Navarrette: Drug cartels aren't playing, nor should we

By Ruben Navarrette
The San Diego Union-Tribune

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Events on the U.S.-Mexico border were already creepy. Now they're eerily familiar.

Ninety-three years ago this month, Mexican outlaw-turned- revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa led more than 500 men on a raid of the U.S. Army garrison in Columbus, N.M., killing soldiers and stealing machine guns and ammunition. Villa was pursued into Mexico -- unsuccessfully -- by 10,000 troops under Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing. The raid was recently re-enacted in Columbus, as it is every year, by Mexican riders dressed as bandits.

Greeted by deputies and riders on the U.S. side of the border dressed as cavalrymen, the faux "Villistas" later joined their American hosts at a picnic complete with mariachis.

The re-enactment probably was a welcome diversion. Most days in Columbus and all along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, dealing with reality means wondering if today is the day a town's luck runs out and the violence tearing Mexico apart spills across the border and takes American lives.

To prevent that, President Barack Obama recently told reporters that he is considering sending National Guard troops to the border to help contain the drug violence. Obama claimed he is "not interested in militarizing the border," but he's not messing around.

"I think it's unacceptable if you've got drug gangs crossing our borders and killing U.S. citizens," Obama said.

You're on the right track, Mr. President. It makes sense to send the National Guard to the border with orders to stop guns from exiting the United States and drugs coming in.

Just one thing: We don't have "drug gangs" crossing the border.

San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne told me that, most often, Mexican drug traffickers contract with gang members on this side of the border -- and often U.S.-born -- to carry out murder and mayhem. The gangs aren't imported. They're domestic.

What are being imported are drugs and spillover violence. According to the Justice Department, Mexican drug cartels have set up shop in at least 230 U.S. cities. USA Today recently reported that Atlanta has become the Mexican cartels' principal distribution center for the eastern United States. There has been a rash of drug-related kidnappings in Phoenix. There have been murders in San Diego and Houston that authorities believe were carried out on orders from drug traffickers in Mexico.

Don't kid yourself. This isn't a border problem. You'll find traces of the Mexican drug trade as far north as Alaska, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Even across another border. According to the Globe and Mail, Canadian authorities are worried that they could be facing a national security threat because of what one official called a "river of drugs" that connects Mexico, the United States and Canada. It's NAFTA for narcos. With less cocaine coming from Mexico because of the government crackdown, the river is drying up. Rival gangs in Canada are fighting over what little gets through.

Along the Mexican border, much has changed since Pancho Villa. The outlaws don't have to steal machine guns and ammunition. They pay cash. They find plenty of Americans eager to sell them all the AK-47s, grenade launchers, shotguns, 9 mm handguns and bullets the narcos can haul back to Mexico by the truckload.

The drug traffickers aren't playing games, so neither should Americans. They're destroying; we're debating. They take lives; we refuse to take responsibility. They're trying to control Mexico and the drug business; we think this is about gun control.

Luckily for both countries, Obama isn't playing. To prove it, he might just send U.S. troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Goodbye, Baghdad. Hello, El Paso.

THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE