Bowden Was Right

A couple of weeks ago, I expressed skepticism of Charles Bowden's hypothesis in a recent GQ article that the explosion of violence in Juárez has little to do with drug cartels, but rather with retail drug dealing. I've read a lot since then that makes me think I was wrong to do so, though I still suspect the cartels have been a if not the driving force behind the violence in Juárez and Chihuahua (a city a couple of hours south of Juárez and part of the same smuggling route). Today's example: a recent massacre of eight people in Chihuahua has been attributed to narcomenudistas, as the low-level slingers are called.