Mexican Collapse? Drug Wars Worry Some Americans

Mexican soldiers stand on guard at a house where marijuana plants being grown were found in Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009. Special forces soldiers found some 170 marijuana plants, in a room used as a greenhouse, and detained a suspect. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)

From Yahoo News/AP:

MEXICO CITY – Indiscriminate kidnappings. Nearly daily beheadings. Gangs that mock and kill government agents.

This isn't Iraq or Pakistan. It's Mexico, which the U.S. government and a growing number of experts say is becoming one of the world's biggest security risks.

The prospect that America's southern neighbor could melt into lawlessness provides an unexpected challenge to Barack Obama's new government. In its latest report anticipating possible global security risks, the U.S. Joint Forces Command lumps Mexico and Pakistan together as being at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse."

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My Comment: This article provides a sober reading (and assessment) of Mexico.

From my own history .... when I was young I enjoyed visiting Mexico for years .... I do not now.

It is too violent and dangerous for foreigners. For my Mexican friends, the drug culture is now so pervasive in Mexican society .... almost everyone is affected in some way .... and none of it is good.

U.S. Anti-Drug Information Leaked To Mexico Cartels

Mexican federal police escort away members of a detained drug trafficking gang after a news conference in Mexico City October 19, 2008. (Daniel Aguilar/Reuters)

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Corrupt officials inside Mexico's security forces have leaked U.S. anti-drugs intelligence directly to drug traffickers to help them escape raids, a senior U.S. law enforcement agent said.

A recent anti-corruption sweep showed the infiltration of Mexican police forces had reached alarming levels, with several high-ranking investigators and a presidential guardsman arrested for selling information to drug cartels.

The U.S. agent said the arrests were an encouraging sign that Mexico's government is serious about stopping drug gangs from getting their hands on intelligence, some of which comes from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA.

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My Comment: At least some corrupt officials are now being arrested.

U.S. Military Ready To Battle Drug Gangs: Homeland Security

Chertoff: Military Ready If Drug Gangs Cross Border -- Houston Chronicle

Homeland Security plan also accounts for possible border surge by refugees fleeing the violence.

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday that federal SWAT teams and military units are prepared to respond to Mexican drug gangs in the event they cross the Rio Grande and confront U.S. law officers.

The forces, another department official said, also stand ready to manage any surge to the border by Mexicans panicked by the cartels’ violence.

Chertoff described his department’s contingency planning in broad terms in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. The other department official provided details on condition of anonymity.

Chertoff ordered development of the contingency plans last summer in response to escalating drug syndicate violence in Mexico.

More than 5,400 people were killed there last year in violence among several large gangs and Mexican security forces.

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My Comment: There are almost 500,000 Mexicans locked up in U.S. prisons today. This is a problem that is hitting us NOW.

Instead of planning for the future, Chertoff should take measures that will confront this growing epidemic right now .... and to support the measures that many have been calling for in stemming the flood of illegal refugees across the U.S. southern border.

Mexico "Narco Junior" Teenagers Kill Drug Rivals

Federal police officers last week in Culiacán, in Sinaloa State. More than 600 officers have been sent in recent weeks to Sinaloa, the base of a powerful drug cartel. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican teenagers as young as 15 are killing rivals for a few hundred dollars in a brutal drug war on the U.S. border that is increasingly sucking in young people.

Feuding gangs in the violent cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez prize teenage drug cartel members, known as "narco juniors", because they give the attacks an added element of surprise and because they can't be given long prison sentences, police and social workers say.

"There are lots of us and we get $300 for each kill," said 17-year-old Eduardo, a middle-class student who was arrested in December after an army raid on a drug safe house in Tijuana.

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U.S. Military Report Warns 'Sudden Collapse' Of Mexico Is Possible

President-elect Barack Obama listens as Mexico's President Felipe Calderon makes a statement to reporters in Washington, Monday, Jan. 12, 2009. Mexico is one of two countries that "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse," according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats. (AP photo)

From El Paso Times:

EL PASO - Mexico is one of two countries that "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse," according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.

The command's "Joint Operating Environment (JOE 2008)" report, which contains projections of global threats and potential next wars, puts Pakistan on the same level as Mexico. "In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.

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My Comment: I first visited Mexico 25 years ago and had a great time. Took the trouble to learn some of the language, and made a point of going there at least once a year.

No more now.

Violence .... much of it because of the drug culture .... makes it no longer the paradise that it once was. The Mexican Government under Calderon has finally moved against the drug cartels, but they are so interwoven in Mexican life .... it is going to take years and draconian measures to stop them.

Obama Administration To Inherit Southern Border Nightmare

Mexican soldiers stand over a detained man after a deadly gun battle with drug traffickers in Apatzingan, Mexico. Agencia Esquema / Ap File / MSNBC

From Homeland Security:

‘Mexico is ... fighting for survival against narco-terrorism’.

