Happenings South of the Border, and Now, North of It...

I have a friend and former seminary classmate who is involved in training Special Forces and law enforcement agencies in hand-to-hand combat (while in seminary he foiled a would-be robber in a local store in Pittsburgh by breaking the perp's thumbs). He recently sent me an email explaining some of the reality behind the growing violence along the U.S./Mexico border. As most are aware, there are daily reports of grotesque mass murders to the tune of over 6,000 deaths in the Mexican border towns just last year. We continue to hear that these are "drug gangs" and that the local law enforcement and Mexican military is doing their best to fight them and get this under control. Well, has it ever concerned you that for all this "fire-power" the problem continues to escalate? Have you ever found yourself wonder just what kind of "gangs" these are that are able to walk all over the Mexican military? My friend's recent email explained a lot of this and I think it is important to get the word out.

We trained-that is, the U.S. by way of tax-payer's money trained-Mexican Special Forces at Ft. Benning here in the U.S. I believe the intention was good and noble, being that we would have an elite, U.S.-trained force on the Mexican side of the border, able to greatly hinder the drug smuggling into the U.S. But what has happen is that the drug cartels have bought these U.S.-trained, Mexican Special Forces and they are now aiding the smuggling of people and drugs into the United States. That is why they are basically operating unchecked in Northern Mexico and the Mexican military seems impotent to stop them. Here is a Wikipedia article that will basically back up everything I have said here, but with much more detail and documentation.

Also, and related, here is a report from MSNBC on the problem of Mexican Military incursions over the border onto U.S. soil. Two things about this are, 1) It is not from an overly biased source (e.g. FOX News), so keep in mind that this was reported through a "mainstream" outlet, and 2) Note that the female reporter that they are interviewing mentions the fact that there have been defections from the U.S.-trained, Mexican Special Forces to the drug cartels.

Many security analysts are contending that this growing problem along our southern border is a greater threat to the security of America than Al Qaeda.