What is the biggest national security problem that America will face in the next ten years?
Islamic fundamentalist and other forms of terror certainly have the capacity to hit our country hard. However they took their best shot at our institutions on 9/11 and we bounced back domestically while aggressively demolishing much of their organization. Outside of blowing up several atomic bombs or crashing the internet, terrorists have the capacity to injure, but not undermine.
Americans need to start looking south of the border. Mexico's slow collapse should raise alarm bells for everyone. It was not that long ago that parents had no qualms in sending their eighteen year olds to Mexican resorts to celebrate graduating high school. Now full grown and seasoned adults risk a great deal to party on those beaches.
Always corrupt, Mexico has seen its institutions further degraded by the growing power of drug cartels in its northern states. Drug bandits control huge parts of the desert and mountain regions and until recently owned Ciudad Juarez, a large city across the river from El Paso, Texas. They have grown increasingly assertive against American law enforcement as well, threatening police officers and also allegedly putting prices on the heads of some Arizona sheriffs. Murder, theft, and rape have skyrocketed in Arizona cities in the past few years, fueled by illegals with cartel connections.
The common denominator in this entire issue is the existence of these cartels and the power they wield in Mexico. They destroy the effectiveness of government, hinder economic development, and are destroying the fabric of that nation. Mexico has proved itself unable to deal with this threat on its own. The cartels have even staked out federal land in southern Arizona for observation posts. Clearly they seek to spread their reign of chaos to the border states of this nation. The wreckage they have caused drives illegals into this country. Many of them work for the cartels, others seek security. Regardless, we cannot afford to relax our laws to accomodate anyone.
The solution lies in a long term and sustained covert operation to destroy the cartels in Mexico run by the Central Intelligence Agency. They need the latitude to assassinate drug kingpins, blow up facilities, and disrupt in every way possible these organizations. On our side of the border, the FBI needs to infiltrate and destroy street gangs in the same manner as it knocked out the power of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s. We also need an armed National Guard presense on the border with orders to act as a military force against these people.
Think of it this way. The drug cartels have slowly invaded the United States. They occupy our sovereign territory, threaten our elected law enforcement officials. Like Middle Eastern terrorists, they are a non governmental threat to our national security. The threat comes not just in the form of what they do here, but also the effect they have on Mexico. We cannot afford to see Mexico turn into a Somalia. It is time to come up with a plan and act, regardless of th eposition of the Mexican government.
