STRATEGY CHANGE: INCREASE IN POLICE PROBABLY WON'T HELP
JUAREZ

It's not particularly comforting to hear that Mexican federal police
will be leading the fight against drug cartel-induced violence in Juarez.

There's long been suspicion that the federal police -- among other law
enforcement entities -- have severe internal corruption problems.

Yet that police presence is set to increase to about 4,500. Also,
there will be another 3,000 officers -- 2,800 municipal police and 200
state police -- added to the federal presence.

The soldiers won't be fading into the background. According to Enrique
Torres, a spokesman for Coordinated Operation Chihuahua, they will be
carrying out specific operations aimed at drug trafficking.

There's little reason to believe that bulking up the police presence
in Juarez is going to make any big difference in the violence that has
claimed at least 4,800 lives since 2008. If, as generally
acknowledged, the police are part of the problem, this move could even
have a negative effect on the situation. Putting more police closer to
the cartels and cartel money -- and exposing police to the threat of
cartel violence if they don't "toe the line" -- won't help in quelling
violence.

However, it must be said that using the military in an effort to quell
Juarez violence wasn't working, and the Mexican government must be
getting desperate in casting around, trying to find solutions.
Although the latest "solution" of using more police officers has
little chance of working, at least the government is trying something.

Pressure is increasing on the government to stop the drug-driven
violence along the border and elsewhere in Mexico. That violence
appears to be spreading eastward from Juarez into the Juarez Valley,
where small communities along the border have been attacked in various
ways by warring drug cartels.

Friday night, armed men tried to burn down a Catholic Church in El
Porvenir, across the border from Fort Hancock. People have been warned
to leave their homes. Some houses have been burned.

The violence is disrupting so many phases of daily life, from society
to the economy. Yet there are no real plans in use or on the horizon
that appear to have any hope of helping.

And there is the lingering question that haunts the U.S. side of the
border: When will the violence spill over significantly into this country?