Pubdate: Fri, 03 Sep 2010
Source: Maui News, The (HI)
Copyright: 2010 Paul Brown
Contact:  http://www.mauinews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2259
Author: Paul Brown

WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO STOP DRUG CARTEL KILLINGS?

The bodies keep piling up.

Recent news from Mexico includes the horrifying discovery of 72 bodies
bound, blindfolded and shot on a secluded ranch. Seventy-two bodies of
brothers, sons, husbands and fathers who will never make it back to
their homes, probable victims of a drug cartel. Reports indicate that
the two lead investigators working on the case are missing and
probably dead. It is thought that the victims were workers on their
way to the United States.

Many of us have worked side by side with people who have come from
Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador. What if these people were among the
victims? Would we care then? If it wasn't just a nameless statistic
but it was someone you worked with for years, would that make a bigger
impact?

How many more bodies or parts of bodies will need to turn up before
the revulsion is great enough to quench the thirst for illegal drugs
in the cartel's biggest market - America? How many bodies need to be
found before it's not acceptable to pick up a gram for a Saturday
night out on the town?

Laws and prison sentences aren't going to stop people from buying
drugs, but maybe having the blood of thousands of innocent victims on
our hands and in our noses will finally turn the tide. Maybe only when
the cartels start kidnapping, torturing, beheading and killing people
in our own cities and towns will we take notice.

Paul Brown

Kahana 
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