It’s the five guys picked up in Pakistan who allegedly plotted terrorist attacks that are getting most of the attention, but it is what is going on in Mexico near the US border that is probably a bigger threat to security.
Three people connected to the US consulate were murdered last week in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and that made northern US newspapers, but the general escalation of violence has generally been ignored in Wisconsin media. That journalistic neglect is more than an oversight. Violence is claiming lives in Mexico; it is bound to spill over to the border states and beyond. Corruption already is leading the charge.
From the New York Times, which has done an excellent job covering the issue.
Federal anticorruption investigators continue to struggle to keep up with the screening of newly hired United States law enforcement officers working on the Mexican border and have fallen far behind in checking current employees as well, federal officials testified on Thursday.
The testimony came during a hearing in Washington before a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security Committee on rising corruption among the ranks of federal law enforcement officers who patrol the border and guard ports of entry.
Representatives from the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security painted a grave picture of drug trafficking organizations trying to recruit federal officers to work for them and infiltrate the ranks.
Another, earlier Times story is here.
All the elements are there growing corruption in US law enforcement. The Border Patrol expanded very rapidly. Mexican drug gangs don’t blink at the most vile violence — if you were an underpaid border agent and someone gave you a choice between accepting a large bribe or having your family killed, what would you do?
Yeah, the five guys in Pakistan should be covered, but so should what is going on within our own borders and just beyond. Exploding bombs make a lot of noise and can cause a lot of damage all at once; drug-related assassinations in Mexico makes less noise and spread fear and damage incrementally; and the spread of corruption is silent, but can cause the strands that hold societies and countries steady to rot and fall apart.