I believe we have to rethink our entire strategy for working with Mexico. The war that’s underway in Mexico is an enormous national security threat to the United States. More people were killed in Mexico in 2008 than were killed in Iraq. There is a genuine civil war underway between drug dealers as cartels who, sadly, are financed largely by American money, purchasing drugs in this country. That cartel is waging a vicious and brutal war, fully as horrifying in the atrocities and the things they’ve been doing to people as anything that was done in Iraq.
The United States has an enormous interest in a prosperous, safe, self-governing Mexico living under the rule of law. If we allow the Mexican government to decay and we allow the drug dealers to win, then we will have a nightmare on our southern border and no amount of fence and no amount of national security will compensate for the collapse of Mexico. We need a significant, serious strategy designed to help people in Mexico achieve safety, achieve prosperity, and achieve the ability to live a life in which everyone has a hope of a better future.
This is a very serious problem, much more serious than that in Afghanistan, and yet almost no publication, no news media is taking it very seriously. And I will urge you, as close as you are to Mexico, to make sure that your Congressional delegation and news media really focuses. I am trying to get both the New York Times and Washington Post to really begin transferring people and resources to Mexico because I really think this is a serious problem for us as a country. The answer is not just to say, “I don’t care what happens south of the border, as long as I have a good fence.” You will never contain the human problem if the Mexican government collapses. We have absolutely a vested interest in helping them find a way to be prosperous, safe, and live within their own law.
30 responses so far
1 JJWFromME // Jan 23, 2009 at 12:42 pm
“More people were killed in Mexico in 2008 than were killed in Iraq.” Wow. I’ll have to see that study. There are a lot of zeros in these numbers: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/11/deaths_in_iraq_1.php
2 Oneon1isto // Jan 23, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Gotta say, this isn’t uh…a very deep statement, nor is there any supporting facts or information or links provided. A blanket statement that Mexico’s security and stability is tied to our national security isn’t news to anyone who’s glanced at a map. I also don’t think you’re going to be getting anywhere arguing it’s more serious than Afghanistan. The regional instability there is creating a breeding ground for terrorist encampments, as is the border region with Pakistan. If the ghostly “war on terror” should be waged anywhere, it is here.
Perhaps if we want to talk about instability in Mexico we should start a discussion about how we can bolster the economy there. That would help out a whole slew of problems, from illegal immigration to drug trafficking to this unknown “death toll”.
3 Collin White // Jan 23, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Interesting story. Hope we hear more about this.
4 DL_Marble // Jan 23, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Mexico is a war zone, but some people don’t see it yet!
5 DL_Marble // Jan 23, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Oh, I forgot, Uniformed Mexican Army members are operating inside our southern borders, and were in Phoenix assassinating a drug leader they then setup to ambush the Phx PD and only lost as the ran out of ammo. Look it up in the AZ republic.
6 senorlechero // Jan 23, 2009 at 8:15 pm
DL marble….you have the facts messed up….it was not “uniformed Mexican Army members” that shot up Phoenix. The murderers may have had military training, or may not have, but they were not in uniform and nobody is claiming they were active duty Mexican Army.
7 senorlechero // Jan 23, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Oh yeah, and though they were murderous thugs, they were not very competent and the Phoenix PD did a great job of sweeping them up
8 DL_Marble // Jan 23, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Sorry I forgot the comma, The Mexican military does go back and fourth across the border south of green valley AZ, some of them are running as protection for the drug runners. should have differentiated between the events. However it is believed that the killers were current and or former Mexican Military hired by the Drug cartels.
This is the article regarding the PD set up
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,372202,00.html
This is the article regarding Mexican Troops operating within our boarders
http://www.judicialwatch.org/new-border-patrol-report-mexican-government-incursions-fiscal-year-2007
I don’t just make this stuff up
9 senorlechero // Jan 23, 2009 at 8:45 pm
The comma explains it. Everything else you posted is pretty well established.
10 ottovbvs // Jan 24, 2009 at 10:47 am
Newt’s on the money with this one although he’s being a bit alarmist. The Mexican govt isn’t remotely near collapse but it’s certainly being destabilized. And by the same forces that destabilized Columbia and other parts of South America not to mention Afghanistan. The core of the problem is the US demand for illicit drugs. Until you deal with theat problem all these downstream issues are not going to disappear. The “war on drugs” which we are indisputably losing like we lost the war on booze in the twenties needs to be talked about sensibly because it’s causing huge collateral damage both domestically and overseas.
11 24AheadDotCom // Jan 24, 2009 at 11:39 am
I discuss the problem and offer a solution for our side of the border here:
http://24ahead.com/us-military-mexican-government-could-suddenly-collapse-and-w
Instead of encouraging the NYT/WaPo to go to Mexico, you should work to discredit those NYT/WaPo reporters who mislead about immigration matters and who fail to follow the money on those elected officials who support illegal immigration in any way.
12 Adrian Butterworth // Jan 24, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Over-immigration from Mexico is an infinitely greater threat to the future of the United States than terrorism or “Islamofascism”. Its absolutely astonishing that so many conservatives fail to grasp this.
