BLOODY MEXICO DRUG WAR BOOSTS U.S. GUN SHOPS, BANKS

They found the body of Edelmiro Cavazos on a dirt road on the
outskirts of Santiago, a popular tourist spot near Monterrey, Mexico.

The 38-year-old, U.S.-educated mayor of Santiago had been shot
execution-style, hands tied behind his back, head bound with tape.

Cavazos, whose body was found Wednesday, was the fifth Mexican mayor
gunned down in the past two years - the latest high-profile victim in
a nation that is bleeding to death from its War on Drugs.

The mayhem in Mexico has gotten so bad that President Felipe Calderon
launched an unprecedented public debate and political summit on ways
to end the war, possibly by legalizing drugs.

The reason Mexico's politicians are desperate for peace is simple.

More people are dying each day from the bullets and bombs of drug
traffickers in their country than are being killed in the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars combined.

In the border city of Juarez, the epicenter of the violence, 60
residents were gunned down between Friday and Monday.

Since December 2006, 28,000 Mexicans have been murdered, including
more than 2,000 police and security officials.

Drug gangs have resorted to car bombs, kidnappings and have even
blockaded wealthy neighborhoods of Monterrey in spectacular displays of force.

The escalating carnage is a direct result of Calderon's decision,
shortly after his election in 2006, to station 45,000 soldiers and
police on the country's streets to combat the cartels.

Calderon's military surge was backed by more than $1.2 billion in
drug war aid from former President Bush, and by several hundred
million more from the Obama administration.

Although Mexican officials have captured or killed scores of drug
lords and seized tons of drugs, the violence and the trafficking
continue to mushroom.

The country's tourism is dying, its industry is suffering and
thousands have fled violence-plagued border cities like Tijuana,
Matamoros and Juarez.

Meanwhile, two industries in the U.S. are flourishing from Mexico's tragedy.

More than 7,000 gun shops have sprouted on the U.S. side of the
border, and their owners seem not to care where the merchandise goes.
Three-quarters of the 84,000 weapons, including high-powered assault
rifles, that Mexican officials have seized since 2006, originated in the U.S.

Then there are the banks.

On March 12, federal prosecutors in Miami charged Wachovia Bank with
repeatedly failing to report possible money-laundering activity by
money-transfer firms from Mexico that used the bank.

Some of the more than $370billion wired to Wachovia from Mexico
bought planes here that were used to transport drugs.

Wells Fargo, which owns Wachovia, immediately entered into a deferred
prosecution agreement and paid the federal government $160 million in fines.

Several other U.S. banks have also been discovered flouting
money-laundering laws.

No wonder former Mexican president Vicente Fox, a conservative
businessman, is urging his country to legalize the production, sale
and distribution of drugs "as a strategy to weaken and break the
economic system that allows cartels to earn huge profits."

The Mexican people, Fox says, have paid too high a price for this war
on drugs, while the gun dealers and bankers in the U.S. continue to
make a killing.