A Republic, If You Can Keep It

During this Independence Day weekend, let's pause for a moment and think about the fragile nature of the southern border of this great nation of ours.

Americans advised to avoid Nuevo Laredo over holiday weekend (Sources here and here)

Authorities are advising Americans to avoid traveling to Nuevo Laredo over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, citing tips that a drug cartel has plans to target U.S. citizens, according to a news release issued Saturday by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The violent Zetas drug cartel, which operates in Nuevo Laredo, will be targeting crimes at Americans who cross the border into the city this weekend, the Texas Department of Public Safety and Webb County Sheriff's Office said Saturday.

“According to the information we have received, the Zetas are planning a possible surge in criminal activity, such as robberies, extortions, car-jackings and vehicle theft, specifically against U.S. citizens,” said DPS Director Steven C. McCraw in the release. “We urge U.S. citizens to avoid travel to Nuevo Laredo this weekend if it can be avoided.”

Nuevo Laredo is across the border from Laredo, Texas, where I work during the school year. My office is about 5 miles form the border. Four international bridges link Texas and Mexico at Laredo. It's the busiest port of entry along the Mexican border. Almost half of all U.S.-Mexico trade passes through Laredo, making it a prime drug smuggling route as well.

Control over the Laredo corridor has been contested by several drug cartels. Lately, the Zetas cartel has gained control. Los Zetas were originally the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel. The original Zetas were Mexican army Special Forces veterans, but their membership has expanded to include regular army deserters, corrupt law enforcement officials, and even Special Forces troops from Guatemala. They have expanded their activities in the area from drug trafficking to exortion, kidnapping and human smuggling.

They're also incredibly violent and inhumane. It's misleading to call them a drug cartel. A more accurate term is narco-terrorists, as evidenced in the following story (datelined July 1, 2011).

Message to US agents: 'We'll chop your heads off'

A spray-painted sign threatening death for U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents was found Friday next to a school in a northern Mexico state capital, officials said.

Addressed with profanity to "Gringos (D.E.A.)," the unsigned graffiti warned: "We know where you are and we know who you are and where you go. We are going to chop off your (expletive) heads."

Anonymous messages conveying threats and other warnings are common in areas hit hard by Mexico's drug war, but it is rarer for them to threaten U.S. law enforcement. Authorities do not know who left the message, which was removed.

In February, suspected Zeta cartel members killed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata and wounded colleague Victor Avila on a highway in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi.

The threatening message ... comes amid threats to the governor of Nuevo Leon, another northern state bordering Texas. Two of Gov. Rodrigo Medina's bodyguards were mutilated, killed and dismembered in June.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, as the delegates were leaving Independence Hall, a woman in the crowd outside asked Ben Franklin "Well, Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”

Franklin's reply: "A republic, if you can keep it."

If we can't even control our national borders then I wonder just how much longer we can keep it...