The Border Goes Kaboom
A drug cartel has used a car bomb for the first time in Mexico's decades-long fight against traffickers, setting a deadly trap against federal police in a city across the border from Texas, the mayor of Ciudad Juarez said Friday.
Mayor Jose Reyes said federal police have confirmed to him that a car bomb was used in the attack that killed three people Thursday.
It was the first time a drug cartel has used a bomb to attack Mexican security forces, marking an escalation in a raging drug war that already is extremely deadly: On Friday alone, a dozen people were killed and 21 wounded in a series of gun battles between soldiers and cartel gunmen in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, the federal Interior Department said. -- Fox News
Seems immigration, drugs, and American grand strategy are converging issues. That probably means our attitudes about these issues will polarize accordingly. But one thought keeps nagging at me: the purpose of the Monroe Doctrine was to ensure that war -- real war -- did not come to America's borders. Are those days over? I don't think so, and I hope not. I'm increasingly interested in thinking through immigration and drugs from a Monrovian standpoint.
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May '10
Re: The Border Goes Kaboom
And our Federal Governments priority is suing Arizona. Not securing the border, not protecting our citizens, not providing for the common defense. Suing a state for daring to try and enforce Federal Law. My head hurts.
May '10
Re: The Border Goes Kaboom
If we had spent a quarter of the "stimulus" money on building a fence, we'd be in far better shape.
Alas, all those "Putting America to work" signs along the border would probably be a racist incitement to violence. Then President Obama would have to apologize to the Mexican government by giving them Texas, or something.
Jun '10
Re: The Border Goes Kaboom
I think people are missing the significance of this event. It's a major plus for the US and a huge strategic error for the narcotics gangs. Consider the following:
(1) We know Hezbollah is active along the border.
(2) We know foreign terrorists are cooperating with the Mexican narco-gangs.
(3) Mexican authorities must answer the question about what sort of bomb this was based on the forensic evidence. What are the similarities, if any, to IED's being used in Iraq and Afghanistan?
(4) Only US intelligence has the expertise necessary to know the source of this bomb, to decide if it was produced domestically using local technology and components, or if there is indeed a terrorist link.
This is going to bring the US into the border war and force the cooperation of the Mexican government. The incident is now clearly a matter of US national security, and we have the excuse to act on it. Huge mistake by the narco-gangs.
Jun '10
Re: The Border Goes Kaboom
I think this shines a light (finally?) on the deterioration of Mexico as a stable nation. The U.S. has been propping up the Mexican government for years; has anything really been gained from the Merida initiative? I really wonder just how much help the Mexican government can really offer at this point, given their increasing loss of control.