer may look on this as "merely" drug smuggling, this truly fits all defintions of a war. A war that has been steadily escalating for almost a decade. While the figure of 15,000 dead is obviously shocking, the fact that the number of dead has been steadily rising every year is more disheartening. 1500, 2300, 3000, 6300, every year up and up. With little other prospects, finding troops is not a problem for Joaquin Guzman. Some estimates put the drug trades value at up to $50 Billion Dollars a year. If you put that figure next to what the Mexican and American Governments are spending to fight the war it is apparent that this conflict is no where near its end. In fact, this may be a conflict that has no end.



May 20 (Reuters) - As drug violence flares on a new front in northern Mexico, following is a timeline of the key events in a drug war that has killed more than 15,000 people since 2005.

2001 - Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, escapes from a Mexican prison in a laundry van. Mexico's most-wanted drug lord, he puts together a coalition of drug gangs from the western state of Sinaloa and vows to take control of Mexico's $40 billion-a-year drugs trade.

2002 - Police weaken the Tijuana cartel, which operates across from southern California, by killing leading drug lord Ramon Arellano Felix in Sinaloa and arresting his brother, Benjamin.

2003 - Mexican soldiers capture Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas at a party after a huge street shootout between troops and hitmen in the border city of Matamoros.

2004 - Trying to take advantage of Cardenas' arrest, Guzman sends well armed enforcers to the border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros to try to take over Gulf cartel smuggling routes into Texas. Heavy fighting breaks out before Guzman is eventually repelled.

2005 - Guzman now seeks control of Tijuana and trafficking routes into California. Violence escalates across Mexico and about 1,500 people die in 2005.

2006 - Violence spreads to the beach resort of Acapulco, the industrial city of Monterrey and Michoacan in western Mexico, the home state of President Felipe Calderon who takes office on Dec. 1 and sends troops and federal police to stem the violence in Michoacan, which was sparked by Guzman's territorial ambitions. The drug violence death toll rises to 2,300 and brutalities like beheadings and torture increase.

2007 - Calderon sends troops to Tijuana and across Mexico. Mexico extradites Gulf cartel leader Cardenas to the United States and makes a historic 23-tonne cocaine seizure. U.S. President George W. Bush pledges $1.4 billion in drug-fighting equipment for Mexico and Central America. Violence escalates and leads to more than 3,000 deaths in the year.

2008 - Guzman takes on the Juarez cartel in Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, and the Mexican city becomes the bloodiest flashpoint in the drug war. Mexico captures hundreds of drug gang members and disrupts smuggling routes, but some 6,300 people are killed across Mexico in the year.

2009 - Killings continue apace. Calderon sends an extra 10,000 troops to Ciudad Juarez and says the surge cut drug murders there by up to 80 percent. Violence spills into U.S. border cities Phoenix and Tucson. President Barack Obama visits Mexico City and vows to clamp down on smuggled U.S. weapons that feed the violence. Mexico captures more drug barons, but violence flares in new fronts like northern Durango state. (Reporting by Robin Emmott) (To read a related story on the violence in Durango, please click on: [nN20507656])

Mexican Drug Wars Keep Spring Breakers From Heading South of the Border

This article shows the danger and violence that has erupted in Mexico due to recent drug cartel conflicts. Many students who, under normal circumstances, would vacation down there during spring break have had a change of heart due to the recent elevation in drug violence. Mexico relies greatly on its income from tourism, which could be in jeopardy if people feel as if Mexico is not longer a safe vacation destination.

Thursday, March 13, 2008
By Maggie Lineback

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SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — For college students, March Madness usually means basketball and Spring Break. But on South Padre Island in Texas, March Madness is taking on a whole new meaning.

Students there say the real madness would be to take the traditional 30-minute trip to the Mexican border for the popular "Two-Nation Vacation."

News of gun battles between Mexican soldiers and drug cartels in border cities are keeping tourists away and prompting many parents to dole out a stern warning: "Don't go to Mexico."

Bryanna Lindblom is visiting for a few days from University of Central Missouri, and she says she wouldn't think of going to Mexico. "I think my mom would freak out," she says. "She'd probably have a little bit of a cow."

It's easy to see why parents are concerned.

In Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, machine-gun-toting Mexican soldiers have been deployed to the border in armored personnel carriers to quell drug cartel violence. The situation is the same in other Mexican border towns. But the sight of armed men patrolling the streets makes many visitors nervous.

As a result, local businesses that depend on tourist traffic to Mexico say they are really hurting this year.

Debra Fassold's family has been running the Original Tours company since the 1970s. Fassold says she used to have 10 to 20 trips from South Padre Island to Matamoros, Mexico, each day. But now she says she doesn't have enough customers for even one tour.

One visit to the border crossing in nearby Brownsville confirms that Spring Breakers are staying in South Padre. A border guard said he'd seen only two kids go across the entire day.

The U.S. State Department is warning American visitors to Matamoros and Nuevo Progresso to "be especially aware of safety and security concerns due to increased violence in recent years between rival drug trafficking gangs," although they say that it's "unlikely that American visitors would get caught up in the violence."

Fassold goes further and notes that you're just as likely to be a victim of violence in any American city. "If you go on a tour and you see, it's safe over there," she said.

Many college kids in South Padre said that with all the parties, girls and deejays spinning on every block on the American side of the border, there was no reason to risk a trip to Mexico.