13 ronin72 // Jan 24, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I would love to see a strong, viable Mexican state sometime in the next 20 years. Part of the solution would require a stronger relationship between the two nations. I think the securing of our border would be a major help. Unfortunately the chance for a timely completion of that project has been lost. In the current state of things, we are left with an unclear Obama/Clinton foreign policy. With Clinton no longer worrying about appeasing the voters here in NY, she’s more of a wild card than before, but not unpredictably so. I think Newt’s overstatement here is an attempt to raise the alarm, but it is still an overstatement of the situation. I disagree that it’s a bigger threat than Islamic Terrorism… I haven’t noticed any M13 suicide bombings, yet, but the influence of Hugo Chavez’ pet al Qaeda training ground is probably just starting to gain traction. The threat is simultaneous. The unsecured border is a boon to drug dealers and Islamic Terrorists
14 storystick // Jan 24, 2009 at 7:17 pm
I live near the Border (Bowie Az) and have two little rental houses I built 20 miles west of Caborca.I drive the Altar to Sasabe route (the Road of Death) twice a month and have never been bothered by the Mexican Army or the narcos,A narco chief even had his gunmen change my tire when they came upon me by the side of the road in October.
This stuff is all getting sorted out.I think Americans visiting Sonoran beaches have more chance being killed by a shark than a Narco Jr,
15 dragonlady // Jan 24, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Storystick, the state dept has issued a travel warning for mexico based on violence: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_3028.html.
Camp Pendleton has banned Tijuania for the Marines. It’s getting quite bad there:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-01-21-camp_N.htm
16 Bulldoglover100 // Jan 24, 2009 at 10:12 pm
…don’t you think we might need to get the drug problem in this country under control before we attempt to help Mexico fix their problem?
I understand your point but we send so much aid to other countries while our own is going to heck in a hand basket.
Aid here and aid there and just driving under any underpass in this country shows homeless people sleeping…why is it that no other country thinks we need help????
17 ronin72 // Jan 24, 2009 at 11:12 pm
We never do anything without some hope of payment, or without some impact on our own National interest. Making a Mexico more safe for Mexicans may lead to better control over incredibly important things like our own health-care and law enforcement expenses. The guys living under bridges will always be there. We already give hundreds of millions, if not billions of our budgetary dollars to fund the programs that exist to help homeless and destitute people in our country. Now, government efficiency standards mean that the programs are as efficient as 40 years of bureaucratic stagnation, political croneyism and official waste advocacy will allow it to be, but that shouldn’t get you down. With President Bush’s 700 Billion Dollar bailout, the upcoming trillion dollar “stimulus” boondoggle (I like Michelle Malkin’s “Crap Sandwich” moniker, myself) why worry about the monies being spent on our southern border? As for your other, point… what makes you think we need aid? Or that any other country on this planet has any possibility at helping us. If what’s wrong with us could be fixed by a little infusion of non-existent European capital, we wouldn’t have any issue, at all. Really Bulldog…there’s a guy named Thomas Sowell who you really need to look up. Read “Basic Economics” and “Applied Economics” and call me in the morning.
The samurai is out!
18 nealjking // Jan 25, 2009 at 3:43 am
What about giving up on this hopeless “war on drugs”, which seems only to create conditions that undermine legitimate Mexican government? When is someone going to have the courage to challenge that?
With regards to the Mexican border: Americans need to decide whether we want cheap Mexican labor (for picking fruit and construction), or we don’t. If we do, we need to normalize and legalize their means of working here (they shouldn’t have to risk life to get here); if we don’t, we need to be prepared to pay more for fruit and building expenses.
Current attitudes seem to favor cheap labor but not legitimacy for the laborers. This is a contradiction that leads to a head-on collision with the growing Hispanic population, most of whom have non-citizen relatives that they care about.
19 coleman // Jan 25, 2009 at 6:52 am
Before we do the typical Republican in-fighting over the perfect solution, let’s agree with Newt that there’s a serious problem in Mexico – and that America needs to pay attention to it.
Mexico is much more of an immediate threat to our security than Afghanistan or Iraq, it does have oil, and without a Mexican strategy, their domestic troubles will become our domestic troubles (simply look at the prisons in California, Texas, and Arizona).
20 Publius // Jan 25, 2009 at 8:23 am
The Speaker has correctly identifed the problem but misapprehends the solution. America has a history of governmental ‘assistance’ in Latin America since 1898 which has hardly conduced to a blossoming of civil society and economic plenty.
Nevertheless, it is precisely the dearth of economic opportunity in Mexico that drives its best and brightest to flee, many to the US, many of them illegally. The US has always been a magnet for the adventurous and a haven for the driven but more often than not it is the latter who actually arrive. The potential to improve one’s lot in America is balanced, for the potential immigrant, by the certainty of divorcement from all the social and cultural environment of family and home. It has always required more the stick of privation that the carrot of opportunity to direct the immigrant stream our way. Read John Higham’s excellent work from the 1950’s “Strangers in the Land.”
