Thursday, November 19, 2009

New Mexico Stuff

The Atlantic has a long piece on Mexico's drug wars. Edgardo Buscaglia appears, as he does everywhere in the media these days. More on that when I read it.

(H/T)

2 comments:

jd said...

It's not as long as it seems like it will be when you first start reading it, which is a shame since, a few moments of hyperbole aside, it's a damn fine piece. I was a bit annoyed when it just sort of stopped. Will be curious to hear your thoughts.

pc said...

Haven't quite finished it, but so far it seems like the Bowden piece from Mother Jones, minus the most frustrating flaws. It's well written and it moves really well as you'd expect from a piece in the Atlantic, but I find the focus on the "untruth" in Mexico a bit excessive.

I also think the idea of the army working as a unified gang is not credible. That's not to say that the army isn't riddled with bad elements and profound problems; of course, it is. There have been reports about different groups in the army protecting every imaginable group of traffickers over the course of the past three years. Many of those reports probably have at least an element of truth to them, which says to me that the army's bad apples divide their loyalties in different parts of the country. Understanding the army as the personal soldiers of Chapo Guzman I think confuses more than it illuminates.