Said Evan Bookstaff, a University of Texas student: "Is it really worth the extra 30 miles when you can have fun here?"

FOX News correspondent Kris Gutierrez and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

DEA Continues Project Coronado

Here is an update on the Project Coronado, the Drug Enforcement Administration's massive operation aimed at curbing the Mexican drug cartels infiltration of the United States. This type of news is encouraging. Although, as most war on drugs conducted in the past, there may not be enough resources available to deal with the shear mass of these cartels influence. Hopefully these efforts will have more effect than shoveling sand against the tide.

DEA Announces Largest Single U.S. Strike Against Mexican Drug Cartels
Project Coronado results in 1,186 arrests and huge drug and money
seizures against one of the world's most violent drug cartels

OCT 22 -- WASHINGTON – DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart joined Attorney General Eric Holder and other federal officials today to announce the results of "Project Coronado", a 44-month multi-agency law enforcement investigation which targeted the La Familia Michoacana drug cartel. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and ATF Acting Director Kenneth E. Melson also participated in the announcement.

Yesterday and today, 303 individuals in 19 states were arrested in a series of takedowns through coordination between federal, state and local law enforcement. More than 3,000 agents and officers operated across the United States to make the arrests during the two-day takedown. 62 kilograms of cocaine, 729 pounds of methamphetamine, 967 pounds of marijuana, 144 weapons, 109 vehicles, and 2 clandestine drug labs were also seized in the past two days.

“Project Coronado, our massive assault on the La Familia Cartel, is part of our continued fight against all of the powerful Mexico-based drug cartels,” said DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “This organization, the newest of Mexican cartels, is directly responsible for a vast majority of the methamphetamine pouring into our country across our Southwest Border, and has had a hand in fueling the cycle of violence that is wracking Mexico today. DEA, along with our U.S. and Mexican partners, are committed to strategically attacking the international and domestic drug trade with every tool at our disposal, and defeating those that thrive on the suffering of others.”

The La Familia cartel is a violent drug trafficking cartel based in the state of Michoacan, in southwestern Mexico. According to court documents, La Familia controls drug manufacturing and distribution in and around Michoacan, including the importation of vast quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine from Mexico into the United States. La Familia is philosophically opposed to the sale of methamphetamine to Mexicans, and instead supports its export to the United States for consumption by Americans. La Familia is a heavily armed cartel that has utilized violence to support its narcotics trafficking business including murders, kidnappings and assaults. According to one indictment unsealed in New York, associates of La Familia based in the United States have allegedly acquired military-grade weapons, including assault weapons and ammunition, and have arranged for them to be smuggled back into Mexico for use by La Familia. Individuals indicted in the cases are charged with a variety of crimes, including: conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana; distribution of methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana; conspiracy to import narcotics into the United States; money laundering; and other violations of federal law. Numerous defendants face forfeiture allegations as well.

To date, Project Coronado has led to the arrest of 1,186 individuals and the seizure of approximately $33 million in U.S. currency, 1,999 kilograms of cocaine, 2,730 pounds of methamphetamine, 29 pounds of heroin, 16,390 pounds of marijuana, 389 weapons, 269 vehicles, and two clandestine drug labs.

Here locally in San Diego, 13 arrests were made, along with the seizure of 13 pounds of methamphetamine, 1 kilogram of cocaine, several pounds of marijuana and 6 weapons. For questions concerning San Diego activity, please contact Public Information Officer Amy Roderick, (858) 616-4166. For national information and questions, please call DEA Public Affairs, (202) 307-7977.

An indictment is merely an allegation and is not evidence of guilt. A defendant is entitled to a fair trial in which it will be the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

10 Shocking Facts about the Mexican Drug War

I found this list on the Huffington Post, dated May 16, 2009. This list is a good snapshot at some of the horrific things happening in this conflict. The Mexican drug war is a direct threat to our national security. This war is not happening half way around the world, it is happening in a country that borders ours. It already affects many of our major cities. These cartels are like cancers, they gain a foothold in our cities, then spread uncontrollably. As we all do our research, I think we will all realize, this is one of our most important national security issues.

In anticipation of President Obama's trip south this week--first to Mexico on Thursday and then to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago from Friday to Sunday--here are 10 shocking facts about the Mexican drug war from the international new site Globalpost.

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1. A recent U.S. government report suggests that "Two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico."

2. Mexico has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world: An average of 70 people are abducted each month.

3. More than 1,100 guns found discarded at Mexico shooting scenes or confiscated from cartel gangsters were traced to Texas gun merchants in 2007.

4. One of Mexico's most notorious drug kingpins, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, escaped a maximum security prison in 2001 by driving out in a laundry truck.

5. This year Forbes magazine included Joaquin Guzman on its annual billionaires' list.

6. A drug cartel hood named "The Cook" reportedly dissolved the bodies of 300 victims in acid as part of the grisly work he committed for crime bosses.

7. The FBI has reported 75 open cases of Americans kidnapped in Mexico.

8. In a poll by the daily newspaper La Reforma, Mexico City residents ranked public insecurity as a worse crisis than the economy by a 5-1 margin. In the past year, 20 percent were crime victims.

9. In the past year, Mexico's civil drug war has claimed some 6,300 lives.

10. Grammy-nominated singer Sergio Gomez was kidnapped and his genitals were burned with a blowtorch in December 2007, presumably for singing narco corrido, or "drug ballads."