Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00030/mexico_drug_war4_30955a.jpg
Mexico’s uncontrollable drug war is so problematic that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has plans to get involved. This is the kind of conflict that blurs state borders, making efforts to come to closure a transnational issue. It’s about time the U.S. took action. The Mexican cartels have allegedly killed as many as 6,300 people since last January amid the ongoing shooting war with government forces.
Mexican officials have said the only way to successfully limit the drug trade’s influence in the country is to add U.S. support. Much of the cartels’ money laundering and production of methamphetamine and marijuana takes place in the United States, according to the Congressional Research Service. Today, Mexican drug lords dominate the entire spectrum of drugs:
Mexican drug cartels already control about 90 percent of the cocaine trade across the United States and most of the market for marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin, with operations in 230 cities, according to the U.S. Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center. They have essentially supplanted the Colombian and Dominican criminal groups that terrorized major U.S. cities through the 1980s and ’90s, the agency said.
Add to that the tremendous volume of firearms (including high-power, select-fire assault rifles) that flow across the U.S.-Mexican border every day — and what you have is the ammunition (literally) for the continued violence. American weapons “account for 95 percent of Mexico’s drug-related killings,” says CBS News.
The U.S. finally realizes that it’s contributing to the problem, and it’s said it wants to respond to the war with counterinsurgency measures. The military plans to give Mexico $1.4 billion and assistance with intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance.
Posted by Brian Fung 
