In a speech in his home state of Michoacan yesterday President Felipe Calderon praised the 200 strong marine strike in Cuernavaca last Wednesday that resulted in the death of Arturo Beltran Leyva and signalled his commitment to a fully militarized strategy as the solution to Mexico’s organized crime threat.
Criminal groups with their firepower and powers of corruption are waging a determined battle to subjugate the country,” said Calderon. “We will not step back from this fight” and
there will be no truce and no quarter to the enemies of our country
(La Jornada)
Calderon’s statements underscore those made by a senior Mexican military commander, who was quoted saying that the “only organizations trained, equipped and integrated with real unity of doctrine to ensure domestic order…are the armed forces”
“Lets act like we are in a war situation, because we are! We will exert as strong a force as they have And will go after them totally. that’s what that picture means. We will be ruthless.” (Milenio)
Hours after President Calderon declared there would be “no quarter and no truce” in the war with criminal organizations, a suspected Zetas commando team killed the mother and four relatives of a Navy Special Forces sergeant who died in the raid in Cuernavaca that killed Arturo Beltran Leyva, who allied his cartel with the Zetas in 2008.
The Municipal Public Security Bureau in Paraiso, Tabasco reported that the multiple murders took place around midnight as the family slept. Three vans rolled up on the house and unloaded with AR-15s killing Mrs. Irma Cordova Palma, mother of 3rd Navy Special Forces Master Melchizedek Angulo Cordova, whose funeral took place earlier in the day (El Universal)
It’s an official military war now–no euphemism–in which the cartels are no longer criminals but declared “enemy combatants.”
Deguello, indeed.
The last time a Mexican general sounded that bugle call the odds were overwhelmingly in his favor. 
Not so clear cut now.
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Unless you’re comparing an armed invasion by foreign mercenaries (Crockett, Jim Bowie, et. al.) to a domestic criminal group … and suggesting that Calderon forgo the normal civil procedures and the 1917 constitution in favor of the Organic Laws of Santa Ana, I’m afraid your attempt at snark has gone terribly awry.
Something like that, Richard. A reach on my part, perhaps–and one I’m unlikely to attempt again. I’m not “suggesting” that Calderon forgo the normal civil procedures–he already has. That was clear before the operation in Cuernavaca. Good, bad or without difference, Calderon opted for the military as the solution to organized crime–not civil procedure.