Here is a great article that really hits on an issue of great importance to the United States that is largely going unnoticed:

Mexico is under siege, and the barbarians are dangerously close to breaching the castle walls. Responding to President Felipe Calderon’s latest drug crackdown, an army of drug cartels has launched a vicious criminal insurgency against the Mexican state. So far, the conflict has killed over 1,400 Mexicans, 500 of them law enforcement officers.1 No longer fearing retaliation, cartel gunmen assault soldier and high-ranking federale alike. The criminal threat is not only a threat to public order but to the state. A top-ranking Mexican intelligence official has noted in interview that criminal gangs pose a national security threat to the integrity of the state. Cartels are even trying to take over the Mexican Congress by funding political campaigns, CISEN director Guillero Valdes alleged.2 Should Mexico’s gangs cement their hold further, Mexico could possibly become a criminal-state largely controlled by narco-gangs. This is not just a threat to Mexico, however.

As the intensity of the violence grows, so does the possibility that Tijuana and Juarez’s high-intensity street warfare will migrate north. Recent cartel warfare in Arizona indicates that America has become a battleground for drug cartels clashing over territory, putting American citizens and law enforcement at risk. But the northward migration of cartel warfare is not the worst consequence of Mexico’s criminal insurgency. A lawless Mexico will be a perfect staging ground for terrorists seeking to operate in North America. American policymakers must act to protect our southern flank. [Small Wars Journal]

Just look at was going on just across the US border in Ciudad Juarez earlier this week:

AT least 43 people died in violent attacks in the last three days in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua, the scene of ongoing drug gang turf wars, police said today.

Thirteen males, aged between 18 and 41, died in separate attacks today, mostly in the flashpoint city of Ciudad Juarez on the US border, local police said.

Assassins killed nine people overnight Sunday in the city, following the slaying of 21 people the previous night, including 14 in a massacre at a family gathering in the western Chihuahua town of Creel.

Violence has escalated throughout the country since President Felipe Calderon, who took office at the end of 2006, launched a military crackdown on drug trafficking.

A baby was one of the 14 murdered in Saturday’s shooting in Creel, believed to be part of a drug gang feud. [The Australian]

800 people have been murdered in Juarez so far this year and across Mexico 2,682 people have been killed in drug violence.  To put that into perspective the total number of Iraqi security personnel and civilians killed in Iraq for whatever reason this year is currently at 4,518 people.  It is pretty incredible that drug violence in Mexico is approaching the amount of violence in Iraq.

The Small Wars Journal article provides some recommendations on what can be done to address this mounting problem that is definitely worth checking out.

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