Conservative Donnybrook

Don’t look south, but things are getting a little parlous on the border. It seems that the two major drug cartels in Mexico have been talking about calling a truce and joining forces. Their combined numbers are apparently in the range of 100,000 foot soldiers. Meanwhile, the Mexican Army itself boasts around 130,000 men under arms. Federal Mexican forces have been streaming into the border town of Cuidad Juarez in order to quell an upsurge of violence in that region. In the past year, more than 7,000 people have been killed in the conflict that rages just South of the United States. To place that in context, over the entire course the War in Iraq since March 19, 2003 (which has been labeled by foes on both the Right and Left as an unwinnable quagmire) the United States has lost 4,254 persons; 3422 of those were killed in combat. In terms of numbers killed, the conflict on our border is ten times as hot as the conflict in Iraq has been.

The fact that the Mexican armed forces are on a numerical parity with the drug cartels should be a cause for grave concern in Washington, but it is unclear what, if anything, the current administration proposes to do to protect its citizens living near the border. Mexico is now counted as one of the top three threats to America’s national security along with Pakistan and Iran. Presumably that means we will send envoys to the cartels and try to make them like us by giving them things, saying nice things about them, and ignoring the fact that they have a tendency to leave headless corpses in their wakes in a style redolent of al Qaeda.

It has been nice (although suicidal) that the United States heretofore has been able to maintain a largely open and unguarded border with Mexico, but it is abundantly clear that those days have passed. With 230,000 armed soldiers likely to be engaged in open war on our border shortly, it behooves Obama to tend to his southern border with a large military presence. If not only to protect against an overspill of the conflict which looms, but also to protect against the wave of refugees that is likely to use the opportunity to make the border run that, for whatever reason, they have been putting off. The one good thing that might have come from the United States’ complete financial meltdown is that the U.S. might have looked a little less attractive to potential skulkers across our borders. However, with the upsurge in violence and political instability across the Rio Grande, that silver lining is tarnishing fast.

Perhaps Obama, Pelosi and Reid should rethink their plans to gut the military budget as it appears the military may be needed in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.