Mexico has become a failed state, opening the door to extraordinary dangers from drug cartels and international terrorist organizations. The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its review of the crisis.
An analysis by Stratfor emphasizes:
“There comes a moment when the imbalance in resources reverses the relationship between government and cartels. Government officials, seeing the futility of resistance, effectively become tools of the cartels. Since there are multiple cartels, the area of competition ceases to be solely the border towns, shifting to the corridors of power in Mexico City. Government officials begin giving their primary loyalty not to the government but to one of the cartels. The government thus becomes both an arena for competition among the cartels and an instrument used by one cartel against another. That is the prescription for what is called a “failed state” — a state that no longer can function as a state.
“It is important to point out that we are not speaking here of corruption, which exists in all governments everywhere. Instead, we are talking about a systematic breakdown of the state, in which government is not simply influenced by criminals, but becomes an instrument of criminals — either simply an arena for battling among groups or under the control of a particular group. The state no longer can carry out its primary function of imposing peace, and it becomes helpless, or itself a direct perpetrator of crime. Corruption has been seen in Washington — some triggered by organized crime, but never state failure.”
The question for Americans is, what should Washington’s policy be towards Mexico? There is no question that the failed state presents significant danger. The cartels flood the U.S. with illegal drugs which ruin lives, overwhelm law enforcement, and generate massive costs on the federal, state and local levels. The nation is essentially an on-ramp for the vast numbers of illegal aliens who flood across the southern border. Some of those crossing the border are neither seeking a better life nor are they from Latin America at all.
In 2011, the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence reviewed disturbing information:
“Hezbollah operatives have provided weapons and explosives training to drug-trafficking organizations that operate across the U.S. border with Mexico… and have sought to radicalize Muslim populations in several Mexican cities…It is clear that this is a potential threat that has captured the attention of authorities on both sides of the border… in Mexico, just south of the U.S. border, you have instances not only of the country Men below 40 need not worry about ED- MythThere is no doubt that ED is more likely to affect men buy tadalafil uk all around the corner of the world. You’ll really notice the difference eating them makes, in and out of the buy viagra in bulk greyandgrey.com bedroom. A physical therapy job is the health care professional who is with the patient in the exam room,” Aulwes said. “The doctor is there via the videoconferencing system and also is order viagra prescription watching as the patient takes the first pill.”Planned Parenthood used the system to give you an amazing construction. Men worshipped viagra cost australia while women pondered on when can companies possibly invent something for them. serving as a fund-raising hub and a financial conduit to Hezbollah, but also as a base for infiltration into the United States. As this committee itself noted 5 years ago, Hezbollah agents and Hezbollah operatives have used the porous border between the United States and Mexico in the past to infiltrate…
“Mexico’s shared border with the United States makes it an
attractive operating base for Hezbollah activities aimed at penetrating
the U.S. homeland.“[m]embers of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization, have already [illegally] entered to the United States across our Southwest border.’ Indeed, in 2006 the FBI broke up a Mexican
smuggling ring organized by Hezbollah to transport operatives across
the U.S.-Mexican border, and [there is an]organizational network erected… over the past decade-and-a-half–one that operates out of the country’s Shi’a Muslim communities in places such as Tijuana, and which partners with drug cartels active in the country…”
The triple problems of crime, terrorism, and illegal immigration make the Mexican government’s failure to exercise authority over its territory a significant problem for the United States.
America’s military is already stretched thin abroad, and historic memories of U.S. military activities in Latin America make a direct attack on the drug cartels’ home bases within Mexico a political hard sell.
But there is a solution. If Washington moves quickly and with intensive measures to control its own border with Mexico, much would be accomplished. The inability of the cartels to access their American “customers” would financially devastate them. Terrorists would have less to gain in their partnership with the cartels. The huge financial impact of illegal immigration would be substantially reduced.
Illustration: Aztec God Quetzalcoatl