Barack Obama shortly will inherit a war an ocean away in the Middle East that potentially could spiral out of control dragging the US into it, but he immediately faces a far more deadly war that’s raging on his own back doorstep on the US-Mexican border. It's a war that's fast becoming America’s most serious and direct homeland security threat, as described in the January HSToday cover report, Savage Struggle on the Border.

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My Comment: Hmmmm .... Senator Obama supports the opening up of America's borders and for amnesty to illegal immigrants. Border fences, enforcement of existing immigration laws .... these are not measures that he supports. Drug enforcement .... same thing.

He is not inheriting a nightmare .... he is one of the many in Washington who created this nightmare.

Mexico's Drug War Is Spirling Out Of Control

U.S. Weapons Seized from Mexican Cartels

Mexico Murders Soar As Drug Violence Spirals Out Of Control -- The Telegraph

Murders and kidnappings have reached record levels in Mexico as the security forces wage a new offensive against drug cartels and organised crime.

This escalating battle claimed the lives of 5,367 members of the security forces or suspected criminals last year - more than double the figure for 2007.

President Felipe Calderón has mobilised the army behind this offensive, with soldiers now a common sight on city streets and highways throughout Mexico.

The army's deployment is unavoidable not just because of the spiralling levels of violence but also because many police officers are tempted to supplement their meagre wages by accepting drug cartel bribes. On Christmas Eve, troops detained 23 suspected traffickers in the south-western state of Guerrero. Among them was a local security official, who enjoyed a six-strong police bodyguard.

The cartels' tentacles are alleged to reach the highest levels of the government. Last November, Noé Ramírez Mandujano, a key figure in the government's anti-drugs campaign, was arrested on suspicion of accepting a $450,000 pay-off from a crime ring in return for highly sensitive information about operations mounted by the security forces. Mr Ramirez says he has done nothing wrong and has not been tried.

Read more ....

More News On Mexico's Drug War

Obama and Mexico's Calderon to talk drug war, trade -- Reuters
U.S. is not dealing with Mexican violence against Americans -- American Chronicle
Mexico’s drug wars a serious threat to U.S. -- Nevada Appeal
Effects of Mexico's drug war hit El Paso -- Dallas News
Legalized drugs only way to halt cartels -- El Paso Times

Mexico's Drug War Is Impacting The U.S. Mexico Border

A sign hung by the Raza Rights Coalition hangs on the Mexican side
of the border fence in Friendship Park Photo: AP

Symbolic Park Makes Way For New Fences On US-Mexico Border -- The Daily Telegraph

A beachfront plaza founded over 30 years ago as a symbol of goodwill between the US and Mexico border is being closed to make way for a giant, reinforced fence.

Friendship Park, between Imperial Beach in California and Tijuana in Mexico, was dedicated by Patricia Nixon, then first lady, in the early 1970s, and has long been a popular meeting and picnic spot.

Although a chain-link fence divides the space along the border, the barrier allows people on either side, often those separated by immigration status, to have contact, share food, talk and kiss.

But the US Border Patrol has ordered the area, part of the Border Field State Park, be permanently closed to the public and a secondary, solid border fence be erected north of the existing fence stretching out to the Pacific Ocean.

The US is already developing plans for a "surge" of force to tackle the escalating bloodshed from Mexico's brutal drug wars, should the violence spill across the border.

Read more ....

More News On Mexico's Drug War

Feds have plan if Mexico drug violence spills over -- AP
In Mexico, Curbing Violence Before It Is Learned -- New York Times
US, Mexican Presidents to Meet on Drug Crime -- Voice Of America
Bush to meet Mexican president in Washington -- AFP
Obama to meet with Mexican president -- MSNBC

U.S. Plans Border ‘Surge’ Against Any Drug Wars

Agents in Arizona keep watch on the border with technology that is to be part of the “virtual fence” of cameras and sensors. David Sanders for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

The soaring level of violence in Mexico resulting from the drug wars there has led the United States to develop plans for a “surge” of civilian and perhaps even military law enforcement should the bloodshed spread across the border, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday.

Mr. Chertoff said the criminal activity in Mexico, which has caused more than 5,300 deaths in the last year, had long troubled American authorities. But it reached a point last summer, he said, where he ordered specific plans to confront in this country the kind of shootouts and other mayhem that in Mexico have killed members of warring drug cartels, law enforcement officials and bystanders, often not far from the border.

“We completed a contingency plan for border violence, so if we did get a significant spillover, we have a surge — if I may use that word — capability to bring in not only our own assets but even to work with” the Defense Department, Mr. Chertoff said in a telephone interview.

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My Comment: Lax and/or non-existent border and immigration control has already brought the Mexican drug wars to the U.S. Failure from our political leaders to owe up to this problem is now only exacerbating what is already a crisis.

More News On Mexico's Drug Wars

Mexico drug war likely to intensify -- Seattle Times
Gunmen Attack TV Offices in Mexico -- Washington Post
Narcotraffickers Attack Televisa, Mexico's Top TV Network -- CS Monitor
More US Funds Freed for Mexico's Drug Fight -- Associated Press
In Crime Wave, an Interrupted Meal Haunts Mexico -- New York Times