Is Mexico spinning out of control?

I don't know how many readers keep an eye on what's happening South of the Border, but you might want to start paying close attention to developments there.

It looks like the 'drug wars' between the Mexican government and security services on the one hand, and the drug cartels on the other, are spinning out of control - and that's having a direct and immediate impact on the border area. Don't expect it to stay confined to that part of the country.

To give you just a few examples of developments this month:


1. May 7th: Mexican drug cartels openly recruit fighters.

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico -- The job offer was tempting.

It was printed on a 16-foot-wide banner and strung above one of the busiest roads here, calling out to any "soldier or ex-soldier."

"We're offering you a good salary, food and medical care for your families," it said in block letters.

But there was a catch: The employer was Los Zetas, a notorious Gulf cartel hit squad formed by elite Mexican army deserters. The group even included a phone number for job seekers that linked to a voice mailbox.

2. May 14th: US-trained forces reportedly helping Mexican cartels.

WASHINGTON — As many as 200 U.S.-trained Mexican security personnel have defected to drug cartels to carry out killings on both sides of the border and as far north as Dallas, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, told Congress on Wednesday.

The renegade members of Mexico's elite counter-narcotics teams trained at Fort Benning, Ga., have switched sides, contributing to a wave of violence that has claimed some 6,000 victims over the past 30 months, including prominent law enforcement leaders, the Houston-area Republican told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The slaughter has gained urgency amid high-profile assassinations of law officers in Mexico since May 1, claiming six senior officers, five of them with the federal police.

3. May 14th: Mexican police seek asylum in US as violence escalates.

MEXICO CITY — With the U.S. Congress debating whether to send hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for Mexico's crackdown on drug cartels, American officials said Wednesday that three Mexican police chiefs have sought asylum north of the border in fear for their lives.

Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner for Customs and Border Enforcement, told the Associated Press that the officials had sought asylum "in the past few months."

Citing privacy issues, Ahern did not identify the police. A senior Homeland Security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the asylum requests to the Houston Chronicle but provided no details. "They're basically abandoned by their police officers or police departments in many cases," Ahern said in Washington.

4. May 15th: Mexico police battle lethal cartels.

A week ago, Mexico's top policeman, Edgar Millan, was shot dead outside his home in Mexico City.

It is the equivalent of killing the head of the Metropolitan Police in London, or the director of the FBI in the US.

Two other senior officers were then killed in the space of two days, the murders blamed on Mexico's powerful drug gangs.

The BBC News website looks at the violence and its impact in Mexico and also in the neighbouring US.

5. May 19th: ‘Join Us or Die’ - Drug Cartels Threaten Mexican Police - Mexico Violence Out Of Control.

Violence is spinning out of control is areas along the U.S. Mexico border and now drug cartels are sending a chilling message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die.

The threat appears in recruiting banners that are hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops are receiving additional threats over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico’s acting federal police chief.

In two reports distributed last week, Strategic Forecasting examined the situation in Mexico in depth.


6. May 13th: Mexico: On The Road To A Failed State?

There comes a moment when the imbalance in resources reverses the relationship between government and cartels. Government officials, seeing the futility of resistance, effectively become tools of the cartels. Since there are multiple cartels, the area of competition ceases to be solely the border towns, shifting to the corridors of power in Mexico City. Government officials begin giving their primary loyalty not to the government but to one of the cartels. The government thus becomes both an arena for competition among the cartels and an instrument used by one cartel against another. That is the prescription for what is called a “failed state” — a state that no longer can function as a state. Lebanon in the 1980s is one such example.

7. May 14th: Mexico: Examining Cartel War Violence Through a Protective Intelligence Lens.

Mexico’s long and violent drug cartel war has recently intensified. The past week witnessed the killings of no fewer than six senior police officials. One of those killed was Edgar Millan Gomez, acting head of the Mexican federal police and the highest-ranking federal cop in Mexico. Millan Gomez was shot to death May 8 just after entering his home in Mexico City.

Within the past few days, six suspects have been arrested in connection with his murder. One of the ringleaders is said to be a former federal highway police officer. The suspects appear to have ties to the Sinaloa cartel. In fact, Millan Gomez was responsible for a police operation in January that led to the arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva, the cartel’s second-in-command. Mexican police believe Beltran Leyva’s brother Arturo (who is also a significant player in the Sinaloa cartel structure) commissioned the hit.

During the same time period, violence from the cartel war has visited the family of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, the Sinaloa cartel leader who has the distinction of being Mexico’s most-wanted drug kingpin. On May 8, Guzman Loera’s son Edgar Guzman Beltran and two companions were killed by a large-scale ambush as they left a shopping mall in Culiacan, Sinaloa.

Friends, like I said, the situation in Mexico bears watching. Those perpetrating, buying, and orchestrating this kind of violence live within easy reach of almost anywhere in the USA. Our border security is a joke, and the dimwits in Congress and the Senate don't seem willing or able to do anything about beefing it up. Hispanic and other gangs trafficking narcotics are rampant in almost every city you can think of - and they get their supplies from or through Mexico, for the most part.

I wouldn't take any bets that this sort of thing might not spread to a neighborhood near you.

Peter