Spinning Facts

As Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen visited Mexico on Friday, Mexico deployed 5,000 troops to Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican city just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Mullen briefed President Obama about his visit this morning. NBC news reports that an unnamed U.S. military official said “Clearly one of the things the president was interested in was the U.S military capability that may or may not apply to our cooperation with the Mexicans”.

Mexican drug cartels have operations in 230 US cities. About 90 percent of the cocaine trade across the United States is controlled by Mexican drug cartels. They also control most of the market for marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin.

Mexico’s drug cartels are loosely organized into small blocs that are at war with one another and with the Mexican government, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Over 1000 people have been killed in these skirmishes so far this year.

And these aren’t pretty killings. Innocent bystanders are caught in the crossfire. Warring cartel members are tortured and dismembered. Bodies that may harbor evidence that can be tracked back to their killers are stolen from morgues as morgue workers stand back with arms raised to the gun toting thieves.

While the drugs flowing into the United States from Mexico are a problem for us, southbound traffic from the US is paying for this war. $15 billion to $20 billion heads across the U.S. border into the hands of Mexico’s drug cartels each year.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the Mexican government have tracked over 90 percent of the guns used by the cartels back to the U.S.

So whose problem is it? 

U.S. law prohibits weapons and ammunition sales to foreign nationals.

U.S. law forbids the unlicensed export of guns.

The U.S. market for drugs is steadily increasing, and undetected drugs coming to our country from Mexico counters the staggering amounts of cash smuggled from the U.S. into Mexico.

The U.S. military isn’t the answer to this problem.

Let’s clean up our mess.