Collateral Damage: Drug cartels block basic services in Mexico

How the cartels are interferring in and constraining everyday life in some areas of Mexico, more "collateral damage."

Drug cartels block basic services in Mexico - Washington Times: "With killings and disappearances to assert their authority, Mexico's drug cartels are beginning to interfere with everyday government activities in pockets of the country, keeping workers off their turf and interrupting some of the most basic services.

Not only do they maintain checkpoints and kill police or mayors to control territory, they try to keep everyone from midlevel officials to delivery-truck drivers and meter readers out of rural areas they use to transport drugs, stash weapons and kidnap victims, and hide from authorities.

In the process, they are blocking deliveries of gasoline, pension checks, farm aid and other services to Mexicans." Nov. 8, 2010, AP