Iraq South

I work several days a week on the Texas-Mexico border. I have a concealed carry license, and I go armed whenever and wherever it's legal. I also have a boat, and usually take a marine (stainless steel) shotgun when I go boating. But I doubt if either would do me much good if I came up against two boatloads of gunmen armed with black rifles.

Gunmen presumed to be Mexican drug operatives opened fire on Thursday on a couple riding water skis on the binational Falcon Lake reservoir, possibly killing the husband and sending the woman fleeing frantically to the U.S. side, authorities said.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said the couple had crossed to the Mexican side when they came under a spray of bullets by two boatloads of men. The man, 30, was shot in the head and his wife said she fears he is dead.

“They saw them approaching and started revving it up back to the U.S. side,” Gonzalez told the Associated Press. “The guys just started shooting at them from behind.”

The shooting follows reports in May that boaters in the famed bass fishing oasis were at risk of being shaken down by “pirates” lurking on the Mexican side.

The 60-mile-long Rio Grande reservoir is shared by the United States and Mexico, and, due to its location along sparsely populated Starr and Zapata counties, it is believed to be a favorite location for trafficking drugs.

Thursday’s reported shooting comes during what may be the most deadly and prolonged streak of Mexican drug cartel violence in memory.

In May, the Texas Department of Public Safety reported several incidents of pirates shaking down U.S. boaters. The robbers in at least one case posed as Mexican federal law enforcement, searching fishing boats for guns and drugs and then demanding cash at gunpoint.

The DPS issued a statement warning people not to cross to the Mexican side of the lake. Boaters were encouraged to file a float plan with family members.

“The robbers are believed to be members of a drug trafficking organization or members of an enforcer group linked to a drug trafficking organization who are ... using AK-47s or AR-15 rifles to threaten their victims,” it said. “They appear to be using local Mexican fishermen to operate the boats to get close to American fishermen.”

Has it really come to the point where we need the U.S. Navy to patrol the Rio Grande River and associated lakes? Unfortunately, it looks like that's the case. This is what those bozos in congress don't understand. It is literally a war zone along the border.

So far most - most, but by no means all - of the violence has been confined to the Mexican side. However, it's starting to flow northward. And the cartels' tactics are starting to become more and more like the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan: car bombs, beheadings, wanton disregard for women and children, targeting law enforcement and first responders, and more. In fact, there are indications that islamic terrorists are entering the U.S. by crossing the Mexican border.

This is one of my hot buttons. I grew up in South Texas, and in my younger days worked and played on both sides of the border. But even though I spend a few days every week in a border city, I haven't gone across in a number of years. It's just not worth it. And that's tragic. There is - or was - some excellent places to have drinks and dinner over there that are suffering economically.

So what to do? Unfortunately, there are no simple answers to a complex situation.

And this leaves the United States with a strategic problem. There is some talk in Mexico City and Washington of the Americans becoming involved in suppression of the smuggling within Mexico ... This is certainly something the Mexicans would be attracted to. But it is unclear that the Americans would be any more successful than the Mexicans. What is clear is that any U.S. intervention would turn Mexican drug traffickers into patriots fighting yet another Yankee incursion. Recall that Pershing never caught Pancho Villa, but he did help turn Villa into a national hero in Mexico.

The United States has a number of choices. It could accept the status quo. It could figure out how to reduce drug demand in the United States while keeping drugs illegal. It could legalize drugs, thereby driving their price down and ending the motivation for smuggling. And it could move into Mexico in a bid to impose its will against a government, banking system and police and military force that benefit from the drug trade.

The United States does not know how to reduce demand for drugs. The United States is not prepared to legalize drugs. This means the choice lies between the status quo and a complex and uncertain (to say the least) intervention. We suspect the United States will attempt some limited variety of the latter, while in effect following the current strategy and living with the problem.

If I were king, the first thing I would do is strengthen border security, if only in self-defense. Then I would take a long hard look at legalizing marijuana. The mob shootouts in Chicago pretty much ended after Prohibition was repealed. Of course, that led to a culture of corruption in that city that ultimately resulted in one barack hussein obaba being elected President. So maybe I should rethink that...

(Sorry for the lengthy post, but like I said, this is one of my hot buttons.)