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Why aren’t we bombing Mexico with unmanned Predator drones?

If the Obama administration truly believes that dropping bombs from remote-controlled aircraft onto villages on the Afghan-Pakistani border is a good idea to combat the Taliban, why not do the same to fight the drug cartels in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez?

It seems that Mexico - where the drug war killed three times as many civilians in 2008 than a real war did in Afghanistan - is a perfect candidate for expanding Project Predator.

There are a number of similarities between the two regions:

Both the northern Mexican states and Pakistan are perilously close to becoming failed states, rife with corruption and lacking any entity that can enforce the rule of law.

Both countries are fueled by narco-terrorism and violence as they each try to export their illegal drugs to Western markets.

Both countries routinely see decapitations used as a method of terror, like these unfortunate Mexican police sans heads.

The threat of kidnapping is prevalent in both countries.

Neither Mexico nor Afghanistan/Pakistan attacked America on September 11, 2001.

There is actually more evidence to support the bombing of Mexico rather than Pakistan:

More people were killed in Mexico in 2008 (6,000+) in drug-related violence than died in Afghanistan (2,100+).

Unlike Afghanistan/Pakistan, the violence in Mexico actually is spilling over directly into American cities.

Phoenix is the kidnapping-for-ransom capital of the U.S., with 366 incidents in 2008 (police estimate twice as many may not be reported). Phoenix also has a murder rate that is twice the national average (unless it’s all those senior snowbirds that are responsible for the homicides).

The southern New Mexico town of Columbus has seen a trend of drug lords from south of the border moving into their small neighborhood:

“Several residents of Palomas [across the border in Mexico near Juarez] have bought property in Columbus recently, paying cash…new Cadillac Escalades, and cars with thousand-dollar chrome rims, have appeared suddenly, in a town without a single traffic light.”

More than 200 American citizens (15 of them minors) have been killed in Mexico since 2004, largely in border cities like Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, and Nuevo Laredo. Another 75 Americans are still missing. Most of these cases are unsolved.

In fact, despite what the politicians and their mainstream media lapdogs attempt to convince us of, drug violence in northern Mexico is a bigger threat to American security than any Taliban insurgents. Though we have effectively scared Americans with color-coded fear factors and visions of wild-eyed Mohammedans who want to kill us for our freedom, it isn’t the reality. Americans are much more likely to die in drug-related violence – directly tied to the northern Mexico smuggling routes and cartels – rather than at the hands of a Muslim suicide bomber.

Given the facts, I can’t understand why we aren’t already using Predator drones south of the border. It seems to me that drug lords would be pretty easy to locate in their lush villas, and then we can just drop a bomb or two via remote control – their families be damned. We don’t care about collateral damage in Pakistan – why should we care about it in Tijuana?

If we aren’t worried about addressing the root of Afghanistan’s problems with any real infrastructure or reconstruction, why are we even bothering to try to solve the underlying drug problem in the U.S.? Forget social programs and rehab centers, stop funding the Narcotics Anonymous meetings and anti-drug programs in schools, eliminate that wasteful spending on the DEA. If we can just bomb our way out of a problem, why bother with all that bleeding-heart liberal nonsense?

And if Pakistan’s sovereignty doesn’t deter us from crossing the border and bombing villages, why should Mexico’s sovereignty be any different?

Of course, there is that one underlying factor that makes our politicians think twice when taking a human life – religion. Those drug lords in Mexico are, after all, Catholic (as in, not Muslim).

But we get no help from the Catholic Church. The Vatican can’t even decide whether or not they should excommunicate these drug lords (yet we complain about Muslim leaders not doing enough to speak out against terrorism). Though the Catholic Church seems to be quick to deny communion to politicians who support a woman’s right to her own body. And at least they take a tough stand on real crimes against humanity, like being gay.

President Obama decided – within hours of taking office – that having a robot kill people (thus removing the human conscience from the equation entirely) was a good way to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan.

Now he thinks he can reach out to “moderate” Taliban insurgents. How can we possibly know who is moderate and who is extreme when our only contact is through an infrared camera attached to a remote-control plane thousands of feet above the ground?

However, Obama is the commander-in-chief, so I’ll assume he’s is correct in killing 15 civilians in hopes that one of them is a mid-level Taliban leader (who will be replaced before the sun sets).

But if we’re going to use this new sophisticated technology, I want to go all in. I want Predator drones used in any situation where they might be remotely possible (pun intended) to help us protect our country. I know it’s only a matter of time before we are using Predators against our own people (Great Britain already is considering it).

Let the bombing of Mexico begin.

Will Robinson
AWOP International Contributing Editor
Author of International Political Will

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