MEXICAN CARTELS AND ARMS FOR UKRAINE
A couple of days ago, the Mexican journalist of the
television station Milenio, Azucena Uresti released a film[1] showing a member of the
Gulf Cartel (northeastern Mexico), carrying an anti-tank Javelin (although it
has been claimed on social media that it could also be an AT-4), of the same
type that the United States has been sending to Ukraine.
Such a weapon costs between 20 and 60 thousand dollars, which would not be
unusual in the case of Mexican cartels that usually buy very powerful weapons
from the United States, something that the Mexican government continually
demands from Washington (without any results), but rather that sophisticated
weapons that are supposed to reach their destination safely, in this
case the Ukrainian army, are being diverted to illegal actors. Like cartels,
and if so, it is not difficult that they may also be reaching armed groups in
different parts of the world.
There are even reports that the weapons allegedly
aimed at Ukraine are being received by organized crime gangs in Sweden,
Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands[2].
It is already worrying that the more than USD 100
billion that the United States has sent in military aid to Ukraine could be
being used by members of the Ukrainian army as a private business, so that it
is now falling into the hands of organized crime in different parts of the
world, thereby increasing the firepower of criminals and putting the
authorities of the countries where these weapons are received at a serious
disadvantage.
The Mexican case is significant, since the vast majority of the weapons that
the powerful Mexican drug cartels possess are obtained from the United States,
without the government of this country doing anything to prevent it.
However, right-wing Republican politicians like
Senator Lindsay Graham and Republican deputies in the House of Representatives
are pushing for a law (the H. R. 2) to designate Mexican cartels as
terrorist organizations, because of their role as smugglers of fentanyl into
the United States, which causes thousands of overdose deaths in that country.
With that law, the U. S. armed forces could be used against the cartels,
regardless of whether they are on Mexican soil.
President Biden has already said that if such a law is
passed by Congress, he would veto it. But even so, the mere fact that it is under
consideration by Congress puts the Mexican government against the wall, as it
would imply possible unilateral actions by the U. S. government that would
violate Mexican sovereignty, even if directed against criminal organizations.
The paradox of this possible designation of the Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations is that much of their firepower comes precisely from the US arms industry, including weapons that are supposed to be used to help Ukraine, and that because of the absolute lack of control over how they are being handed over to the government of that country, and because that government is considered one of the most corrupt in the world, arms are being diverted to criminal organizations, such as the Mexican drug cartels, which the US wants to designate as terrorists.
Great hypocrisy of the Washington government, which shamelessly sends billions
and billions of dollars in military equipment and weapons to a corrupt
government and armed forces made up of various groups with their own agendas,
such as the neo-Nazis (Azov); but on the other hand it is indignant at the
power of the Mexican drug cartels, to which its arms industry sells thousands
of them every year, and now arms supposedly aimed at Ukraine are also arriving.
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