Yes, it's another warning about what's going on in Mexico, following the many, many warnings I've already put up on this blog.
The Washington Times reports:
The U.S. Defense Department thinks Mexico's two most deadly drug cartels together have fielded more than 100,000 foot soldiers - an army that rivals Mexico's armed forces and threatens to turn the country into a narco-state.
"It's moving to crisis proportions," a senior U.S. defense official told The Washington Times. The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitive nature of his work, said the cartels' "foot soldiers" are on a par with Mexico's army of about 130,000.
The disclosure underlines the enormity of the challenge Mexico and the United States face as they struggle to contain what is increasingly looking like a civil war or an insurgency along the U.S.-Mexico border. In the past year, about 7,000 people have died - more than 1,000 in January alone. The conflict has become increasingly brutal, with victims beheaded and bodies dissolved in vats of acid.
The death toll dwarfs that in Afghanistan, where about 200 fatalities, including 29 U.S. troops, were reported in the first two months of 2009. About 400 people, including 31 U.S. military personnel, died in Iraq during the same period.
The biggest and most violent combatants are the Sinaloa cartel, known by U.S. and Mexican federal law enforcement officials as the "Federation" or "Golden Triangle," and its main rival, "Los Zetas" or the Gulf Cartel, whose territory runs along the Laredo,Texas, borderlands.
The two cartels appear to be negotiating a truce or merger to defeat rivals and better withstand government pressure. U.S. officials say the consequences of such a pact would be grave.
"I think if they merge or decide to cooperate in a greater way, Mexico could potentially have a national security crisis," the defense official said. He said the two have amassed so many people and weapons that Mexican President Felipe Calderon is "fighting for his life" and "for the life of Mexico right now."
As a result, Mexico is behind only Pakistan and Iran as a top U.S. national security concern, ranking above Afghanistan and Iraq, the defense official added.
There's a lot more to the report. Recommended reading.
Meanwhile, the Mexican government is trying desperately to stem the tidal wave of violence in Ciudad Juarez. According to another report:
Nearly 2,000 Mexican soldiers and armed federal police poured into the border town of Ciudad Juarez last weekend.
The city - just across from El Paso in Texas - has been ravaged by drug gangs. Just this month 250 people were killed there by hitmen fighting for lucrative smuggling routes.
The soldiers' mandate is clear - and ambitious.
'This is to reinforce the operation in general ... to eradicate kidnappings, extortion, assaults and homicide,' army spokesman Enrique Torres said.
The soldiers are the first contingent of as many as 5,000 troops and federal police being sent to Juarez.
Almost 2,500 soldiers and federal police have been there for nearly a year, but they have failed to curb the violence plaguing the city of about 1.6 million people.
President Felipe Calderon's military operation is supported by the United States, which is concerned the violence could destabilize Mexico, a key trading partner, and spill over the border.
Mexico has deployed some 45,000 troops across the country to try to crush drug gangs, but clashes between rival cartels and security forces killed around 6,000 people last year.
Folks, if you can read those reports, and still remain complacent about the real and present danger posed to US society and national security by the situation in Mexico . . . there's not much I, or anyone else, can do for you. Please spread the word about this, be vigilant to identify potential problems in your area (particularly if you live in a state bordering Mexico, or an area with a sizable Hispanic population), and keep your guard up!
Peter
Great they are masked like the interpreters in Iraq so that no one can ID them and kill there families.
ReplyDeleteI was not a supporter of the wall but then I guess I was an idiot. Now there is a WPA project. Digging foundation for a for the wall and building it. It will need a lot of seismic sensors to listen for tunneling.
"100,000 foot soldiers?" I am reminded of the "missile gap" from the 50's. The cold war was real, and the Soviets weren't to be trifled with, but our government was not above lying about the degree of the danger to serve its own aims. The government's aims, although perhaps consistent with the safety of the people, were not always consistent with their liberty. I am a little suspicious of the source of the report.
ReplyDeletefrom Secrecy News, 2009-03-05
ReplyDelete(http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/)
DOD FUTURE TREND STUDY PROVOKES FOREIGN REACTION
A November 2008 Defense Department study of trends in national and international security was intended "to spark discussions ... about the nature of the future security environment." But the study (pdf), called the Joint Operating Environment 2008 (JOE 2008), has also triggered several unintended international reactions.
Last December, South Korean officials complained that JOE 2008 included North Korea in a list of nuclear weapons states. The U.S. Joint Forces Command felt obliged to issue a news release disavowing that statement in the report.
"The statement regarding North Korea does not reflect official U.S. government policy regarding the status of North Korea. The U.S. government has long said that we will never accept North Korea as a nuclear power," the Joint Forces Command declared.
Then it turned out that Mexico was unhappy with the JOE's discussion of that country's potential vulnerability to criminal gangs and drug cartels, including the statement that "an unstable Mexico could represent a homeland security problem of immense proportions to the United States."
"The Mexican ambassador has asked to see me and we hope to link up very soon," said Gen. James Mattis of Joint Forces Command on February 12. Mexico's concerns about JOE 2008 were reported in "Mattis Plans Meeting with Mexican Ambassador over Controversy" by Fawzia Sheikh in Inside the Pentagon, February 19, 2009.
Perhaps as a result of such unwanted attention, JOE 2008 has been quietly removed from some Defense Department web sites like this one, which says the document is "currently unavailable":
But it remains online at Joint Forces Command (http://www.jfcom.mil/) and is also posted here (http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/joe2008.pdf).
Hopefully, the Defense Department will not conclude that it must neuter its public statements or that it should move its security policy studies behind closed doors in order to avoid criticism or hurt feelings. Instead, DoD and its counterparts abroad might come to appreciate that questionable, challenging and even erroneous statements can be openly discussed without doing any real harm to anyone.