Are Mexico’s Drug Traffickers America’s Number One Security Threat… Behind Only Al-Queda?

It’s pretty typical behavior for Americans to ignore a problem until it hits too close to home. As Angeleno poet Ice Cube once put it, “I think back when i was robbin my own kind/The police didn’t pay it no mind/But when i start robbin the white folks/Now i’m in the pen wit the soap-on-a-rope.” So it comes as no great shock to us that after numerous behedings and murders of everyone from schoolkids to newspapers editors, the U.S. has decided to totally throw their weight behind curbing the violence that has been plaguing Mexico. Well, curbing the violence on our side of the border, anyway, as the more than 5,300 murders that went on in border cities like TJ and Juarez are threatening to add good ol’ American numbers to that tally in 2009.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently told The New York Times he ordered additional border security plans to be drawn up this summer as kidnappings and killings spilled into the U.S.

Mexico is brushing aside the U.S. concerns, with Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez-Mont saying Wednesday: “It seems inappropriate to me that you would call Mexico a security risk. There are problems in Mexico that are being dealt with, that we can continue to deal with, and that’s what we are doing.”

Uh… and exactly how does that answer the question about coming to the solution? Not that we’re saying that it’s easy to get rid of the virulent murders, kidnappings and all-around general douchebaggery of these trafficantes, but acknowledging you have the problem is the first step. Don’t get all huffy when someone else speaks up and tells you your shitting dog isn’t welcome on their lawn, especially when it’s your next-door neighbor who you occasionally screw and borrow money from.
Mexican drug wars worry some Americans [MSNBC]