A RUTHLESS DRUG CARTEL JUST BELOW OUR BORDER

Re: "The Cartel" (Insight, July 9):

Robert Caldwell has performed an outstanding service by his
well-researched, well-documented and superbly written article on Mexican
drug trafficking. Based on my 36 years of experience in federal and state
law enforcement, I would say that he has gotten it right.

Make no mistake, the challenge to the national security of Mexico is not
found in the occasionally effective efforts of the United States to take
out the drug groups, but clearly resides in the drug cartels themselves. I
think that the Mexican government's lack of will and/or ability to combat
this incredible attack on its national sovereignty is at least understandable.

I think former U.S. Attorney Charles La Bella is on target. The real
problem is the lack of political will on the part of our elected U.S.
government officials to effectively combat this problem. It's just not that
high on the list of "things to do" at the White House and Congress. If it
were, you would see different reactions at the highest level of the
Department of Justice and at the State Department. This is painfully
demonstrated by the lack of a well-thought-out plan to end the reign of the
cartels.

I think that if the military and federal law enforcement were turned loose
on the cartels, unfettered by border politics, they would quickly go the
way of other deadly viruses such as polio and smallpox.

Does anyone remember Manuel Noriega?

Roy D. Nedrow, Cardiff-by-the-Sea

Thanks for the outstanding piece of journalism on the Arellano Felix
cartel. Keep up the pressure on our politicians to confront this threat to
our community. Considering what has happened to journalists in Mexico, I
appreciate the courage it takes to run such an important issue.

Earl Towson, La Mesa

Caldwell did a very good job of presenting an overview of the Mexican drug
trade. Unfortunately, all of this rhetoric and the entire war on drugs
program, which has dragged on for more than two decades, are dealing only
with symptoms of the real problem.

The Arellano Felix organization is only a group of entrepreneurs going
about the business of supplying a product. The drug agents are people
trying to put them out of business. Naturally, they are going to resist any
interference in their business, whether it be drug agents, newspaper
publishers, law-enforcement officers, government officials or anyone else.

After all the time and resources we have spent on this war against drugs it
should be apparent to a majority of people of average intelligence that the
war is being lost. Who among us -- when given the choice of cooperate,
quit, or die -- is going to choose the last?

If the Arellano Felix brothers were all jailed tomorrow, their replacements
would have the business up and running again in a few days. The real
problem is not Mexico or Colombia, but the good old United States, whose
drug-addicted citizens have created this tremendous, insatiable drug market.

Mexico has just elected a new president, Vicente Fox, who will soon have to
deal with this problem. What a great and opportune time to drop the bomb
that would solve it all: legalization.

James S. Caldwell, San Diego

An interesting and alarming section regarding the drug cartels of Baja
California. I hope it is not pedantic to point out that the lion's share of
the $52 million estimated spent annually by the cartel for various official
protections originates here in America.

Those of us who have been interested in this area have watched the flow of
drugs into the United States increase exponentially, almost in lock step
with our funding of the so-called war on drugs.

We have also watched the laws unevenly applied within racial groups.
Unbelievable sentences of incarceration are handed out.

What is the ratio of real drug dealers to penny-ante drug pushers in this
era of overcharging and oversentencing? Seventy percent of our prison
population is made up of nonviolent drug offenders.

And who among us has not seen on television or read in the newspapers the
egregious degrading of our Constitution? Will it ever be restored? Have we
lost all sense of proportion? Do we have any idea of what we are freely
sacrificing?

This is a war. That means we have to think about what it is we hope to
achieve in this struggle and not be taken in by our own propaganda. It
appears that the purpose of this war is to end all illegal drug use in this
country. Nobody seems to have asked whether such a thing is possible,
especially considering that it's a behavior as old as mankind.

Furthermore, calling these drug dealers "scum" and "purveyors for profit of
human misery and degradation," may be an accurate portrayal, but it still
reminds me of an hysterical American press proclaiming "Hang the Kaiser"
during World War I, and only underlines the fact that the argument for
continuing this war has descended into the hysterical.

And I for one am tired of paying taxes and seeing my constitutional rights
eroded bit by bit to support an hysterical, useless, morally wrong and
fascistic approach to an issue that belongs entirely between a doctor and
patient: drug addiction.

It's time to end this stupidity now.

Matthew Bright, Rosarito

The Union-Tribune's articles on "Drug Cartel" (Insight, July 9) are like a
summer rerun. It has been said over and over, yet there's no real action
from the USA or Mexico.

The United States can beat Iraq at war, but not the Mexican or Colombian
drug cartels. They are doing more damage to the United States and its
people than all the other wars in recent times.

When is the U.S. government going to get serious about protecting our
borders from infiltration of drugs and illegal alien traffic? Where are the
Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force? Isn't it time to call this one a
war also, and do what is necessary to stop it there and here at the U.S.
border?

This is a national emergency, and the military should be called in to
protect our borders from this "invasion" by foreigners. That appears to be
the only real solution, since so many feeble attempts have been made for
many years. It is as though the president does not want them to stop -- and
the same could be said about the Congress.

Is drug money now into politics in such a big way that there is no
political incentive to stop it?

Earle Callahan, Coronado