A caravan of fifty heavily armed men encounters two policemen, beats them and leaves them lying in the road. A short while later five more officers respond. Four are later found dead, no word on the fifth. Military units catch up to the caravan and a pitched gun battle ensues, leaving 20 more dead.
It's the latest incident in a running conflict that has produced a thousand or more casualties in just the last few months. Police stations have been attacked, newspapers bombed, soldiers and police and civilians kidnapped and decapitated. Government officials and the military can't seem to get it under control, or even slow down the carnage. Corruption among both local police and federal military seems to be playing a major role. Pleas for a local troop "surge" have gone unanswered. Many citizens have fled to neighboring countries--10% or more of the nation's population is gone, living over the borders.
Just another day in Iraq, you say? WRONG.
It's Mexico, and the gun battle took place two days ago near Arizpe, Sonora, less than a hundred miles from the Arizona border. Drug gangs are slugging it out for turf, and our porous southern border is the prize. You'd think all this should rate some air time on American media, now in the middle of the immigration debate.
Well, shouldn't it?
Well, it should, but it won't. The sad fact is it doesn't matter to the media even if it is important for U.S. public policy, foreign policy and immigration reform.
Besides, such a story does not fit into the pre-ordained story lines the media has mapped out concerning Mexico. Some might claim that were we not in Iraq such a story would get media coverage in the states, but I doubt it. I believe there are many in the MSM who would view following this story as being inherently racist. It could possibly lead more Americans to cast a leery eye over open immigration efforts, and the media can't have that!
Americans are ignorant enough of the wider world around them without the media "helping" matters by deciding what we should or shouldn't be told.
1 comment:
I just couldn't leave it alone. The drug war in Mexico is very real, and the death toll is mounting. And it's happening because they're fighting over the drug and immigratn smuggling routes across our border.
The same coyotes who bring the illegals across also load them down with backpacks of drugs, and it's actually the best insurance of some of those illegals that they'll get the help they promised by the smuggler when they clear the border, instead of being left to wandder and die in the deserts.
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