As detailed information regarding “Project Gunrunner” continues to shed new light on the actions of the Obama administration which led to a flow of firearms into the hands of criminals waging war against the Mexican government, a new report documents efforts by those same Mexican cartels to target U.S. border officials. The same criminals whom American officials allowed to gain access to firearms in the United States are targeting American citizens.
An article at BorderlandBeat.com provides some of the details from an article in Mexico’s El Universal which documents the lengths to which Mexican cartels will go to attack U.S. law enforcement on our nation’s southern border. As Geoffrey Ramsey wrote for Borderland Beat:
According to an article in Mexico’s El Universal, the Border Patrol and other U.S. law enforcement agencies that work along the border have seen an increase in the number of attacks by Mexican drug cartels in recent months. This claim is bolstered by a 2010 Congressional Research Service report on border violence, which indicates that such attacks have increased from 773 recorded incidents in 2005 to 1,073 in 2009.
The Mexican paper cites Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), who provides even more dramatic statistics. McCraw says there were only 356 attacks in 2004, meaning that their frequency may have increased by more than 300 percent in a five year period.
Given the facts that the cartels regularly attack Mexican police officers with little apparent concern for ever being held accountable for their crimes, it is not surprising that those same criminals feel safe assaulting American law enforcement officers when they cross the border while engaged in drug trafficking or human smuggling. As reported previously for The New American, less than two percent of crimes in Mexico are ever punished by a Mexican court. Only days ago, the police chief of Santa Catarina was executed in his own office. Again, according to another story for Borderland Beat:
A heavily armed commando executed the police chief of Santa Catarina, Germain Pérez Quiroz. He was gunned down inside his own office at the police headquarters of the agency located in [the] community of Infonavit La Huasteca.
At 1530 hours [3:30 p.m.] about 15 masked men on board at least three late model trucks and two cars entered the front door of the police station and threatened employees inside until they located the police chief.
Although Mexican President Felipe Calderon has repeatedly attempted to blame the United States for his government’s inability to regain control of the streets of his own country, it is becoming increasingly clear that the routine violence tolerated in the failed state of Mexico remains a threat to its northern neighbor. The ramifications of the inexcusable complicity of the Obama administration in fueling the violence in Mexico are in evidence all along our southern border.
Related article: Project Gunrunner Weapons Appear in Arizona Crimes
Photo: Senate Crime and Drugs subcommittee Chairman Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) gives his opening statement during a hearing on law enforcement responses to the Mexican drug cartels, March 17, 2009: AP Images
