Originally Posted By: americafyeah
Originally Posted By: SmearyGoose1768
Originally Posted By: americafyeah
the cartels are based in mexico,they have no organization or real power in the u.s. there is no Sinaloa,zetas,gulf etc cartel on u.s. soil. they might send 1 individual across the border to speak on their behalf,and farm out sales to a u.s. based gang,but taht's the extent of it.their activity in the US is very limited. there's no region of the u.s. that the cartels control,like the lcn does.secondly, if you want to consider Mexican cartels oc,then you'd have to change the definition of organized crime. think about it like this,if lcn were to start hanging headless torsos from freeway overpasses,kidnap and disappear pacifist college student protestors, catholic priests,and kill civilians indiscriminately,with mass graves throughout the country,etc would they still considered organized crime,or rightly called a terrist organization?the Taliban also control the opium trade,and have an expansive and profitable drug network that rivals any cartel,including sinaloa.but you wouldn't call the Taliban oc,same should apply to the cartels. i don't consider them oc,and drug trafficking alone doesn't make you a legimiate oc group. kidnapping,ransoms,political assassinations,and their other activities are more akin to terrist activities than oc.

You keep bringing up violence on the innocent by the cartels to say they are a terrorist organization and not OC but the flaw with your argument or logic is that EVERY organization or criminal organization has killed innocents before even the LCN. EVERY single one of them. So that makes them terrorists too? Like I said a big difference between the cartels in Mexico and OC in general outside the U.S is that typically organized crime groups corrupt the institutions, government and police or law enforcement. "Terorists" groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda typically take over not just control the area they operate. It's a complete take over of the government and they implement their own laws like Sharia and other extremist Islamic practices on the local population. It's a complete take over and not corruption what makes the key difference here. Also terrorist groups aren't part of the social fabric and economy like the cartels. They operate on the fringes of society and aren't rooted into society like the cartels have done. The same can be applied to all classified terrorist groups like FARC, Taliban, Al Qaeda all of them were usually or are foreign or outside groups not are not rooted into society. Again the key difference between an OC groups like the cartels and terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and Taliban is that the cartels corrupt the local government and police while the Taliban take over the area and govern the populace with their ideology and practices like Sharia Law.


i agree on some points. but,there are unwritten rules and codes of conduct even among the underworld and the cartels break them all.it's a documented fact,zetas and other cartels have raped and tortured women. here's just 1 well known example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_San_Fernando_massacre
and target innocents on a large-scale. other oc groups in the past have killed innocents,but it's usually an exception to the rule, because they werein debt,or at times collateral damage. the cartels widespread use of torture,and beheadings,puts themon par with islamic terrists. what would you consider the "plazas"? isn't it essentially a complete takeover? it's true theycorrupt police and govt in order to establish themselvesin these plazas.so,while cartels haven't completely taken over the govt,i think it's fair to say the cartels have free reign in the plazas. there's been several instances of vigilante groups popping up,in response to the cartels imposing extortion and intimidation tactics on the local populace.so no,they haven't managed to completely takeover the entire country but like terrists they fight challenge the govt's authority,you've posted several examples of shootouts between cartels and mexican army,or marines.cartels,like the taliban,isis,undermine the govt.organized crime gorups generaly don't

It's true that the Mexican cartels pose a threat to the legitimatazy of the government to some extent(like every OC group does) but like I said the Mexican cartels don't behead and display bodies of their rivals to terrorize or intimidate the public. Terrorist organizations like the Taliban (do and it's often civilians not police or soldiers they captured), they do so to make an example of people that don't follow their form of government or Sharia Law. When I mean take over I meant the Taliban and other terror organizations take over by force and replace and take over the local government with Sharia Law to implement to the daily lives of the citizens living under their control. The Mexican cartels don't do that, they just want to operate with as little interference as possible. The average everyday citizen living in these 'plazas" isn't affected unlike living under the Taliban where women can't go to school, have to be covered up, can't leave the house, men can't shave their beard etc. and when someone breaks their law(Sharia) they get punished for it and sometimes it means death. What I am trying to say is that the cartels don't implement some sort of law unto citizens like the Taliban and the reason for the violence and public display of bodies are for different reasons and objectives. Not all "plazas" the cartels have free reign and it's mainly on their main "plazas" or head quarters, they still get tackled by state, federal and army/marines though they have corrupted and sometimes infiltrated the state, federal police, and army in some cases except the Marines which makes the crackdown on the cartels less effective than it should. Also not because they have free reign doesn't mean they don't have rules, several captains and bosses in the Gulf Cartel have been killed by the same Gulf Cartel for kidnapping and raping women like "Cleaofas" a Gulf Cartel boss. He raped a young women for days and got whacked because of it. There are many more instances of things like this happening at Borderland Beat. Also the cartels don't target civils, the San Fernando massacre got international headlines but what they didn't report is that at that time Los Zetas and Gulf Cartel were fighting Allende, Ciudad Mier, San Fernando and other small towns that lead to the east part of Monterrey which the Gulf Cartels control. The Los Zetas were trying to cut off the highway that connects Monterrey with Reynosa(Main Gulf Cartel plaza) so the Gulf Cartel started to recruit Central and South Americans as "estakas" (cartel soldier units), "halcones" (informents) etc. but mainly sicarios or "estakas" to reinforce Allende, Ciudad Mier and San Fernando from being lost to Los Zetas and thus losing the east part of Monterrey and losing connection to Reynosa. The immigrants that were being hired by the Gulf Cartel to battle Los Zetas were using buses, at that time Los Zetas were stopping buses and checking passengers to see if they had evidence or intel of them working for the Gulf Cartel. There was even a video Los Zeta sicarios capturing Gulf Cartel sicarios that happened to be immigrants from Central America. There was even a video of a local Zeta captain that was present when the San Fernando massacre occurred and he reveled that the immigrants of the San Fernando massacre were working or going to work for the Gulf Cartel. At the time "Kilo" was the plaza boss of San Fernando and the Zeta captain "Tweety" was one of the captains in San Fernando along others. All of the evidence given the time and fighting in those towns and the fact that the Gulf Cartel was using immigrants as sicarios or "estakas", the interrogation of the immigrant sicarios by Los Zetas and the testimony of "Tweety" point out that the immigrants killed in San Fernando were most likely working for the Gulf Cartel.

Edit: I forgot to mention is that the cartels don't attack Army and Marines for the sake of killing them but they do it as a response to protect and save their boss from being captured. It's mainly the Los Zetas and Gulf Cartel that do that, Sinaloa doesn't really do it and neither do they display beheaded bodies or bodies in general in a public part where it gets attention. These tactics are mainly used by the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas.

Edit 2: The cartels do have some free reign to some extent but still have to watch out for the federal police, army and marines.

Last edited by SmearyGoose1768; 11/18/16 04:19 AM.