Sunday, March 15, 2009

Looking For Terror In All The Wrong Places

I searched for the most grisly picture I could find to illustrate this post. Not because I like blood and gore and severed heads, but because I fear for what's happening on our southern border. Really fear it.

If you listen to the news at all you're aware of the war between the Mexican drug cartels. You've read about the execution style killings and the slaughter of members of the police and army who haven't been corrupted and are trying to quell the violence. If you really listen you realize that these atrocities are happening in the border towns. Our border!

This is a long way from the horrors in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's here and like it or not, it has crossed the border into our country. The cartels are having great success recruiting American teens to be their assassins. Does this sound familiar? Bored or disenfranchised kids looking for a little excitement? Do they not make up the terror squads in the Middle East? Yet this is here. In our country! Our kids!

The money is good and easy. Sometimes $50,000 and two kilos of cocaine for a successful hit. A $500 a week retainer and a $70,000 Mercedes to get around in. Our border. Our kids!

What's most frightening of all are the drug pipelines that wend their way throughout the United States. There is a big one that comes right up through Idaho. Unless we get a handle on it now, it's only a matter of time before our law enforcement officials will be found with their hands bound sans heads.

Terror is a tactic. You bet it is. It has been determined you can't wage a war on a tactic. It's time to stop worrying about descriptive semantics and get a grip on what's happening. This need not be one of uniformed troops against terrorists in civilian clothing. The Mexicans have found, as we have in Iraq and Afghanistan, it just makes the good guys easier targets for the bad guys. No matter what you choose to call it, it's here, it's now and if isn't contained on the border we'll have far bigger problems than finding Osama bin Laden!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you are from SoCal, this is not news. We have known about it for a long time. Why...because it has been going on for a long time. Do I think it can be obliterated? In truth, no. And that is horrible. There are many reasons. The poor and disinfranchised will always be among us. Thus it has always been. The need for escapism, likewise, has always been among us. Terror tactics work very well indeed. And the white hats only win in old time westerns. This sounds like the worst negativity. Sadly, it is not...it is simply the realistic answer.

People in this country appear to decry the less civilized forms of interrogation. We become crippled by our constitution and our appearance of superiority. "We don't do things like that". What the black hats understand, is strength and power. Either we have it, or they have it. And now, as your illustration so graphically shows, they have it. Dick Cheney ( a truly loathsome man) said that waterboarding was successful interrogation. My position is that if this type of questioning would save my childrens lives, go for it. That is really not PC. It is mother correct however. And I make no apology. CU

cconz said...

What's the answer? Everybody is a crook. Money talks louder than "JUST DO THE RIGHT THING". Make drugs legal, or do away with money, every person has a chip implanted and pass it over a scanner. Can't use money so crooks can't use it . I heard it on NPR. It is frightening. Life means nothing.