Either way, some narcos (La Familia Michoacana) are offering to negotiate peace with the government:

MORELIA, Mexico — Banners hung on pedestrian bridges in several western Mexican cities Thursday expressed anger that the government has ignored a drug cartel's offer to disband if authorities improve security in the gang's home state.

The "narco-banners" appeared in at least five towns and cities in the Pacific coast state of Michoacan, including the colonial capital of Morelia, the state attorney general's office said in a statement.

They carried the same message: "La Familia Michoacana ... is saddened about the lack of interest from government institutions in our proposal."

The banners refer to a letter, dropped on streets of several Michoacan mountain towns and e-mailed to journalists earlier this month, that said La Familia would disband if the government negotiates with the cartel on protecting Michoacan citizens.

Sounds like the government isn't having any of it. They haven't responded to the appeals and a former Mexican president is urging a state of "permanent" warfare. Because, you know, the drug war is just going so well for the U.S. and the narcos and the citizens of both countries. That former Mexican president with a hard-on for the drug war happens to be Carlos Salinas, whose brother was accused of being heavily involved in narco-capitalism and convicted of orchestrating a hit against their brother-in-law.

Salinas is also the president who signed NAFTA, which basically handed the Mexican narcos jetpacks, into law. Funny how he's so fond of the drug war.

In other news, U.S. businesses and the U.S. government are thinking about pouring investment money into post-coup Honduras despite the coup's dubious legality and record of human-rights abuses:

After [former President] Zelaya was ousted, a de facto government took over and promptly shut down media outlets and banned basic liberties like due process. A day after the coup, President Barack Obama told reporters that, “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras,” sparking hope that the US government’s historic policy of supporting coup d’états in Latin America had changed. However, during the November 2009 elections in Honduras—which were held amid a climate of “intimidation, torture, illegal detentions and in extreme cases, assassinations”—Lobo was declared the winner with the State Department backing the results. Those opposing the coup and the government continue to be tortured, arrested, and murdered, while the Lobo administration ignores the human rights abuses.

A few days before the breakfast the chamber ["The Chamber of the Americas," a U.S. nonprofit] had planed to hold a similar event in San Pedro Sula, Honduras that would have featured Lobo, Bill Clinton as a keynote speaker, and Carlos Slim, according to Cisneros. Slim, a Mexican businessman who has invested millions in enterprises like the New York Times, is now the richest man in the world. The event was rescheduled for unspecified reasons and is now being planned for sometime in the Spring.