U.S. NEEDS TO STAUNCH FLOW OF ARMS TO MEXICAN DRUG LORDS

A bloody war is being fought just across our southern border by the
Mexican government.

The enemy is a powerful cabal of drug lords.

So far more than 500 Mexican soldiers and police have been killed by
the heavily-armed, vicious criminals who are in the lucrative
business of supplying the American market with illicit drugs.

A measure of the depravity of these thugs is that they have now taken
to murdering the wives and children of policemen who annoy them.

And on a recent occasion the heads of two policemen were left on the
doorstep of a police station with the message, "So that you learn
some respect."

A Call for Help

The Mexican authorities have appealed to our government for help in
dealing with this scourge savaging their society.

That appeal has come in the form of two modest requests.

The first is to reduce our demand for drugs. That seems to be an
objective that is beyond the capacities of our society to achieve.

The second request is that we institute reasonable controls on the
marketing of firearms.

The Mexican government estimates that the United States is the source
of 80 to 90 percent of the weapons that the Mexican drug barons use
to equip their assassins.

Because we have such laughable limitations on the sale of firearms,
they have no difficulty purchasing a steady supply of weapons from
their American providers.

The Weapons Trade

When successful raids are made on narco safe houses, it is not
unusual for the Mexican authorities to find unopened crates of AK-47s
freshly delivered from across the border. And, although these
criminals covet and esteem the Kalashnikovs our dealers sell them,
they also admire weapons of American design and manufacture.

A recent U.N. conference endeavored to find a way to win control over
the clandestine trade in firearms which has had such devastating
effects upon life in developing nations.

Considerable agreement had been reached among the 136 participants.

Then the National Rifle Association, which no doubt considers the
deliberations to be another poorly disguised attempt at undermining
legal gun ownership, notified our government of its crabbed certitudes.

Ever subservient to that organization, the American delegation
boycotted deliberations by absenting itself from meetings, thereby
exercising a silent veto over the proceedings.

For more information, read "The Long War of Genaro Garcia Luna," by
Daniel Kurtz-Phelan at www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/magazine/13officer-t.html