Our Quote of the Day comes from a troubling piece in The Global Post about the war across the border against “Los Zetas,” Mexico’s drug cartels’ powerful army:
MEXICO CITY, Mexico — Residents of the town of Fresnillo in northeast Mexico cowered in their homes as gunfire rattled between federal police and cartel gunmen on the streets outside.
When the shooting subsided, those brave enough to peer out their doors saw the corpses of nine gunmen sprawled on the concrete.
Police officers said the deaths — which happened Wednesday — were the latest blow against Los Zetas, a psychopath criminal army battling for control of Mexico’s drug trade, and responsible for multiple kidnappings, oil theft and other rackets.
Many in Mexico’s federal police and army consider the Zetas to be the biggest problem in the drug war. They have launched a sustained campaign against them, resulting in hundreds of deaths like those in Fresnillo and thousands of arrests in recent months.
Rival cartels have also attacked the Zetas across the country, piling corpses of alleged members on the streets — such as 35 who were dumped in Veracruz state — and massacring them in prisons.
But despite the onslaught from all sides, the Zetas keep coming back, recruiting more troops and fighting to dominate trafficking from the Texas border deep into Central America.
Go the link and read it in its entirety.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.