By Martin Arvizu
It still boggles my mind that some people have no idea what is going on in Mexico. I believe that I work with some pretty educated people, yet when I ask them if they have heard about what is going on only 200 miles south of us; they shrug and say, “No, what’s going on?” Even after I tell them, they do not really seem to grasp the severity of the problem. As Today’s Top Story, written by Wall Street Journal columnist, Mary O’Grady points out, everyone seems fixated on some other part of the world except our own back yard.
According to the article, the death toll in President Felipe Calderon’s (PAN) crackdown on the drug cartels has reached 4, 909 since he took office in December of 2006. To further illustrate her point, O’Grady compares the American death toll in Iraq which at the moment stands at 4,142. Unfortunately, Americans do not think about violent drug cartels when vacationing in Cancun or Cabo San Lucas. As long as those places stay open and are not affected, they do not seem to care. At a time when immigration from Mexico is being debated by everyone from Lou Dobbs to local Sheriffs and mayors, Americans better start caring as Mexico is quickly spiraling out of control with no foreseeable end in sight.
Along with the increase in drug-related killings has come an increase in other crimes. Kid-nappings and robberies are now on the rise as well. Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, mistakenly attributes this increase to the drug cartels trying to make up for lost revenues from increased drug seizures and loss of profits from the government’s crackdown. But could it possibly be from the fact that there are now 449 less police and military officers in Mexico since the beginning of the crackdown? Could it also be that entire police forces in Mexico are handing in their resignations out of fear of the drug cartels’ assassins? Besides I doubt with the chaos going on in Mexico, police are going to worry about anything that is not drug related. If your house is broken into and robbed, their attitude is, tough, get bars on the window. For the moment, criminals have the upper hand in Mexico. This is why crime is increasing.
Americans are not that worried about Mexico, for now. But we start to. Mexicans were coming here in droves before this civil war-level violence broke out. So, try to imagine the chaos and emigration as the situation worsens. Which it will unless Americans quit buying drugs, or we legalize them. Neither of which is going to happen anytime soon.
