Length: 2:26
LARGE (34.0 MB)
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Larry King asks Michael what the battle is all about -- turf, power, and drug routes.
LARRY
KING: Anderson Cooper remains with us in El Paso.
Joining us now in New York is Michael Ware, CNN
correspondent. He just returned from reporting on the
situation.
You have covered violence, if that's the correct
term, all over the world.
How does this compare?
MICHAEL WARE: Well, violence, frankly, Larry, is
violence. I mean, this is barbarous, what's going on.
I mean, there is literally butchering happening. And
it's capturing the entire communities that are
involved here. And that's the real measure, because
this so-called drug war primarily is being fought
between the cartels. But it's also targeting police
officers, government officials. And, invariably, the
innocent are so often caught in the middle.
So what's at stake here is the hearts and minds of
the population. If you can secure the people, for
example, of this city of Juarez, then they will be
able to operate their lives and to help the
authorities target the cartel so much better. But for
now, the way this war is being fought, it can't be
won. So the cartels will remain in control of those
streets -- Larry.
KING: Michael, what are they fighting about?
WARE: They're fighting about turf, power, and drug
routes. Now, in the last two years, the president of
Mexico -- within two weeks of him coming into office
in 2006, he launched a massive offensive against the
cartels. Now, he can't trust the local police because
they're either terrified or corrupt. He can't trust
his federal police because they're either terrified
or they're corrupt.
So he had to turn to the military. He has more than
45,000 Mexican soldiers out fighting in Mexico to
target the cartels. But the military's abilities are
extremely limited.
So it's very hard to see how this dynamic is going to
change. The best that they can hope for, according to
the mayor of Juarez itself -- which right now is the
epicenter of the drug war -- he said is, "we can't
beat them. All we can hope is that they pack up and
move somewhere else." That's not the sound of a war
that's going to end anytime soon, mate.