Mexican collapse? Drug wars worry some Americans

[patbrunz]

Mexican collapse? Drug wars worry some Americans



By TRACI CARL, Associated Press Writer

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."

"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels," the command said in the report published Nov. 25.

"How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state."

Retiring CIA chief Michael Hayden told reporters on Friday that that Mexico could rank alongside Iran as a challenge for Obama — perhaps a greater problem than Iraq.

The U.S. Justice Department said last month that Mexican gangs are the "biggest organized crime threat to the United States." National security adviser Stephen Hadley said last week that the worsening violence threatens Mexico's very democracy.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently told The New York Times he ordered additional border security plans to be drawn up this summer as kidnappings and killings spilled into the U.S.

The alarm is spreading to the private sector as well. Mexico, Latin America's second biggest economy and the United States' third biggest oil supplier, is one of the top 10 global risks for 2009 identified by the Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm.

Mexico is brushing aside the U.S. concerns, with Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez-Mont saying Wednesday: "It seems inappropriate to me that you would call Mexico a security risk. There are problems in Mexico that are being dealt with, that we can continue to deal with, and that's what we are doing."

Still, Obama faces a dramatic turnaround compared with the last time a new U.S. president moved into the White House. When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, the nation of 110 million had just chosen Vicente Fox as president in its fairest election ever, had ended 71 years of one-party rule and was looking forward to a stable, democratic future.

Fox signaled readiness to take on the drug cartels, but plunged them into a power vacuum by arresting their leaders, and gangs have been battling each other for territory ever since.

Felipe Calderon, who succeeded Fox in 2006, immediately sent troops across the country to try to regain control. But soldiers and police are outgunned and outnumbered, and cartels have responded with unprecedented violence.

Mob murders doubled from 2007, taking more than 5,300 lives last year. The border cities of Juarez and Tijuana wake up each morning to find streets littered with mutilated, often headless bodies. Some victims are dumped outside schools. Most are just wrapped in a cheap blanket and tossed into an empty lot.

Many bodies go unclaimed because relatives are too afraid to come forward. Most killings go unsolved.

Warring cartels still control vast sections of Mexico, despite Calderon's two-year crackdown, and have spawned an all-pervasive culture of violence. No one is immune.

Businesses have closed because they can't afford to pay monthly extortion fees to local thugs. The rich have fled to the U.S. to avoid one of the world's highest kidnapping rates. Many won't leave their homes at night.

The government has launched an intensive housecleaning effort after high-level security officials were accused of being on the take from the Sinaloa cartel. And several soldiers fighting the gangs were kidnapped, beheaded and dumped in southern Mexico last month with the warning: "For every one of mine that you kill, I will kill 10."

But the U.S. government is extremely supportive of the Mexican president, recently handing over $400 million in anti-drug aid. Obama met briefly with Calderon in Washington last week and promised to fight the illegal flow south of U.S. weapons that arm the Mexican cartels.

While fewer Americans are willing to drive across the border for margaritas and handicrafts, visitors are still flocking to other parts of Mexico. And the economy seems harder hit by the global crisis than by the growing violence.

The grim assessments from north of the border got wide play in the Mexican media but came as no surprise to people here. Many said the solution lies in getting the U.S. to give more help and let in more migrant workers who might otherwise turn to the drug trade to make a living.

Otherwise the drug wars will spill ever more heavily into America, said Manuel Infante, an architect. "There is a wave of barbarity that is heading toward the U.S.," he said. "We are an uncomfortable neighbor."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090118/ap_ ... o_besieged

[patbrunz]

Even the OBL Associated Press is starting to talk about this!!

[MountainDog]

The solution is for more migrant workers to come to the US?
I suppose if we brought everybody in Mexico up here and gave them a job that might work If nobody is there they can't cause problems.
The answer is for Mexico to deal with their own problems, America will help because of many reasons but Mexico has no right to expect us to fix it for them.
If they truly want us to fix it they will need to let us send in the Marines!
And if they don't get a handle on it soon that's going to happen weather they like it or not!

[azwreath]

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."



COULD melt into lawlessness?

Mexico has always been lawless and what is going on there now is just what happens when a society has always existed in a state of lawlessness.

So please, don't hand us any crap about this being some big "unexpected challenge" to obama.

And further.....why are things suddenly being described as "challenging" to him anyway? He was deemed and promoted as nothing short of being the omnipotent and omnipresent second coming.....the big "savior", the "messiah"......sent to finally deliver us all from the evils and ills befalling the globe.

Would such a supreme being find anything a "challenge"? Not hardly

[BetsyRoss]

I realize that many people are unhappy with the election results, but let's not forget the uttermost impotence of the Bush years. Obama will not be able to undo much of the damage from those years, certainly not quickly.

[vortex]

Bush has given Mexico billions in aid. Not only that but we fund Mexico by buying their oil, the largest contributor to the GDP, and the second largest are the remittances sent home by Mexicans, the majority of those doing menial jobs are probably here illegally.
So does the American taxpayer funding all this largesse have any real idea about how this money is being spent? Buying equipment to fight the drug cartels or lining chieftains' pockets? And why should anyone believe the Mexican government assurances that they are working hard to solve these problems when there seems to be unendless corruption in government there?

[patbrunz]

Seal the border and cut off everything to Mexico until they get their house in order.

[butterbean]

Mexico is brushing aside the U.S. concerns, with Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez-Mont saying Wednesday: "It seems inappropriate to me that you would call Mexico a security risk. There are problems in Mexico that are being dealt with, that we can continue to deal with, and that's what we are doing."

Good grief. Gomez-Mont is part of the problem. Mexico is THE WORST THREAT to America of any country in the world. And its right next door! The U.S. needs to complete the damn fence, put troops all along the border, and STOP all immigration from Mexico! We cannot keep allowing Mexicans to come into the country without legally applying to come here. And we need to send back all the illegal Mexicans already here. Our national security is at risk if we dont.

[crazybird]

Seal the border and cut off everything to Mexico until they get their house in order.

Exactly. I mean seriously.....they have Police officers that are cartel members.....can you tell me how we would ever know who the good guys are from the bad ones when they can't? They've already got pot fields growing and other corrupt businesses set up.......anchor babies in public office that are tied to them as well.

Enough already...time for some serious action.

[JohnDoe2]

Hillary Clinton on Mexico:

During her Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing Tuesday as secretary of state-designate, Sen. Hillary Clinton said the following about Mexico:

"We must build a deeper partnership with Mexico to address the shared danger arising from drug trafficking and the challenges of our border, an effort begun this week with a meeting between President-elect Obama and President (Felipe) Calderon."

THE WEEK IN MEXICO
San Diego Union Tribune
1/18/09
----------------

So at least she is aware that we face danger from the Mexican Drug Gang Wars.