Obama Considering National Guard Troops to Mexican Border
From McClatchy News Service:
WASHINGTON — President Obama weighed in Wednesday on the escalating drug war on the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that he was looking at possibly deploying National Guard troops to contain the violence but ruled out any immediate military move.
“We’re going to examine whether and if National Guard deployments would make sense and under what circumstances they would make sense,” Obama said during an interview with journalists for regional papers, including a McClatchy reporter.
“I don’t have a particular tipping point in mind,” he said. “I think it’s unacceptable if you’ve got drug gangs crossing our borders and killing U.S. citizens.”
More on Mexico’s Failed State Symptoms
Who’s In Charge in Juarez? from the New York Times
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — Mayor José Reyes Ferriz is supposed to be the one to hire and fire the police chief in this gritty border city that is at the center of Mexico’s drug war. It turns out, though, that real life in Ciudad Juárez does not follow the municipal code.
It was drug traffickers who decided that Chief Roberto Orduña Cruz, a retired army major who had been on the job since May, should go. To make clear their insistence, they vowed to kill a police officer every 48 hours until he resigned.
They first killed Mr. Orduña’s deputy, Operations Director Sacramento Pérez Serrano, together with three of his men. Then another police officer and a prison guard turned up dead. As the body count grew, Mr. Orduña eventually did as the traffickers had demanded, resigning his post on Feb. 20 and fleeing the city. (Read Entire Story)
Def Secy Gates on Mexican drug war on our border: from Meet the Press
MR. GREGORY: We’ve got a few more minutes, and I want to go through as quickly as we can some other really important topics. The first is Mexico, a major threat on the border with Mexico because of a widening drug war there. The Economist magazine wrote this startling synopsis, and they call it “Who’s in charge? The police chief in Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico’s border with America, resigned after drug gangs, who had murdered his deputy, threatened to kill one of his officers every 48 hours until he quit.” What’s going on there, and how big of a national security threat is this for the U.S.?
SEC’Y GATES: Well, I think that what is important is that President Calderon of Mexico, perhaps for the first time, has, has taken on the battle against these cartels. And because of corruption in the police and so on, he sent the federal army of Mexico into the fight. The cartels are retaliating. I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past. Some of the old biases against cooperation with our–between our militaries and so on I think are being set aside.
MR. GREGORY: You mean providing military supporting?
SEC’Y GATES: Providing them with, with training, with, with resources, with reconnaissance and surveillance kinds of capabilities; but just cooperation, including in intelligence. But it clearly is a serious problem, and, and–but what I think people need to point out is the courage that Calderon has shown in taking this on, because one of the reasons it’s gotten as bad as it has is because his predecessors basically refused to do that. (Entire Transcript)
Mexican drug war bleeds across border: Reuters
PHOENIX (Reuters) – Hit men dressed in fake police tactical gear burst into a home in Phoenix, rake it with gunfire and execute a man.
Armed kidnappers snatch victims from cars and even a local shopping mall across the Phoenix valley for ransom, turning the sun-baked city into the “kidnap capital” of the United States.
Violence of this kind is common in Mexico where drug cartel abductions and executions are a daily feature of a raging drug war that claimed 6,000 lives south of the border last year.
But U.S. authorities now fear that violent crime is beginning to bleed over the porous Mexico border and take hold here.
“The fight in Mexico is about domination of the smuggling corridors and those corridors don’t stop at the border,” Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said. (Entire Article)
John McLaughlin – Should We Be Asking the Question, “When do we annex Mexico?”
You know it’s Friday night when John McLaughlin and the Group enter the living room, as the announcer says, “Hardest Talk!” Tonight John M. asked the question, said of course he was joking, but then asked the question, “should we be asking the question?”
There are now 7,000 Mexican troops in Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. There was a lot of media coverage last year about the figure 5,000 killed in 2008 in Mexico’s internal drug war. This week, the Mexican government said the actual figure was actually over 6,000 – with 90% of them drug cartel members, police or military. Then the Mexican president laughed off suggestions that Mexico is on the failed state path and claimed the government was in control of every corner of the country.
McLaughlin’s question is tongue in cheek, but the situation in Mexico, and the ramifications for the U.S. are cropping up more and more in the mainstream media outside of the border states.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency arrested over four dozen Mexican drug gang members, claim to have taken 23 tons of drugs off the street and confiscated $59 million in drug money at the conclusion of Operation Xcellerator.
Messico – How Long Until Mexico’s Drug War Spills Over In a Big Way
It really is quite remarkable that we’ve got an absolute culture of corruption, crime and violence just across our southern border and not more Americans care about Mexico.
For all of the hundreds of billions we spend adventuring in the Middle East – and doing more harm than good – you would think that somewhere along the line the U.S. would have paid more attention to Mexico and the slow drip of problems it brings to our borders.
