Almost 19,000 people have been killed in Mexico since President Felipe Calderón came to power in late 2006 with a pledge to throw in as many troops as needed to rid Mexico of its drug problem and end the reign of terror of its ruthless drug cartels.

This weekend the death toll grew by three. Gunmen in the city of Ciudad Juárez, which lies just over the border from El Paso, Texas, killed two Americans and a Mexican linked to the local US consulate. The killings have lifted the havoc on America’s doorstep on to a new plane.

Publicly, President Barack Obama announced that he was “outraged” by these increasingly indiscriminate slayings. Privately the White House must now be frantically recalibrating its response to the crisis in Mexico. What it has been treating largely as a more or less domestic headache of drug trafficking and illegal immigration (aggravated by sporadic gunfights spilling across the border into California and Texas), has now assumed the shape, significance and seriousness of a new kind of foreign policy problem.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Terrorism • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • England / UK • Europe • Mexico

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© 2012 Kendall S. Harmon. All rights reserved.

For original material from Titusonenine (such as articles and commentary by Dr. Harmon) permission to copy and distribute free of charge is granted, provided this notice, the logo, and the web site address are visible on all copies. For permission for use in for-profit publications, please email KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com

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