Mexico: Obama Needs to Wake Up and Smell the Gunpowder

Big Peace ^ | 10/29/10 | Ted Galen Carpenter

[Nachum]

While the Obama administration worries about security issues half way around the world in such places as Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea, a serious problem is brewing right on our southern border. Drug-related violence in Mexico has claimed some 29,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels four years ago. The situation is now so bad that some analysts worry that Mexico could become a “failed state.” That outcome is a relatively unlikely, worst-case scenario, but the violence is already bad enough that it warrants far more attention from America’s

[trapped_in_LA]

Ya, hows that gun control working down there in Mexico? Idiots, if they allowed everyone to carry I’d guarantee that there would be a lot less of this crap, or better yet if the US would just legalize coke and marijuana all the money from the drug trade would go “poof” and these drug cartels would be out of business (or more likely roll into the protection racket).

[sodpoodle]

This insurrection/invasion has to be the NUMBER ONE issue for the 2012 POTUS election.

Every murder, kidnapping, abandoned US acreage , drug heist, illegal border crossing numbers, $$billions in welfare, medicaid etc., should be catalogued and pounded into the American consciousness - every day, every hour.

This is BO’s 2012 Waterloo - Hillary’s too.

(unless Mexico nukes Texas & Arizona while BO is in India)

[DustyMoment]

There are two immediate responses that the US should make and one that will take time.

1. IMMEDIATELY build and staff a tall, wide, impenetrable wall along the southern border with Mexico.

2. IMMEDIATELY invade Mexico, destroy the drug farms and labs and arrest the drug lords and restore order to the Mexican cesspool.

3. Start rounding up the illegals and send them back to their cesspool of a country.

If we FAIL to act now, it will be a very short period of time before Mexico’s problems become significant problems for Americans living in the border states.

And, zero, is NOT the person I want handling this problem. I want a grownup who understands how power works!!

[adorno]

Drug-related violence in Mexico has claimed some 29,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels four years ago.

Something tells me that what's happening in Mexico is going beyond drug trafficking and drug wars.

When whole police departments resign and a vacuum is left, then that vacuum will be filled by very dangerous elements, and I don't just mean the forces of the drug lords.

Mexico is becoming the Afghanistan and the Pakistan of the Americas. The drug cartels even seem to be adopting the tactics of the terrorists from Al-Qaeda, and I wouldn't be surprised if Al-Qaeda was fully involved in infiltrating the drug cartels and in what's happening in Mexico. First, they destabilize, and then they they take over, little by little, until they've gotten the upper hand in the whole country.

Drug wars is one thing, even as dangerous as they can be. But, terrorism is a whole different matter, and much bigger and very much more dangerous.

[Niuhuru]

We should also put piranhas in the Rio Grande.

[PATRIOT1876]

If the drug cartels invade Obama’s response is certain to be that he will sue the People of the United States on behalf of the drug cartels and have Hilary get the UN involved against the American people.

...Wait a minute...this has already happened!

[r9etb]

Something tells me that what's happening in Mexico is going beyond drug trafficking and drug wars.

Agree, in part. Certainly the endemic corruption in Mexico has played its own part in breaking down authority.

But at the same time, I'd point out that the drug industry has huge financial resources, and uses them -- they're driving the train here, and it's in their interest to undermine the government, leaving effective control of the country in the hands of the drug lords.

It think, also, that illegal immigration has probably hurt Mexico very badly, in that millions of the best and hardest-working Mexicans have left the country.

While turf wars may occasionally lead to American deaths, I really don't see terrorism in the cards. The drug lords' income comes from the US -- they don't want to upset their cash cow.

And I don't see the drug cartels being infiltrated by Islamic terrorists, either. The drug lords are even more merciless than the Islamofascists, and they don't put up any nonsense that upsets their business, as an Islamic terrorist campaign would certainly do.

[Colonial Warrior]

[kingu]

I’m good with an Afghanistan like invasion and seizing the country of Mexico. Maybe we can be nice and let them have the stuff down by their southern border, just, you know, like a reservation or something. Call it Aztlan.

[Del Rapier]

It is more then that.

The 20th century created billions of people and then someone came up with the bright idea that corruption,squalor and crime amongst the poor was the key to solving the problem.

Apparently all those extra bodies in Mexico decided they didn’t all want to immigrate North and they didn’t want to curl up and die.

All that is going on down there is the logical consequence of social Darwinism,except that the strongest aren’t a bunch of pampered socialist running Mexico behind a million barriers.But a bunch of psychotic drug dealers running cartels that are destroying millions of lives.