After I read Tony Kimery’s outstanding article in HSToday entitled, ‘Savage Struggle on the Border,’ I could not help but dwell on the irony and absurdity of what’s happening in both Mexico and the United States as a result of this war.
I am stunned by the fact that most Americans have paid little attention, if any at all, to the drug related violence in Mexico, and I’m even more concerned that they have not made the connection to the threat that this sustained bloodbath poses to our national security. If the brave Mexican law enforcement, military and security forces under President Calderon’s direction lose this ‘all or nothing’ fight with the cartels, Mexico will certainly become a narco-state, and life as we know it in both Mexico and the United States will change forever.
There were well over sixty beheadings in Mexico last year, yet the brutality being unleashed by the cartels is seldom deemed newsworthy by America’s media. However, if there were a beheading in Iraq or Afghanistan today by a Muslim extremist group, it would receive international coverage and would certainly receive global condemnation.
Our Nation has spent over one-half trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past five years—and rightfully so. However, our country plans on spending a mere $400 million dollars a year for the next few years to help Mexico take on the cartels and win back their country. Our Central American neighbors are losing the fight against these same syndicates as many of these thugs flee south to evade the pressure from Mexican security forces. Every American should thank God that most of these ruthless criminals are fleeing south, rather than north.
We as a Nation are as much responsible for what’s happening in Mexico and Central America today as those countries are. If it were not for our fellow citizen’s insatiable appetite for illegal drugs, little of this would be going on. And most of the firearms used in the countless acts of violence in Mexico are coming from the United States.
We owe Mexico far more support than we are giving her. We cannot turn our backs on Mexico and expect or neighbor to take on this brutally violent, multi-national threat on her own. That’s not what Americans do; especially to our neighbors.
