Mexico's war with criminal insurgents

Investor's Business Daily:

The accelerating drug war in Mexico cries out for more attention. The horrific violence signals something already too big for Mexico to fight alone. It will spread north. The U.S. can't afford to wait.

As Americans went to the polls last week, Juan Camilo Mourino, Mexico's interior secretary, was falling to Earth over the capital in a fiery crash that killed him and 13 others.

Investigators are trying to determine why the helicopter carrying Mexico's second-highest official failed, but many think it was the work of drug cartels that Mexico has been at war with since 2006.

If traffickers were indeed responsible, they have sent a signal that they're coming for the government and can take down Mexico's leaders anywhere, anytime. If it was an accident, there's the disturbing implication that Mexico's aircraft are deficient even for its leaders. Either way, the U.S. ought to do more to help.

Some 4,400 Mexicans have been killed in the drug war this year alone — including a record 58 in one day last week. Grisly killings of honest cops, officials, innocent bystanders, kidnap victims and other traffickers engulf border towns like Juarez and Tijuana.

But the carnage is spreading even to formerly placid vacation spots such as Rosarito Beach on the west coast. The tourists, of course, are gone, U.S. State Department travel advisories are up, and local economies are withering.

Mexico has also become the kidnapping capital of the world, not only in numbers but in viciousness. Victims are often killed even after a ransom is paid. And they're no longer confined to the wealthy.

A week ago, the 5-year-old son of impoverished street merchants was taken and then, when a ransom wasn't paid, killed with an injection of acid into his heart. This week, 27 farm laborers were kidnapped. Twenty-six Americans have also been abducted in Mexico, and there are signs that it's spreading north of the border. A few weeks ago, 8-year-old Cole Puffenberger of Las Vegas was taken because a relative owed debts to drug cartels.

Two years ago, when Mexico went on the offensive against the drugs, every analyst dismissed the idea of Mexico becoming "another Colombia." No one believed that the impact of the drug trade could ever be as pervasive as in that South American country.

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The war Mexico is fighting is fueled by drug consumption north of the border, reason enough for the U.S. to share responsibility, as Mexico has asked. Mexico's war also has more potential to spread here than any other, and its insidious violence has a capacity to corrupt institutions and create insecurity. It should not fight this alone.

Actually I have been pointing out the problem for more than two years. It is good to see that mainline media organizations are also noticing the problem. The corruption and the break down in the rule of law is starting to creep across the border into adjoining states.

So far the violence has mostly stayed on the Mexican side but the weapons that are used are generally imported from the US. Much of the violence is what I call red on red where the criminal insurgents fight each other over smuggling routes.

Mexico needs to get help training its troops in counterinsurgency warfare so they can protect the people and get the intelligence they need to defeat the insurgents. That does not appear to be on the agenda at this point from either side of the border.