Violence against Journalist Spreads in Mexico – Drug Cartels use Al Quaeda Methods – Beheading Prevalent – Border Security - the Answser

Another funeral in Mexico - drug cartels shutting down jouranlists - image: el sol online.com


From the AP: Marisol Macias Castaneda, a newsroom manager for the Nuevo Laredo newspaper Primera Hora, was found decapitated (beheaded), along a roadside with a note found next to her body. This apparently took place by a local drug cartel in retaliation for Ms. Castaneda’s posting to a social networking site – a site where tips are given to police on those drug cartels, whose violence has escalated to the point of civil war. The AP notes that this is the third such death in recent weeks.

CNN also reported on the beheading of a newspaper editor, Maria Elizabeth Macias Castro, who was the editor in chief of the same publication, Primera Hora. Her body was found at approximately the same time. In addition, both a woman and man were left tortured and mutilated, with similar notes within weeks in the same border region. The Mexican government continues to send regrets to the families of victims.

One has to ask the question, how much more necessary is complete border security at a time when this type of war is taking place directly on our southern borders, and should the U.S. intervene by placing troops on the border, thereby cutting off the supply line necessary for these cartels to exist? It is the billions of dollars in U.S. aid to the Mexican government over the years to help fight the “drug war” that is obviously ineffective, therefore, effectively manning the border, and ensuring that these cartels lose their cash flow through a reduction in drugs and human trafficking may be the last line of defense, not only for the border states, such as Arizona, whose Governor, Jan Brewer, has done everything possible to send messages of urgency regarding the border to the administration, which messages are either ignored, or in the case of the State’s ability to help itself, fought in court. Of course, one might be told that this is a “complicated problem” that requires diplomacy, however, that ship has apparently sailed. While it is apparent that there are other areas of the globe that require U.S. intervention, and that these are justified as humanitarian in purpose, how much more important would be a modified intervention on our own borders?