Honduras to send army after Mexican drug cartel encroachment

Guardian:
Honduras has voted to deploy the army to fight encroaching Mexican drug cartels in an effort to curb violence in the country.
By an overwhelming majority, congress decided to follow a model used by the Mexican president, Felipe Calderón who launched an army-backed campaign against powerful drug gangs soon after taking office in late-2006.
Since then, more than 45,000 people have died in drug violence in Mexico. But on a per capita basis, the small nation of Honduras far outpaced every other country in the world in homicides, with 82 murders per 100,000 people last year, according to the UN.
About 20 people are killed in Honduras every day.
Officials blame most of the murders on cartels smuggling South American cocaine through Central America to consumers in the US. Honduras also struggles with violent youth street gangs that extort local businesses with death threats.
... 
My speculation is that like Mexico the police are not up to the task of dealing with the more heavily armed criminal drug insurgents.  Honduras actually has some pretty good troops who contributed to the US effort in Iraq.  They have probably never fought such a rich adversary before.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more

Apple's huge investment in US including Texas facility

Blaze: Apple announced a $500 billion commitment to infrastructure in the United States over four years, its largest commitment to domestic spending to date. Apple said it will expand teams and facilities in Arizona, California, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Washington as part of its new spending. With a new facility in Houston, Texas, Apple will reportedly double its investment in advanced manufacturing along with increasing investments in AI and silicon engineering. The company said in a press release that the Houston facility will produce servers to support Apple Intelligence, the "personal intelligence system that helps users write, express themselves, and get things done." ... The Texas facility will be for advanced technologies.   Texas has become a place that is very supportive of the tech industries.  Austin and Houston have seen much of the tech growth in the state.  Texas universities have been active in the AI field.
Read more