Foreign Policy and National Security
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Looking at the timeline of arrests, extraditions and deals in recent months, it looks like the United States was moving to make the case against El Chapo completely airtight, allowing Mexico to detain him until U.S. officials were completely ready to make the official extradition request… This piece was co-authored with Sarah Kinosian. Read it in…
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The U.S. removed Paraguay from its list of major narcotics transit or producing countries in September 2010 because illicit substances from there are mostly “trafficked to the neighboring countries of Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay but not to the United States.” Still, it would be a mistake for the U.S. ignore narcocorruption in Paraguay just because drugs from there don’t usually end…
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One of the world’s most powerful and notorious drug lords, Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, better known as “El Chapo” (“Shorty”), has escaped from a Mexican prison. Again. El Chapo was first arrested in 1993 on drug trafficking and murder charges in Chiapas, Mexico. He was sentenced to 20 years at a maximum security facility in…
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Below is a timeline of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) Commander General John Kelly’s trips to Honduras since he began serving in his current position. November 19, 2012: Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly assumes command of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), relieving Air Force Gen. Douglas M. Fraser, who had been in the post since June 2009. January…
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…[A] growing body of research indicates that Mexico’s strategy of deploying federal troops and police to crack down on areas where criminals are suspected of operating has not led to any lasting improvements in citizen security in Mexico. Rather than becoming safer, Mexico’s annual murder rate more than doubled from roughly nine homicides per 100,000 citizens in 2006 to nearly 20 per 100,000 in 2013. Over the same…
Mike LaSusa 