The feds should be more on top of the problems on our border

Article from: The Australian

THE Texas Governor has made an extraordinary call for the militarisation of his state's border with Mexico, asking President Barack Obama for troops as a violent drug war and rising political instability in Mexico threaten to spill over into the Lone Star state.

Governor Rick Perry said he wanted 1000 troops to help guard the Texas-Mexico border and for the Obama administration to start funding stronger security measures amid rising alarm over the Mexican drug cartels and the bloody battle for control of the smuggling of cocaine into the US, the world's largest market for cocaine.

There is also growing concern over Mexico's imploding economy, which could lead to further unrest.

"I don't care if they are military, National Guard or Customs agents," Mr Perry said at a news conference at the border town of El Paso yesterday. "We're very concerned that the federal Government is not funding border security adequately. We must be ready for any contingency."

US Attorney-General Eric Holder acknowledged the Mexican drug cartels were a national security threat, as he announced 52 arrests in a two-year drug-busting operation, which he said was crippling the cartels' distribution network in the US.

The arrests in California, Maryland and Minnesota brought to 755 the total charged in the US under Operation XCellerator, which began in May 2007 and was aimed at Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, authorities said.

"They are a national security threat," Mr Holder said. "They are lucrative. They are violent. And they are operated with stunning planning and precision."

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops to crush the gangs and Washington has pledged

$US1.6billion ($2.5 billion) in military equipment and training assistance to Mexico over three years.

"These cartels will be destroyed," Mr Holder said. Yesterday's operation netted more than 12,000kg of cocaine, along with huge quantities of marijuana and methamphetamine and 1.3 million ecstasy pills.

Former US drug czar Barry McCaffrey said the US Government spent $US12 billion on Iraq and $US2 billion on Afghanistan each month, "without taking into account what is happening in Mexico".

Organised crime has claimed more than 10,000 lives in Mexico since 2007, according to human rights groups. In Juarez, the Mexican town bordering El Paso, drug violence has taken almost 1900 lives since last year.

"It is very likely that the levels of violence in Mexico will worsen," Mr McCaffrey said in a recent report. "We in the US must be prepared to provide whatever assistance the Government of Mexico requires to defeat these criminal organisations."

The turf wars in Mexico are becoming increasingly violent as the US tries to break up the networks in the US. Cocaine prices have more than doubled in the US in the past two years as cocaine becomes more scarce, authorities say. Methamphetamine prices also have risen.

Suspects arrested faced charges of racketeering, drug smuggling, money laundering and illegal weapons possession, officials said.

The violence in Mexico has been exacerbated by loose US gun laws, which allow drug-runners to purchase guns in the US and smuggle them back into Mexico.

Mr Holder said the Obama administration would push for the renewal of a US ban on assault rifles, but the timing was uncertain. "I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum," he said.

The ban expired during the Bush administration under heavy pressure from the US gun lobby.

The Sinaloa cartel, based in the northwest Mexican state of the same name, split into two rival groups last year. Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, Mexico's most wanted man, heads one and his former enforcers, the Beltran Leyva brothers, head the other.

Mr Perry said his presence in El Paso also was meant to send a message that Texas is willing to protect Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz, who received death threats from a Mexican drug cartel and moved his family to El Paso.