Dr. Veronica Perez Rodriguez, an anthropology professor at Northern Arizona University has been added to the growing list of Americans victimized by violent crime in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Ciudad Juarez has seen the death of thirty-nine Americans in the past year. Dr. Rodriguez was kidnapped by armed gunmen while visiting her mother. Americans are under threat around the globe as criminal cartels act with increasing boldness.
It's time that we start changing our approach to non governmental threats. Pirates in the Indian Ocean are captured and put on trial. We can spend a lot of money to put them on trial and keep them in prison when we could expend much less to simply blast them into perdition. We do it to ideologically driven terrorists, why not pirates?
The Mexican border area has gotten a lot more dangerous over the last few years. Drug cartels control Ciudad Juarez and large sections of the borderland near the border. That violence is targeting Americans on both sides of the border. With Mexico's system approaching collapse, our border control must reflect the changing scenario. Rule of law in Mexico has degenerated into rule of violence and corruption.
Mexico's problems are also ours. Dr. Rodriguez was a daughter and an academic, not a drug runner. The fact that she was targeted and taken is an outrage. It is past time to send in the Central Intelligence Agency and the Special Forces to break down and break up these criminal organizations. Americans on either side of the border should not have to live or travel in the atmosphere of fear spawned by these drug cartels anymore.
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