Today we’re diving back into a war that has touched all our lives – the Mexican Drug War. It’s the deaths behind so many parties across the length and breadth of North America – the sin behind the fun – the endless pain that birthed endless euphoria. It’s a war that lays bare our true values, our real core beliefs. It’s a war that shows us the true meaning of politics; and it’s a war with violence out of a Dario Argento film. I’m going to introduce you to the Pozolero – the stew maker – who liquidated bodies in large vats of bubbling hot caustic soda. I’m going to tell you about Decena Guzman, who turned an elite special forces squad into one of the most feared and dangerous cartels in the history of mankind. Today’s show has crucifixions and decapitations – heads sewn onto soccer balls – and it all stems from you and me – from American and Canadian and even Australian drug users. It’s all free and it’s all on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast about war and its sociopolitical impact.

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References:

Associated Press. (2020). Mexico’s president says ‘El Chapo’ had same power as if he led country himself. Fox News. Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com/world/mexico-president-says-el-chapo-had-same-power-as-president

Ricardo C. Ainslie. The Fight to Save Juárez: Life in the Heart of Mexico’s Drug War. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2013.

Malcolm Beith. The Last Narco: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo, the World’s Most Wanted Drug Lord. New York: Grove Press, 2010.

Charles Bowden. Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields. New York: Nation Books, 2010.

Howard Campbell. Drug War Zone: Frontline Dispatches from the Streets of El Paso and Juárez. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2009.

Isaac Campos. Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

George W. Grayson and Samuel Logan. The Executioner’s Men: Los Zetas, Rogue Soldiers, Criminal Entrepreneurs, and the Shadow State They Created. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2012.

Ioan Grillo. El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011.

Paul Rexton Kan. Cartels at War: Mexico’s Drug-Fueled Violence and the Threat to US National Security. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2012.

Jerry Langton. Gangland: The Rise of the Mexican Drug Cartels from El Paso to Vancouver. Mississauga, Ontario, Canada: J. Wiley & Sons Canada, 2011.

Sylvia Longmire. Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico’s Drug Wars. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

David A. Shirk. The Drug War in Mexico: Confronting a Shared Threat. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2011.

George Grayson. The executioner’s men : Los Zetas, rogue soldiers, criminal entrepreneurs, and the shadow state they created

Mexico’s Drug War (Viewpoint Series) by Margaret Haerens (editor)

Malcolm Beith, “Mexico’s Drug War: The Battle Without Hope,” New Statesman, August 8, 2012.

One Man Dissolved Dozens of Bodies and Dumped Them in This Mass Grave in Mexico by Laura Sánchez Ley. Vice News. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne35zg/one-man-dissolved-dozens-of-bodies-and-dumped-them-in-this-mass-grave-in-mexico

Grillo, Ioan. “Why cartels are killing Mexico’s mayors.” International New York Times, January 16, 2016.

Jorge Castañeda, “A US War with Mexican Consequences,” Cato Unbound, August 5, 2009.

Executive Office of the President of the United States. 2016. National Drug Control Strategy. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/policy-and-research/prs_2016.pdf

Breslow, Jason. “The Staggering Death Toll of Mexico’s Drug War.” PBS.org. July 27, 2015. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-staggering-death-toll-of-mexicos-drug-war/