U.S. vulnerable to exploitable mercenaries
”Join the ranks of the Gulf Cartel,” reads a recruitment banner. “We offer benefits, life insurance, a house for your family and children. Stop living in the slums and riding the bus. A new car or truck, your choice.”
Such banners and signs are appearing in various Mexican states urging members of Mexico’s national military to join the Zetas, the hit squad of the Gulf Cartel.
Last week, federal agents detained the Reynosa police commissioner Juan José Muñiz, for questioning because of evidence he was protecting the Zetas, the Mexican Justice Department said.
Read the daily’s complete article here.
In the border town of Juárez, information about who is fighting whom on the streets is hard to come by. The International Herald Tribune has reported that the local police chief professes that he knows nothing about the conflict, despite having been an officer there for 30 years. He acknowledges that the 1,600-member police force is riddled with corrupt officers, a consequence, he says, of low pay and the lack of a career path that leads them to seek other sources of money.
The elephant-in-the-room question becomes who else will impoverished Mexicans aid if the price is right? The United States remains vulnerable to the threat of international terrorist organizations. Their ability to exploit the poverty, lawlessness, economic instability and governmental corruption south of our border places us in an untenable situation.
As long ago as 2004, TIME magazine reported border agents have encountered not only a wide variety of invaders from Latin Americans (Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, Nicaragua and Venezuela) but also intruders from Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Russia and China as well as Egypt, Iran and Iraq
The presidential candidates must stop side-stepping this critical issue. Empty promises and inaction cannot continue as America stares squarely in the face of impending peril.
April 21, 2008 at 1:49 pm
This is such a serious issue and one that gets little mention. Terrorists easily offering a year’s wage to an impoverished transporting coyote to bring them into the states through Mexico, pose a very real threat to our national security. The figures of OTM’s apprehended are staggering.
No one seems willing to talk about this and the truth is not one of the three candidates has made this a priority. In fact, each of them have made broad inferences to the fact that they will loosen rather than tighten the border, Americans become sitting ducks while the business entities casually go their merry way of exploiting cheap labor and infer the rest of us are bigots.
This Christian Science Monitor article is nearly three years old, and the numbers it reports make any reasonable person wonder why our own government is not interested in protecting its citizens.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0726/p01s01-usfp.html
April 21, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Thank you, President George W. Bush and your good buddies Mexican Presidents Fox and Calderon. Bush has acted more like a president of Mexico than the USA. I feel so duped after having worked on his local campaigns.
April 21, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Americans should have a president committed to protecting the country and its citizens. What a shame that we don’t and that more of the same is on the horizon. McAmnesty legislatively promoted this insanity, and the two dems are in the same camp as he is.
April 22, 2008 at 12:05 am
Much ado about nothing!