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Letter: Peril at southern border escalating

The Columbian
Published: March 30, 2011, 12:00am

According to international news and Mexican officials, the border city of Ciudad Juarez experienced 3,000 homicides last year, making it the most violent urban area in the world. It’s just across the border from El Paso, Texas. It would seem that the drug cartel infestation across Mexico is virtually unstoppable. Their brazenness hasn’t diminished in the face of Mexican President Calderon’s crackdown.

What if a time comes when the Mexican central government itself is taken over by the traffickers and their enforcers? If Mexican state governments are vulnerable to being taken over by “narco-trafficantes,” then it’s logical to assume that the central government in Mexico City is vulnerable. If that should occur, what would the U.S. do? Invade Mexico to eliminate a dire peril to the national security of the U.S.? Or do nothing, and thereby acquiesce in the establishment of a “drug traffickers’ republic” to our south?

Those who formulate U.S. national security policy may be faced with such terrible choices soon. Mexico is boiling over with drug-fueled violence, and Calderon’s successor just might throw in the towel completely. Our southern border is a thoroughly dangerous and foreboding place.

Frank W. Goheen

Camas

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