Update From South Texas - Duck And Cover

In local news, U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo warns U.S. citizens

The U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo, in response to gunfights between soldiers and warring cartel members in the border city, has released security tips for U.S. citizens there.

A 19-month-old child shot during a gunfight Sunday died Tuesday. A pregnant woman also was injured during Sunday's gunfights.

Babies killed. Pregnant women shot. Hopefully there's a special place in hell for cowardly thugs who commit such atrocities.

It wasn't just a gunfight. It was a pitched battle. It's amazing that the death toll wasn't higher. Several grenades were tossed by both sides. In addition to the baby and the pregnant woman, 10 others were wounded. All this took place in a WalMart and its parking lot. The security video showed the shoppers remained remarkably calm, even when a hysterical woman rushed inside carrying the bloody body of a child.

A few days before the Battle of WalMart, there was a lengthy and large-scale shootout in Nuevo Laredo. U.S. LEOs took up defensive positions along the river, including at one of the major international bridges connecting Texas and Mexico. Details were slow to emerge (that is often the case, as the cartels brutally retaliate against the press), but we finally learned that 13 cartel members were killed, including the regional leader for the Zetas cartel and another high-ranking Zetas member.

The photos and videos of the shootout aftermath are sobering. It looks like something from a movie. The vehicles were literally riddled with bullet holes - hundreds of them. Bodies were sprawled on the ground, surrounded by pools of blood. It was obvious that automatic weapons were used, and that no quarter was asked or given.

My office is about 5 miles from Nuevo Laredo. I teach at an international university, and many of my students live in Mexico. I can always tell when something is going on across the border, because class attendance goes down.

It's a helluva thing when I have to allow students to make up exams because of gun battles in the streets of their town.

A little farther out of town, "U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican drug traffickers fought a gun battle across the Rio Grande river in south Texas, authorities said on Friday, the latest of a spate of cross-border shootings in recent months."

And about 100 miles away in the other direction:

Authorities in Eagle Pass shut down the two international bridges there Tuesday night after shootouts in its sister city of Piedras Negras.

Traffic to Mexico at both the city's bridges were shut down...

The fighting started on the outskirts of Piedras Negras and spread throughout the city ... Automatic weapons and grenades were used as drug traffickers clashed with the Mexican military...

“This is not out of the norm,” (Eagle Pass police chief Tony) Castañeda said. “There's been several gunbattles going on here with the narcotics traffickers for quite sometime.

That's the situation around here. Things aren't much better at the national level.

Violence linked to drug cartels and organized crime prompted the U.S. State Department to issue a new travel warning for U.S. citizens in Mexico.

The number of U.S. citizens reported murdered in Mexico rose from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011, officials said.

In addition to the U.S. State Department, the Texas Dept. of Public Safety has also issued its own warning.

For the third year in a row, the Texas Department of Public Safety has issued a travel warning advising students to stay out of Mexico during Spring Break.

What a mess ... and no end in sight.

In the meantime, everyone is still focused on Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke, while ignoring the role of the ATF, the DOJ, and AG Eric Holder in running guns to the drug cartels.

People are being killed as a direct result of a U.S. law enforcement agency's actions, and the media is worried about a name-calling spat.

Priorities, people.

Sigh...