A FREE TRADE THAT FLOWS WITH A VIOLENT FORCE

The Smuggling (Of Drugs And People) From Mexico Reverberates In Arizona.

PHOENIX - X-Caliber, a gun store in a nondescript neighborhood in
this city's northern section, has become embroiled in Mexico's
turmoil. The chaos there is the result of the Mexican government's
decision to wage war against rampant drug cartels that are fighting
mostly against each other but also against the portions of Mexican
law enforcement they have not corrupted.

Operating in that nation's north, they are serving this nation's
appetite for illegal narcotics and illegal immigrants.

The gun shop's proprietor, the name of whose shop might indicate
familiarity with Arthurian legend, is on trial here, accused of
selling at least 650 weapons, including AK-47 rifles, in small lots
to "straw buyers" -- persons who illegally pass the weapons on to the
cartels, thereby fueling the violence that killed more than 6,000
Mexicans last year. That was more than 2,000 above the 2007 toll and
fewer than will die if the rate of killing so far this year
continues. (U.S. military fatalities in Iraq in six years number
4,249.) Fortunately, most of the fatalities are members of the warring cartels.

The prosecution of the proprietor is part of the U.S. attempt to stop
the southward flow of weapons and bulk currency while Mexico combats
the northward flow of drugs, and of human beings brought by
"coyotes." But although almost all the cartels' weapons come from the
United States, the cartels are generating upward of $15 billion
annually from drugs, human trafficking and extortion.

So they will find ways to get guns -- and grenades and other military
weapons -- for their internecine disputes about control over routes
for smuggling drugs and people.

When Gen. Michael Hayden stepped down as CIA director, he listed
Mexico among America's biggest national security concerns.

But even allowing for the stresses arising from the global economic
downturn, speculation that Mexico, with the world's 13th-largest
economy, is sinking toward the status of a "failed state" is
far-fetched, as is the idea that the cartels can withstand a
determined drive by the Mexican military, assisted by U.S. military
technologies.

The turmoil is, however, taking a toll on Arizona, which has a
370-mile border with Mexico. Terry Goddard, Arizona's attorney
general, says this is a "transit state," not a "destination state."
Phoenix is a distribution center for smuggled drugs destined for more
than 230 American cities, and for people.

Each commodity is stashed in different "drop houses." The people are
kept in what Goddard calls "cattle-car conditions." He says that
although a million people a year are moving north through Arizona, it
is still a seller's market for traffickers in human beings.

Extrapolating from wire transfers of hundreds of millions of dollars
from customers in dozens of U.S. states to smugglers operating in
Arizona, Goddard believes that the "coyotes" who bring in the human
contraband are extremely violent extensions of the cartels.

One gang will swoop down on a "drop house" holding smuggled persons,
or on a truck carrying such persons on the interstate from Tucson,
and then "negotiate" their own deals with people who thought they had
already paid for the smuggling.

Some who object are shot in the head, which is, Goddard says, "a
pretty good technique" for encouraging payments from the others.

He estimates that half of Phoenix's 169 murders last year were
related to human and drug smuggling.

Mexico, he says, is no longer importing up to four times more
pseudoephedrine than its pharmaceutical industry requires.

This ingredient was used to make methamphetamines destined for the
U.S. market. Today, measured by volume (millions of pounds) and
profit (up to 70 percent of the cartels' earnings), the biggest
business is still marijuana.

It is shipped in two-ton lots, in trucks that cross over the border
fence without touching it, using "bridges" that can be assembled in
90 seconds at places identified by spotters who are equipped to live
in the desert for weeks at a time. They can report where U.S. border
patrols are at any moment.

When Gen. Michael Hayden stepped down as CIA director, he listed
Mexico among America's biggest national security concerns.

But even allowing for the stresses arising from the global economic
downturn, speculation that Mexico, with the world's 13th-largest
economy, is sinking toward the status of a "failed state" is
far-fetched, as is the idea that the cartels can withstand a
determined drive by the Mexican military, assisted by U.S. military
technologies.

The turmoil is, however, taking a toll on Arizona, which has a
370-mile border with Mexico. Terry Goddard, Arizona's attorney
general, says this is a "transit state," not a "destination state."
Phoenix is a distribution center for smuggled drugs destined for more
than 230 American cities, and for people.

Each commodity is stashed in different "drop houses." The people are
kept in what Goddard calls "cattle-car conditions." He says that
although a million people a year are moving north through Arizona, it
is still a seller's market for traffickers in human beings.

Extrapolating from wire transfers of hundreds of millions of dollars
from customers in dozens of U.S. states to smugglers operating in
Arizona, Goddard believes that the "coyotes" who bring in the human
contraband are extremely violent extensions of the cartels.

One gang will swoop down on a "drop house" holding smuggled persons,
or on a truck carrying such persons on the interstate from Tucson,
and then "negotiate" their own deals with people who thought they had
already paid for the smuggling.

Some who object are shot in the head, which is, Goddard says, "a
pretty good technique" for encouraging payments from the others.

He estimates that half of Phoenix's 169 murders last year were
related to human and drug smuggling.

Mexico, he says, is no longer importing up to four times more
pseudoephedrine than its pharmaceutical industry requires.

This ingredient was used to make methamphetamines destined for the
U.S. market. Today, measured by volume (millions of pounds) and
profit (up to 70 percent of the cartels' earnings), the biggest
business is still marijuana.

It is shipped in two-ton lots, in trucks that cross over the border
fence without touching it, using "bridges" that can be assembled in
90 seconds at places identified by spotters who are equipped to live
in the desert for weeks at a time. They can report where U.S. border
patrols are at any moment.