MEXICO DRUG VIOLENCE ANYTHING BUT A NEW STORY

In the book "Trial by Fire" author Harold Coyle, a contemporary of Tom
Clancy, envisions a scenario in which Mexican drug lords kill American
government targets in order to pressure the United States to invade
the Northern part of the country and establish a security "buffer
zone." It's all part of a plot to discredit the Mexican regime and
draw the United States into an embarrassing political fiasco.

Does this sound familiar? Actually, the book was written in 1992, but
it's an old tale.

Certainly most Americans have heard of Pancho Villa, but most don't
know that his deadly raid on Columbus, New Mexico, was designed to
force an American invasion of Mexico to catch him. And we obliged,
sending in General John J. Pershing. The resulting invasion did
exactly what Villa wanted us to do: discredit President Venustiano
Carranza, a man Villa despised.

Now the assassinations of three with ties to the United States
Consulate in La Ciudad Juarez have made headlines. It's a particularly
jarring scene to see the crime scene so close to the Santa Fe Bridge,
which I used to cross over into Juarez all the time when I lived in El
Paso. I even recognized the location of the bullet-riddled car.

These murders are shocking to most Americans, who might expect
something like this in the Middle East, but not in Mexico. President
Obama has expressed outrage. The Reuters report "Killing of Americans
pressures Mexico in drug war"
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100316/us_nm/us_mexico_usa_murders_2)
makes it seem as though the Mexican leadership cares little about
what's going on, or needs some sort of urging to get serious.

Allow me to shed some light on the issue as to what is really
happening in Mexico.

For decades, the corrupt Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) did
nothing to stop the drug trade, allowing it to flow as freely as
possible. But the National Action Party (PAN), a more conservative
party, decided that this could not go on. President Felipe Calderon
(PAN), elected in 2006, chose to make war on the drug dealers with the
more professional army instead of the notoriously corrupt police force.

Now Mexico is going through what we experienced in the Roaring
Twenties with the likes of Al Capone, "Bugs" Moran, "Spike" O'Donnell
and "Dutch" Schultz. Instead, it's "El Chapo," ("Shorty"), "LaFamilia"
etc.

But why kill Americans? It's not an accident, as some in the media are
implying.

There are two reasons. First, President Calderon and his allies in the
state of Chihuahua (where Ciudad Juarez is located) have passed some
pretty tough laws -- modeled on our RICO laws, according to TIME
magazine
(www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1972374,00.html?xid=rss-topstories)
- -- which could drain the drug cartel resources. Second, President
Calderon is extraditing captured drug kingpins to America for trial,
with the biggest case occurring last month
(www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/18/mexico.us.druglord.extradite/index.html).

The drug lords are clearly spooked by this get-tough Mexican president
and are trying to drive a wedge between the United States and Mexico,
hoping to embarrass Americans and get a new political party into
office that looks the other way on the drug trade.

Let's not give them that opportunity.

John A. Tures is associate professor of political science at LaGrange
College.