Mexico just fell apart?

[VoiceofReason]

I haven't found anything in the news on this yet, but a friend of mine who works crime and trauma scene cleanup has been contacted by the CDC about preparing for Mexican refugees in the DFW area, so I assume this will be statewide at the least, perhaps across several states.

I don't know very much right now, but apparently this is real, and very serious (serious enough to order $30,000 in cleaning chemicals). If I find out more I'll post it up.

I have already been advised strongly to go get an H1N1 vaccine tomorrow.

I saw an article about a year ago (I believe it was fox news) that the government of Mexico was just barely hanging on. The drug cartels were almost in control of the country.

The article said that if the government fell we could expect a flood of refugees into the U.S.

Sounds like we need to pay as much attention to Mexico, as we do Iraq and Afghanistan.

I just called my son. He lives in South Texas works as far South as Sarita and has a close friend that is a supervisor with the Border Patrol. He would be among the first to know.

He said there is nothing exceptional going on. He said he would call me should he hear anything. I have friends in Law Enforcement in South Texas including the Police Chief in Premont.

If I hear anything out of the ordinary I will post here.

[LarryH]

“Shoot low boys! They’re riding Shetland Ponies!” - ??

I believe that was a book title by the late Lewis Grizzard

[VoiceofReason]

“Shoot low boys! They’re riding Shetland Ponies!” - ??

I believe that was a book title by the late Lewis Grizzard

Thanks. I heard this about 157 years ago and thought it was so funny I never forgot it.

[MojoTexas]

“Shoot low boys! They’re riding Shetland Ponies!” - ??

I believe that was a book title by the late Lewis Grizzard

I have a recording of "Big Ball's In Cowtown," by Bob Wills, and that's one of the things he shouts out over the music.

[gemini]

quote:With two helicopters providing security, the D.C. delegation took canoes down the Rio Grande and joked about the implications of making a pit stop on Mexico's river bank...... quote

Yea, it's another great (Fed)idea. Safe. Nothing to fear, right? I've been on several canoe trips and never
yet felt the need for helicopters to provide security.

[Drewthetexan]

Nothing new regarding the CDC

Here are some recent articles that were interesting:

Reuters: Mexico drug hitmen terrorize towns on U.S. border
Washington Times: Volunteer Force of Mexico Border Watchers Disbands
Dallas Morning Snooze: Fear now a way of life in border towns
And even if this is off in left field, the picture alone is worth a laugh

[VoiceofReason]

I don’t know why the U.S. Government does not gain control of the Mexican border. As it stands now, all a terrorist would have to do is get to Mexico then walk across the border with biological agents or anything.

If they shut down the border to drugs, illegal immigrants, and drug money going south. The drug cartels would all but cease to exist. We send agents into Mexico and money to help Mexico “stem the flow of drugs” into the U.S.

It seems the cartels are now recruiting teenagers as “mules” to carry drugs into the U.S. I was watching a show on TV about the Border Patrol. They caught two teenagers carrying bags of cocaine taped to their bodies and legs at an entry point. They checked and they did not have a prior record so they took the drugs and just sent them back. They supposedly could not enter the U.S. for two years or something. They did not even arrest them. They said this was standard procedure for minors.

The Federal government could shut down the border using the military, so tight; a Jack Rabbit could not cross the border undetected.

Someone please explain to me why the government does not want to gain control of the border.

[OldSchool]

Someone please explain to me why the government does not want to gain control of the border.

Well, I'm not with the DOS, but I believe it has to do with the very critical message it would send. Recall that, for as long as any of us can remember, North America has been justifiably proud of having three good-size nations up against one another with very long unarmed borders. It meant that our country trusted the other two to not be belligerent, and that they in turn trusted us. We all did things pretty much right for a very, very long time.

Once we do submit to the reality, and arm our borders, we have then demonstrated in deed that we now do not trust our neighbors. That then makes it harder for them to trust us, not unreasonable when you consider what we would think if Mexico were to unilaterally arm the border (with government troops, not the gangs and thugs of the current situation, of course).

The true solution would be to have a society that is not juvenile enough to do drugs. But that's long past, I guess.

By the way, I suspect/hope the press is making it sound worse than it is; our last two trips to Mexico City were excellent. It's probably kinda like the comment I read from the French press last week, about all the shootings on the street corners in the USA because of all the guns....

[boomerang]

government troops, not the gangs and thugs

There's not always a clear distinction. Especially in Latin America. And that goes back a long way according to my grandparents.

The true solution would be to have a society that is not juvenile enough to do drugs. But that's long past, I guess.

Or have a society that's grown up enough to let adults do what they want with their own bodies and expect them to deal, good or bad.

[marksiwel]

The true solution would be to have a society that is not juvenile enough to do drugs. But that's long past, I guess.

Or have a society that's grown up enough to let adults do what they want with their own bodies and expect them to deal, good or bad.

[OldSchool]

Or have a society that's grown up enough to let adults do what they want with their own bodies and expect them to deal, good or bad.

I can deal with it, as long as I and my family don't end up having to personally deal with it, on the highway or elsewhere. Hasn't worked out that way for us. That's a story for another time, though.

[The Annoyed Man]

I just ran across this piece from American Thinker which bears on this, relevant part in red:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... acuum.html
April 18, 2010
The Obama leadership vacuum
Thomas Lifson

Barack Obama's level of detachment from his duties has come to the point where even his cabinet secretaries quietly are letting it be known that he has defaulted on his leadership responsibilities. Congress was delighted to step into the breach and write health care reform, but when it comes to the executive branch, leadership must come from the top.

The most pressing issue for national security (the President's top responsibility) is Iran's drive to acquire nuclear weapons (and use them to "wipe Israel from the map"), quite possibly triggering Armageddon, as nuclear-armed Israel will not go quietly. Nuclear war in the Middle East would change the course of civilization, something even Israel-haters would find highly disagreeable.

Yet according to the New York Times, the Secretary of Defense

"has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran's steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document."

This is a shocking admission. Yet it is not the only instance of a cabinet secretary stepping into the breach where Obama has left a leadership void.

Investor's Business Daily editorializes:

Something's wrong when a president's lieutenants agitate against his own policies. But Defense Secretary Gates' call for free trade with Colombia arose from a true national security need. So where's the president?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Latin America and the Caribbean last week, making stops to shore up allies Colombia, Peru and Barbados, on the heels of the signing of the first major U.S. defense pact with Brazil in 30 years.

He's doing his job, and not a moment too soon, given the den of dragons the region has become. Colombia's FARC terrorists have now made common cause with Mexico's drug traffickers, whose violence is spilling over the U.S. border.

IBD elaborates on the growing threat in Latin America, including an alliance between Colombia's narco-terrorist FARC movement and the drug mafias that threaten our neighbor Mexico's political stability, and whose violence is spilling across the border affecting Americans' safety.

Yet President Obama is missing in action when it comes to the Colombia free trade pact, a move which will shore up a key democratic ally stanching the flow of leftist narco-violence in our own hemisphere. The reason is not hard to find: Obama is in the pocket of organized labor, which deplores competition.

An interesting take on it...

[VoiceofReason]

I have heard it said that the federal government will send troops to the border if the drug violence spills across the border.

Well folks, believe me, drug and other violence started coming across the border in earnest 25 years ago. It’s just that the federal government doesn’t want to recognize it. Law Enforcement Officers in South Texas see it very often but it’s not tracked as such. Each city and county fights their own incidents.

The stories I could tell.