Narco-Terror: the United States, the Drug War, and the War on Terror

Before conducting my research for this project Pablo Escobar was just the average criminal who sold drugs in a country filled with narcotics. I became more drawn to the life story of Pablo Escobar after watching the critically acclaimed Netflix series, Narcos. Narcos tells the story of Pablo and his rise and fall from power. Narcos is being told through the eyes of an American DEA agent working to take down Pablo Escobar. That led me to question why America was concerned with a drug dealer in Columbia, and what means they took to stop him. The aurora that Pablo had was larger than life. I soon became enthralled by Pablo’s story and soaked up every bit of information about him that I could.

Mexican Drug Cartels have been a problem for many years. The cartels are an organized crime organization and they don’t just deal drugs; they commit murders too. The Cartels origins are traced back to the Columbian Cali and Medellin mega-cartels who were responsible for the majority of drug trafficking into the United States. Crime has existed for many years but it surfaced more when Pablo Escobar was popular. Pablo Escobar was one the main transporters for cocaine throughout Mexico and the United States coming straight out of Columbia. Law enforcement tried to stop the drug trade but Escobar formed a relationship with Mexico-based traffickers who smuggled drugs into the United States. Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo also known as “The Godfather” of the cartels. Seeing how he established the Guadalajara Cartel, which is recognized as the first Mexican Cartel, and were the first to link up with Escobar and started the transportation of cocaine

At first, Mexican drug cartels were structured just like family owned businesses. There would be a family member who was the main drug lord and cousins and uncles of the family would be the body guards and drug dealers. After the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lost their power within the Mexican government the structure of drug cartels became much more complex. A hierarchical diffusion is seen within the drug cartel system because the drugs spread from one important drug lord to another, and we generally see this happening in the urban part of Mexico, more than in the rural areas. A corporate structure began forming as hierarchies began developing under drug lords and more people got involved. Professor Guillermo Trejo of Notre Dame 's Kellogg Institute claims that once the PRI lost their power there was a rapid increase in violence. This is because of Mexico’s former President, Felipe Calderón, who politically associates with the National Action Party (PAN). In 2006 President Calderón declared war on the drug cartels. This milestone triggered a huge change within Mexico’s international relations, government, and culture.

Located in Colombia, the city of Medellin was one of the biggest drug trafficking organizations in the world since the 1970’s. During the early 1970s the demand for cocaine spreads rapidly in the United States, the limited raw supplies produced in Colombia were build up with coca paste imported from Bolivia and Peru, refined in "kitchen laboratories" in Colombia, and smuggled into the United States. Medellín criminal networks during the mid-1970s transform the cocaine transportation system from petite activities into enormous airlift operations. During the late 1970’s through the earliest 1980’s, Griselda Blanco started incorporate into the drug industry. She was known as the “Cocaine Godmother”, “Black Widow”, and/or “Queen of Narco-trafficking.” While during about the same period time, Pablo Escobar raised himself to become one of the major drug dealers. He was known as “The World’s Greatest Outlaws”, “Sir Pablo”, “the Godfather”, “the Boss”, “the Lord”, “the Magician”, and/or “Little Pablo.” He was the hardest cocaine dealer to catch. Blanco and Escobar were well known for taking advantage of Medellin 's’ (back then) conditions by easily transporting drugs from Colombia to the United States. Some of the things that contributed into those two people to become the biggest drug dealers, are how they were raised in their early childhood to early teenage years, and their natal country (back then) conditions, and how they mold themselves towards their raise to power.

The United States has a long history of intervention in the affairs of one it’s southern neighbor, Latin America. The war on drugs has been no exception. An investigation of US relations with Latin America in the period from 1820 to 1960, reveals the war on drugs to be a convenient extension of an almost 200 year-old policy. This investigation focuses on the commercial and political objectives of the US in fighting a war on drugs in Latin America. These objectives explain why the failing drug policy persisted despite its overwhelming failure to decrease drug production or trafficking. These objectives also explain why the US has recently exchanged a war on drugs for the war on

The U.S decided to work with the Colombian government to establish an extradition treaty between the countries in 1979 (United States Congress ). This treaty would allow the U.S to extradite the cartel traffickers for a trial in the U.S. This caused Pablo to attack the government and this ultimately caused the Medellin cartel’s downfall. In the early 1990’s the cartel’s leaders were apprehended and the leader Pablo Escobar was killed in a firefight after having to run for his life. (PBS2).

