"Grave threat" to US from Mexican drug insurgency?

Washington Times:

Mexican military efforts to crush heavily armed drug-smuggling operations in five cities along the U.S.-Mexico border pose a "grave threat" to U.S. authorities and a half-million Americans in the area, according to former U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization Service officials.

"What we face is more of a challenge than law enforcement can be expected to cope with," said Kent Lundgren, chairman of the 800-member National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO). "The best solution is for the U.S. military to assume armed positions along the border ... and use whatever force is necessary to control the border zone."

On Jan. 12, Mexican Brig. Gen. Rigoberto Garcia Cortez said the Mexican military and other personnel had surrounded five border cities in the lower Rio Grande Valley — Matamoros, Reynosa, Rio Bravo, Miguel Aleman and Nuevo Laredo — in response to gunfights between Mexican police, military forces and heavily armed drug smugglers.

Gen. Garcia told reporters last week his soldiers were encircling the targeted cities and were "organized to fight all criminal activity." He said it would take time, but the drug smugglers "will not be able to handle the government and the army. ... We are fighting for the security of the nation and its people."

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Violence has been the key to long-standing efforts by the Gulf Cartel to control drug smuggling on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mr. Lundgren said NAFBPO, whose membership includes eight former chiefs of the Border Patrol and 14 former INS district directors, thinks the next step for the Mexican military will be to begin closing the "noose on the gangs," but the targeted cities "abut the Rio Grande River, the international boundary and Mexican forces must stop there."

"The predictable consequence is that those bandits will retreat across the Rio Grande into the United States — they will not surrender to Mexican authorities," he said. "We need not expect Mexican authorities to inhibit their departures.

"This is a grave threat to U.S. Border Patrol officers, other U.S. law enforcement, and to residents of adjacent cities and towns in the United States," he said.

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I have been following the Mexican drug insurgency pretty closely and I think this warning is a bit overdrawn. The current trial in McAllen of a leader of the Gulf Cartel who was arrested buying a watermelon in a supermarket is a good example of how different things are on this side of the border. In Mexico, it either would not have happened or he would have been released.

There have been some examples of the Zeta's stalking law enforcement in the US, but it has been rare. There is still significant danger on the Mexican side of the Rio Grands but the Federalis are making some progress as the recent shoot out at Rio Bravo and the subsequent shootings in Reynosa suggest. The increased border enforcement is having a positive impact. It would be a serious mistake for the cartels to mount a direct challenge to US law enforcement.