As I see it
Glenn Spencer -- October 17, 2008

Drug Lord Death Rattle

Mexico seems to be coming apart, but there are reasons to believe it may be coming together. The recent violence involving drug lords is truly incredible but there are reasons to believe it will soon come to an end.

Some, like the White House, argue that the violence is the result of Mexican President Calderon's crackdown on drug dealers. They say this is why since 2006 the U.S. has seen an 84 percent jump in methamphetamine prices and a 21 percent increase in cocaine prices. Meth use has dropped 50 percent and cocaine use has decreased 19 percent, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

I see it differently. For the last two years I have flown along the border from Texas to the Pacific Ocean documenting the progress of the border fence project. Beginning in 2006 I could see miles and miles of open border crisscrossed by thousands or north-south vehicle tracks leading out of Mexico.

There is no doubt in my mind that many of these tracks were made by vehicles carrying loads of drugs.

A favorite location was the Goldwater Bombing Range in Arizona.

Since late 2006, the Department of Homeland Security has installed 123 miles of new border fence and now has 162 of vehicle barriers, for a total of 371 of border now being protected against drug-laden vehicles [click here for info].

Over forty miles of new fencing stretches south and east of Yuma along the Goldwater Bombing range. Another 61 miles of new vehicle barriers runs along the border at the Organ Pipe National Park.

Many if not most of the new border fencing and barriers transects north-south drug smuggling routes.

I believe the sudden increase in drug violence in Mexico is directly related to the construction of fencing and barriers along the border. Why not? After all, before it was easy, now it is much harder.

There are plenty of indicators other than price that the cartels are having trouble moving their poison across the border. We are now seeing high-tech submarines being captured with more than a hundred million dollars worth of drugs aboard, and Mexicans are even growing pot in our national forests.

But if the border fencing and barriers were helping cut drug smuggling why wouldn't the White House take credit? Why would it give all the credit to the President of Mexico? There are two reasons.

First, President Bush does not like the fence. He does not want it. He wants amnesty and a North American Union.

Sure, Bush signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006, but he had his fingers crossed. Before DHS did much to implement the Act, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson gutted it.

However, along came the Governmental Accountability Office and blew the whistle (we believe with American Border Patrol's help) on the DHS. After that DHS shifted $400 million from the electronic fence to the real one.

There is another reason why Bush didn't want to give credit to the barriers and fence for cutting drug use and raising prices; He doesn't want us to know that the government could have done this forty years ago. In other words, he doesn't want us to know that our government has been allowing billions of dollars of drugs to flood into our country, destroying millions of lives, because they didn't want to disturb our relationship with Mexico. As I have long said, we are being sacrificed on the alter of globalization.

So there you have it. Betrayal and deceit at the highest level has allowed drugs to flow into the United States and the Mexican drug lords to prosper south of the border. It has been only the outcry of the American people that forced the government to do what it should have done decades ago.

As we complete the fence, funds for the drug lords will dry up and, after they finish fighting over a disappearing pie, the age of drugs corruption in Mexico will come to an end. Then maybe Mexicans will have a chance to clean up the rest of their act.