The War in Mexico: Every Police Officer in Los Ramones Resigns After Firefight!

The news this morning was that the entire twenty-one member police force of Los Ramones resigned after the police station was attacked.  None of the officers inside were injured, fortunately, through no fault of the attackers.  At least two hand-grenades exploded, and all six police vehicles parked at the time were either blown up or riddled with bullets.  Having myself been a police officer in the past, I cannot blame these men for quitting.  I honestly don't know that I would return to work under the current conditions.  As of this moment there has been no news as to whether any of the officers have been attacked in their homes.

The attack on the Los Ramones police facility was carried out by one or the other of the local drug cartels.  I suppose it is not inconceivable that, just for a moment, the two cartels could drop their differences and attack the police in unison.  Whether this was the case or not, the police were outgunned, and probably outnumbered.  Whether or not the cartels acted separately, either of them could muster more than enough manpower to overwhelm the local police force.  Unfortunately, the Los Ramones incident is not the first of its kind, nor will it be the last, as the drug war continues.  No Mexican citizen is safe.  Local police officers are virtually assured of imminent death if they continue to serve.  Yet many of them do.  The state and national police are not much safer, as was so tragically illustrated with the death of Commander Flores.  In fact, the Mexican military forces are in the firing line as well, with near daily confrontations with drug cartels all across the Mexican nation.

I believe it is time for the United States to acknowledge what is going on in Mexico.  There is three-cornered civil war underway that pits the drug cartels against the civil authority and against the people.  The drug cartels are bent on destroying the legitimate government, indeed they are well on the way to meeting that objective.  The military and police are clearly a weak corner of the triangle, barely able to hold their own against the criminal gangs' daily attacks on government forces.  The weakest angle in the triangle is, of course, the honest residents of the various towns, cities, and countryside who are caught in the middle, and have been since at least 2006. 

In 2006 the beloved President Calderon declared war on the the drug cartels.  Since that time, over 30, 000 people have died in the conflict, including criminals, soldiers and police, and of course, the innocent (and mostly unarmed) citizens who happen to get caught in the crossfire.  The emotional cost, of course, is incalculable.  Not only are the Mexican people grieving their dead, they increasingly are forced to endure the further horror of knowing that their loved ones were tortured beyond endurance, their corpses then mutilated, many times beyond the point of recognition. I have deep sympathy for the Mexican people, and like I mentioned in my previous blog, a deep respect for those officials that courageously carry on with their duties in the face of overwhelming odds.  The situation in Mexico is tragic and outrageous.   

The situation in the United States at this time, while not nearly so tragic, as far as loss of life is concerned, is equally outrageous.  I am speaking of two things: first, the almost total lack of current and informed coverage of the situation in Mexico; second, the total lack of response from the United States to the situation in Mexico.  In tomorrow's blog I will address the latter, the lack of response on the part of the United States government to the Mexican civil war.  Suffice for now to say that there is in fact a civil war raging in Mexico.  That war has already spilled over the border into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and other locales north of the Rio Grande.  It will only get worse as the government of Mexico falls further into chaos.  In the face of this clear and present danger, President Barack Obama has failed to act to secure the safety of American citizens IN AMERICA.  He has in fact snubbed the Texas governor, and by extension, the people of Texas, when the governor attempted to personally meet with Obama at the Austin airport.  To me the President's lack of concern for the American people is outrageous.  Obama's gross negligence toward the safety of the American people may well be the first tangible impeachable offense King Obama has committed to this point.