In December 2006, a few days after taking the oath of office, the new president of Mexico issued a bland order that was also a brazen provocation. Felipe Calderón directed the army to join forces with the police in cracking down on the drug cartels operating in many parts of the country. These collaborations were called “combined operations”; the first was launched in the president’s home state of Michoacán, and it was quickly followed by others in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, Guerrero, Sinaloa and Baja California. The next year, during the swearing in of the National Council of Public Safety, Calderón described the strategy by using two words that would alter the life of the nation: crusade and war.
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