I don’t know what is the best way for America to assist Mexico, but I am certain it does not involve massive governmental activity. If we have learned nothing else we should today know that governmental efforts to tune the economy often produce positive results but those results come with a portentous risk. When the economy does go out of tune, the sound you hear is the roar of trillions of dollars being applied as a bandaid to stanch the flow of other trillions. Are we really so angry at Mexico we want to do the same thing to it?
21 storystick // Jan 25, 2009 at 9:12 am
The Marines are afraid to go to Mexico? Give me a break.When no Marine has been even hurt in Mexico and we enforce a boycott on Northern Mexico on a government level it is a provocative act.
I go there all the time and believe me Tucson is just as dangerous for Tourists.Legalization of drugs solves the problem in Mexico and Afganistan.
22 coleman // Jan 25, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Please, address the post, not the person doing the posting. This is a new site, let’s try to make this one an exception – more about ideas, less about name-calling and ranting.
23 Anonymous // Jan 25, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Kip Carter, his former campaign treasurer, was walking Newt’s daughters back from a football game one day and cut across a driveway where he saw a car. “As I got to the car, I saw Newt in the passenger seat and one of the guys’ wives with her head in his lap going up and down. Newt kind of turned and gave me this little-boy smile. Fortunately, Jackie Sue and Kathy were a lot younger and shorter then.”
24 Anonymous // Jan 25, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Family Values? Pressing Wife for Divorce in the Hospital:
“He walked out in the spring of 1980…. By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said, “Daddy is downstairs. Could he come up?” When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from my surgery.” – Jackie, his first wife.
Dead-Beat Dad:
The hospital visit wasn’t the end of it, either. Jackie had to take Newt to court to get him to contribute for bills, as utilities were about to be cut off.
25 Anonymous // Jan 25, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Newt pressed his first wife to sign divorce papers while she was still in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. He also graciously said “She isn’t young enough or pretty enough to be the President’s wife.” But his second marriage hasn’t been that smooth either. Newt and Marianne have been separated – “frankly”, she told the Washington Post in June 1989, “it’s been on and off for some time.”
Does Newt have some kind of problem with women? He has said that he read a book called “Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them”, and “found frightening pieces that related to my own life.”
Incidentally, Marianne told Gail Sheehy she doesn’t want Newt to run for President. ” I told him if I’m not in agreement, fine, it’s easy. I just go on the air the next day, and I undermine everything. … I don’t want him to be president and I don’t think he should be.” Newt’s response? Marianne “was just making the point hypothetically” that he would not run unless she agreed he should.
26 Anonymous // Jan 25, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Newt pressed his first wife to sign divorce papers while she was still in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. He also graciously said “She isn’t young enough or pretty enough to be the President’s wife.” But his second marriage hasn’t been that smooth either. Newt and Marianne have been separated – “frankly”, she told the Washington Post in June 1989, “it’s been on and off for some time.”
27 Anonymous // Jan 25, 2009 at 5:28 pm
House Banking Scandal: Newt Bounced 22 Checks
Remember the House Banking scandal, where so many congressmen wrote rubber checks on government money? Newt hopes you don’t, because he bounced 22 himself, which almost cost him reelection in 1992. His vote for the secret House pay raise, and the chauffeur who drove him around Washington in a Lincoln Town Car, didn’t help.
28 Anonymous // Jan 25, 2009 at 5:29 pm
House Banking Scandal: Newt Bounced 22 Checks
Remember the House Banking scandal, where so many congressmen wrote rubber checks on government money? Newt hopes you don’t, because he bounced 22 himself, which almost cost him reelection in 1992. His vote for the secret House pay raise, and the chauffeur who drove him around Washington in a Lincoln Town Car, didn’t help.
29 RLHotchkiss // Jan 25, 2009 at 10:09 pm
I tried to post about this but my post wouldn’t go through. Maybe it is too long. Anyway you can read it here: http://p2p-offense-newt-gingrich.blogspot.com/
The highlights are that it is nice that Gingrich is finally aware of a problem that has been brewing for decades and even has whole genre of folk music dedicated to it. I wishe he would tell the truth–Interdiction has been a total failure. Legalizing narcotics is the single most effective foreign policy decision we could make. The saved money could be antidrug efforts that work
30 Carney // Dec 16, 2009 at 12:29 pm
We also need to realize how narrowly we avoided unmitigated catastrophe in the last Mexican election, when a Hugo Chavez style nation-wrecking leftist came within a whisker of winning the presidency. We may not be so lucky next time.
Imagine a Mexico joining OPEC and restricting oil production to jack the price up again, threatening to cut us off, funding illegal alien and Southwest separatist groups, including violent ones, freely intersecting with organized crime gangs now running rampant throughout both our nations, its armed forces brandishing the latest Russian tanks and planes, bristling with Russian advisers and intelligence agents, welcoming the Iranian leadership and signing pacts with them, allowing Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad to operate bases on its soil.
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