Speculation that the Mexican drug war would cross the border into the U.S. was both right and wrong.
Right: Drug war action is already occurring in the U.S., as witnessed by kidnappings, beatings, torture and slit throats documented in U.S. cities.
Wrong: The U.S. Border cities are not necessarily the first affected. Bloodshed is occurring miles from the border, for instance, in Atlanta and Phoenix.
It is a particularly ugly war. Rusty Payne, a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in Washington, stated that cartel operatives are capable of doing anything. Very little is off limits "when you are willing to chop heads off, put them in an ice chest and drop them off at a police precinct, or roll a head into a disco, [or] put beheadings on YouTube as a warning," he told reporter Alicia Caldwell of the Associated Press.
While the U.S. violence has so far not matched the extensive and grisly nature of Mexican drug war action, intelligence from the U.S. Dept. of Justice shows Mexican cartel activity in 230 U.S. cities. Police found five men with slit throats in Birmingham AL in August who were apparently tortured with electric shock before their deaths in a murder-for-hire action by a Mexican drug organization due to a $400,000 debt. Is this the wave of the future for the U.S.?
Citizens with no connection to drug cartels have also suffered a sharp increase in home invasions and kidnappings in Phoenix AZ where they've logged 350 annually for the past two years. Police say the majority of these were perpetrated by Mexican drug organizations. In a June cartel action heavily armed men in stormed a Phoenix house and opened random fire, killing one. The number of kidnappings is difficult to estimate because victims do not always report to the police, but Phoenix was declared the "Kidnap-for-Ransom Capital" in the LA Times last week.
Law officers are worried. "The violence follows the drugs," according to David Cuthbertson, who heads the FBI's office in El Paso TX. U.S. citizens, whether or not they have any connection to the illegal drug industry, also have reason for concern. We on the border with Northern Mexico know that drug war chaos creates a climate of lawlessness that restricts both individual's livelihoods and society's functioning.
War is ugly. It's even uglier when it is undeclared...and outside the bounds of the Geneva Convention. And the evidence indicates that war is breaking out in the United States.
NBC news video found at this link:
