U.S. ready for Mexico violence

[darrels joy]

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_1...questid=980033

[Seascamp]

The question that is becoming more relevant is who actually controls the Mexican side of the border, the northern Mexican States and the Mexican military assets in those states. Is it Mexico City or the criminal gangs? Increasingly strong evidence indicates it is the latter, not the former. Though I doubt the criminal gangs want to pick a fight directly with the US military, it is clear that the war has already spilled over the border with small unit attacks and warfare as far north as Phoenix. Some speculate that the implosion of the Mexican government can come at any time now, and if that does occur, it is going to get real dicey on the border and in all US border cities.


In its latest report anticipating possible global security risks, the U.S. Joint Forces Command lumps Mexico and Pakistan together as being at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse."
"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels," the command said in the report published Nov. 25.
"How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state."
Retiring CIA chief Michael Hayden told reporters on Friday that that Mexico could rank alongside Iran as a challenge for Obama — perhaps a greater problem than Iraq.
The U.S. Justice Department said last month that Mexican gangs are the "biggest organized crime threat to the United States." National security adviser Stephen Hadley said last week that the worsening violence threatens Mexico's very democracy.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently told The New York Times he ordered additional border security plans to be drawn up this summer as kidnappings and killings spilled into the U.S.