The Fall of Mexico

Reporting by Philip Caputo; photos by Julian Cardona.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/mexico-drugs

Foreign Affairs
December 2009

In the almost three years since President Felipe Calderón launched a
war on drug cartels, border towns in Mexico have turned into halls of
mirrors where no one knows who is on which side or what chance remark
could get you murdered. Some 14,000 people have been killed in that
time—the worst carnage since the Mexican Revolution—and part of the
country is effectively under martial law. Is this evidence of a
creeping coup by the military? A war between drug cartels? Between the
president and his opposition? Or just collateral damage from the (U.S.-
supported) war on drugs? Nobody knows: Mexico is where facts, like
people, simply disappear. The stakes for the U.S. are high, especially
as the prospect of a failed state on our southern border begins to
seem all too real.

by Philip Caputo
The Fall of Mexico

FOR THE FULL TEXT:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/mexico-drugs

[Posted by Professor Montejano]