During the early 1990’s Colombia being one of the biggest exporters of narcotics in history, led by Pablo Escobar, who had a wide range of organized crime affiliations throughout Latin America. Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord and he smuggled narcotics all the way to South Florida as when authorities tried to capture him. One of Pablo Escobar’s most important alliances was that of the Mexican-based traffickers. Escobar knew that this was an important trade route because of its geography and how it would be easier to smuggle the narcotics into the United States. This allowed a smuggling partnership between both countries and Mexico was to eventually lead their own drug based trafficking system with the help of Pablo Escobar. From the distributed drugs, cartels would take a certain amount of profit, and would use that money to bribe Mexican officials. By bribing Mexican officials it was insured that if smugglers were to be arrested they would either be let go, the case would be dropped or taking action against a rival smuggling group by giving away information about the rival’s plan to carry

The Cali Cartel was less flashy with their money compared to other cartels at the time and were more about the business side of drug trafficking. They would ship mostly to Europe and Asia, where it was less likely to get caught. They did not get along with the other cartels around and would give information about them to the police to get themselves out of trouble. The Cali Cartel had competitions against the Medellin Cartel, another cartel from Colombia, especially Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Medellin Cartel. It got very violent between the two cartels and killings often occurred. The Cali Cartel started a group called People Against Pablo Escobar or PEPES, specifically to threaten him,” The Cali cartel began to attack the Medellin cartel -- particularly Pablo Escobar -- as their competition became more and more violent”(“The Colombian Cartels” 1). They would inform the police of his whereabouts, which ended up getting him caught and eventually put in jail. The Cali Cartel then took over the cocaine business until they all got caught and jailed. Most of the cartel sat for ten to fifteen

Violence in modern Colombia takes place in many forms. The three major categories are crime, guerrilla activities, and attacks committed by drug traffickers. Violence has become so widespread and common in Colombia that many people have now become numb to it. The Colombian economy has also benefited from the illicit drug trade; however violent it may be. During the 1970s, Colombia became well known, as one of the world’s most important drug processing, production, and distribution centers for marijuana and cocaine.

For this week’s discussion, I have chosen the US involvement in the Mexican Drug War. The US has been deeply involved on the side of the Mexican Government since the election of Mexico’s President Felipe Caldron in 2006 (Mazzetti & Thompson, 2011). Since that time, The US government has reportedly provided over “$2 billion in military and police support, training to more than 16,000 Mexican security personnel, and over $4 billion worth of weapons” (LaSusa & Albaladejo, 2014, pp. 12). Considering the hundred other armed conflicts that the United States have gotten themselves involved in, it’s not a surprising event to see the U.S. respond to a conflict on their doorstep with military, police, and weaponry. I understand that this is a conflict

The government has made some gains, but at a heavy price. A total of 34,612 people have died in drug-related killings in Mexico in the first four years (Siddique). Most of these killing are between cartel rivals fighting for the control of territories. There are five cartels operating in Mexico: the Sinaloa, the Gulf, Juarez, Tijuana, the Zetas. The major cartels are the Gulf, Sinaloa and Juarez (Cook 21). Many of these cartels have joined together forming powerful alliances known as the “Federation” (Cook 17). The cartels work together, but they remain independent organizations.

The drug problem in the U.S. and around the world is an important issue and seems to be a difficult problem to tackle across the board. The inflow of drugs has become one of the largest growths in transnational crime operations; illicit drug use in the United States makes it very difficult for nation states police and customs forces to get a handle on the issues. War on drugs, drug trafficking has long been an issue for the United States. There has been a proclamation of “war on drugs” for the past 44 years.

The crimes continued with Escobar, he made his way on top of one of the most infamous drug exporting Medellin Cartel in our history being one of the main exporters in the United States exporting about fifteen tons of cocaine in a single day. His team (Medellin Cartel) spending about two thousand and five hundred dollars on rubber bands to tie up all of their money that was coming in coming in from the cocaine enterprise. While Escobar was still 22, he met up with the local smuggler, Alvaro Pietro. Pietro was making millions during the time that he worked under Alvaro. Pablo, smuggling drugs across the city until he came across the leader of the Medellin leader where he got in an argument with the local drug lord, bigger then Alvaro and killed him which led to his takeover of the Medellin gang.

For many years in Medellin a civil war had occurred costing many lives between both sides of the parties concerning government and guerilla groups, later to become the Medellin Cartel (Fukuyama and Colby 2011). The war had begun and had been prolonged due to the weakness of Colombia’s national government who only commanded a small army and police all around Colombia (Fukuyama et al. 2011). It was by this that the beginning of The Medellin Cartel was able to start strong and continue a successful business. In the book Kings of Cocaine an Astonishing True Story of Murder, Money, and Corruption, authors Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen (Gugliotta and Leen 1989) name the founders of what can

The King of Cocaine, Pablo Escobar, was a Colombian drug lord who created the Medellin Cartel and was once one of Forbes’ Magazines wealthiest people (Levinthal, 2012). Pablo Escobar was born in 1949 in Colombia to a father was a peasant farmer and mother who was a school teacher (Thompson, 1996). His aspirations for a large life began when he was young and he dreamed of becoming the president of Columbia. However things changed when he realized that being legitimately wealthy would require him to be a criminal. Prior to being involved in drugs and smuggling, Pablo was a petty street thief and would steal cars (Jenish, & Wirpsa, 1993). As his criminal activity grew he would gain a name for himself on the streets that would ultimately prepare