Mexican Drug War

Gunmen representing the Zetas drug trafficking organization have threatened to attack isolated natural gas well drillers unless they pay to operate in parts of northern Mexico. The threats are a new twist in Mexico's failed drug prohibition war, which is hitting businesses near the U.S.-Mexico border.

A Mexican drug trafficking organization kidnapped the 12-year-old daughter of a ranch foreman in New Mexico, holding the girl for ransom until her family and neighbors came up with $80,000 for her release. They didn’t dare call law enforcement for help because of very real fears their calls would be monitored by the kidnappers using sophisticated communications relay stations erected on U.S. public lands. "The drug smugglers use scanners, cell phones, GPS systems and other equipment that is better than anything Border Patrol or the local deputy sheriffs have. We could actually see them watching our Border Patrol agents from points on high ground," said Rep. Ed Royce, a Republican from California while visiting hot spots along the New Mexico, Arizona and Texas border. This is yet another example of violence from Mexico's drug prohibition war crossing the border into the United States, and is interesting as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s keeps claiming there has been no "spillover violence".

Mexican President Felipe Calderón has been invited to give the commencement address at Stanford University in June, but an editorial in this week’s El Mensajero calls it the "wrong choice" due to his prohibitionist drug war. El Mensajero editor María Mejía writes that the point of a commencement address is to inspire students, adding that if she were a student, she wouldn’t feel inspired by Calderón. "I don’t admire his war against drug trafficking...I can’t believe that more than 30,000 dead during his administration due to violence stemming from narcotrafficking is something that could inspire me," she wrote.

Despite Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s claims of no "spillover violence" from Mexico’s drug war, police in Brownsville just announced that a third suspect has been charged in connection with a double murder that took place in the Texas border town back in September. It was a drug trafficking organization hit.

The once-fearsome Guatemalan army has returned to the jungles where it battled Marxist guerrillas a generation ago, this time to hunt shadowy Mexican drug traffickers fighting for control of strategic smuggling routes to the United States. The military operations are the clearest sign yet that as Mexico's wealthy drug trafficking organizations spread into Central America, wary but weak governments here are preparing to follow Mexican President Felipe Calderon's U.S.-backed decision to turn the armed forces against the traffickers. That prohibitionist strategy has failed to slow the violence in Mexico, which has left more than 34,000 dead in four years.

US Undersecretary of the Army Joseph Westphal likened Mexico's drug war to an "insurgency" and suggested the US might need to send troops to Mexico and to prevent prohibition-created drug trafficking organizations from taking over the country. Mexico has condemned the remarks, which Westphal has retracted and apologized for, but they echo September comments from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also compared Mexico's drug prohibition threat to an "insurgency." President Obama immediately backed away from Mrs. Clinton's comparison then, just as Westphal immediately labeled his own words "inaccurate."

Relatives feared for her safety and urged Police Chief Erica Gandara to keep a low profile. But she refused, posing with her rifle for newspaper interviews. Then, at 6 a.m. on December 23, 10 drug trafficking organization gunmen pulled up to her residence, dragged her out of the house and set the home on fire. She has not been seen or heard from since.

Three teenage boys were shot and killed in the border town of Ciudad Juárez. Two, 15 and 16-years-old, were US citizens living in the town, but attending high schools in Texas.

Mexican authorities recovered the bodies of five men who were dumped on the side of road in the northern state of Zacatecas. The deaths raised to 41 the number of people killed over the weekend due to drug prohibition violence.