Andy Caldwell
Americans killed the Mormons in Mexico
America was shocked by the massacre in Mexico of Mormon family members who are dual citizens of both Mexico and the United States. Unfortunately, Americans should be appalled, but not surprised, as such brutality is nearly an everyday occurrence in Mexico. In fact, the only reason this story made the news here has to do with the fact that the decedents were dual citizens. Mexico is at war, a war between the various drug cartels, and between the cartels and the government, which has cost the lives of some 200,000 people.
Several years ago, I attended a border security conference in El Paso, Texas. The conference included the same content and was presented by the same experts, who brief law enforcement officials from throughout the country. The information conveyed was prescient and nothing less than mind-boggling.
The first thing America needs to come to grips with is the magnitude of the problem in Mexico. The cartels have armies comprised of tens of thousands of soldiers who are often better equipped than the Mexican army and our American border control agents, let alone the members of any local police force. They have murdered high-ranking government officials including judges, mayors, prosecutors, police chiefs, journalists and anybody else who gets in their way or simply publicly criticizes them.
Second, northern Mexico is a failed state. That is, neither America nor Mexico controls our common border. The cartels control the border and the northern portions of the country by way of bribery, intimidation, blackmail, mayhem and murder. Their calling card, “plato o plomo,” translated from Spanish, reads “take our silver (money) or take our lead (bullets).”
The narco-terrorists have succeeded in infiltrating every strata of society and every department in the government and the military. The people of Mexico, therefore, have little choice except to accept the silver or the lead, after all, who is going to come to their rescue? America? Any attempt by us to do so would be as complicated as taking out the Islamic terrorists inside Iraq and Afghanistan.
Truth be told, this war has already crossed over into the United States, but the press is not covering the story. This has to do with the most foreboding warning mentioned at the conference I attended. That is, the intimidation and corruption that has become commonplace in Mexico has been successfully imported into the United States. The cartels have people in every major city across America, and they are now infiltrating our law enforcement agencies throughout the land, including our border security and drug enforcement agencies. In essence, members of American law enforcement are quickly succumbing to the silver or lead ultimatum in droves.
How bad is it? Judith Miller, writing in City Journal, outlines the extent of the corruption in a piece titled “The Mexicanization of American Law Enforcement.” She quotes various experts about the cartel’s strategy to “hollow out our institutions just as they have in Mexico.”
Some tell-tale signs the plan is working? The FBI has assigned 120 agents to investigate public corruption, drug-related and otherwise. Our customs and border protection agency has had to increase the number of internal affairs investigators over the past three years from five to 220.
The level of enforcement effort is a reflection of the corruption and rot within, due to the fact that scores of agents are being recruited and placed into these agencies by the cartels and/or they are being bought off. Ergo, the number of cases filed against Department of Homeland Security personnel in recent years is in the hundreds.
Lost on America? The cartels exist and thrive only because of our nation’s consumer demands for the vices they peddle.
Andy Caldwell is the executive director of COLAB and host of The Andy Caldwell Radio Show, weekdays from 3-5 p.m., on News-Press AM 1290.