- Today on NPR’s On Point, there was a discussion about the Mexican drug war and that kidnappings for ransoms related to the situation are occurring in U.S. cities like Phoenix and El Paso. Anyone who has traveled in Mexico or other parts of the Third World, know that kidnappings for profit are an all too often occurrence. My Dad lived in Mexico City and traveled throughout Mexico for ten years and security for Gringos or rich Mexicans is no joke. A friend of his spent two days tied to a tree in a Guatamalan jungle during such an escapade.
- Last year there were over 5,000 murders in Mexico tied directly to the national government’s war against the drug cartels.
- In 1987 when I was stationed briefly in San Diego, CA, Tijuana was rough in parts, but still a fun place to go for Marines and Sailors and college students on Spring Break. Today, for the most part, “TJ” and most other U.S. – Mexican border towns are more about the Wild West and less about Senor Frog’s Tequila Bar.
- Illegal immigration. In the area of places as far off the beaten path as Auglaize County, Ohio there are communities of illegal immigrants. Someone I know who is under insured and had a baby recently with a few complications is in hoc to the local hospital tens of thousands of dollars. Two Mexican women within 30 miles of my friend have had babies recently and they receive WIC and paid nothing for their healthcare. The Mexican families are undocumented. This is not a rare occurrence and is a huge drain on our system.
Drug War Without Borders – On Point with Tom Ashbrook
Mexico Under Siege – continuing coverage by the Los Angeles Times
Pemex Update: Production down nearly 10% in 2008
Final numbers came in today on the decline of Mexican oil production. A good Bloomberg article can be found here and is briefly cited below.
Mexico may be a smaller example of what Saudi Arabia has in store when its super giant field Ghawar enters its final death throes. Pemex, Mexico’s state oil company, gets 30% of its oil from the Cantarell field. Pressure is declining fast at Cantarell. According to Bloomberg’s reporting, daily production at Cantarell declined by around 500,000 barrels a day in 2008 to just over 1 million barrels per day. In December, only 811,000 were extracted from Cantarell.
The beginning of the Bloomberg story linked above:
Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, said crude output fell 9.2 percent in 2008, the largest decline since World War II, as production fell at its largest field.
Production dropped to 2.799 million barrels a day, from 3.083 million barrels a year earlier, Pemex, as the Mexico City- based company is known, said today in a statement. Pemex extracted 31 percent less crude last year from Cantarell, the world’s third-largest deposit.
Pemex may have missed out on $20 billion of sales as plummeting production coincided with record crude oil prices last year, the Mexican Energy Ministry has said. Crude futures traded in New York have dropped more than $100 a barrel since touching a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11.
Pemex Declining Output On Heels of U.S. Report of Mexican Instability
Wednesday’s news about the Mexican oil industry won’t be good, and the implications are not merely to the Mexican economy.
According to reporting tonight from Bloomberg, Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company will report on Wednesday historic declines in production.
This comes just days after a report by the U.S. Joint Operations Command which said that Pakistan and Mexico are in danger of sudden collapse. In my mind, this note from the Bloomberg article ties Mexico’s oil production to Mexico’s stability:
Mexico relies on Pemex for 40 percent of its budget. Falling sales may cut into funding for a 570 billion-peso ($41 billion)-a-year infrastructure plan President Felipe Calderon is counting on to keep the country out of recession this year, Schtulmann said.
Pemex is among the ten largest oil companies in the world and outside of Canada and Saudi Arabia, Mexico is the largest importer of oil into the U.S. It’s astounding that 40% of Mexican government revenue is dependent upon Pemex. Mexico faces all of the structural economic problems it always has. Recently, the government has been locked in what seems a death struggle with drug cartels who are buying out or killing anyone that gets in their way. In 2008, 5,000 murders were attributed to Mexico’s struggle with the cartels.
Oil prices fell below $33 per bbl today. U.S. and international inventories are high; world demand has lowered due to the recession – barring an insurrection in Saudi Arabia, prices aren’t going up soon. Mexico is screwed.
And, so are we if our little slice of the Third World goes Pakistan Northwest Tribal Areas on us any time soon.
Aside from the scary scenarios one may conjure over the breakdown of central authority in Mexico, there is yet another strategic question for the U.S. Where do we go to replace the lost Mexican barrels? When our economy takes off again and demand for crude goes back on the upward slope, from which international bad actor will we be purchasing more oil?
Mexico – Our Own Little Slice of Pakistan?
Can you imagine a collapse of the Mexican central government? Perhaps army units around the country would align themselves with regional leaders or drug lords. Next would come the potential for armed rivals fighting one another for central control. What we’re talking about is Afghanistan just after the Soviets departed where there weren’t two sides in a civil war, but several. What we might experience is hundreds of thousands of refugees on our southern border.
Our armed forces are currently stretched to the limit due to the Iraqi adventure. What’s available to secure our southern border or insert into Mexico to keep or restore the peace? China has spent the past several years working on its relations with Central and South America, primarily in places with oil, like Mexico. How soon could the Chinese have a division or two on the ground, in Mexico? When would they leave?
So, there’s a little bit of the nightmare scenario. Do I believe any of the above will happen – no. Could it? Yes.
