THE BORDER REPORT

The Feds’ 2010 Drug Threat Assessment has been released and its findings are representative of some cynical assumptions I’ve carried over the past three years: Mexican cartel wars or no cartel wars, this border is business as usual.

I’ve long said that the best assessor of success or failure in drug law enforcement has been the market. The market doesn’t lie and it doesn’t spin. And what it’s telling us now is that Mexico’s drug cartels are busier than ever cultivating and trafficking our dope. Thousands dead or no, everyone is fat and happy.

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THE BORDER REPORT

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps is no more. The Arizona Daily Star’s got the scoop on the story here. But there’s another armed group floating around down on the border (I mean, besides the Sinaloans). Federal agents have received complaints from hunters in Southern Arizona of being accosted by armed white men in camouflage who told the hunters they are with the Department of Homeland Security, sources say. They weren’t affiliated with the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, but law enforcement doesn’t know yet who is driving this group, what their members are like, and what their motives are.

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THE BORDER REPORT

A group of  restrictionists who last year saw one of their supporters arrested for the murder of a Mexican-American family in Southern Arizona, plans a return to this border armed with guns and rhetoric. SonoranNews.com, a conservative Web site in Arizona, reports that the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, plans to come down to the border armed with rifles this time and will “forcefully engage, detain, and defend our lives and country from the criminals who trample over our culture and laws.”

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THE BORDER REPORT

It’s been more than a week and La Linea continues to be targeted for the triple murders of people tied to the U.S. Consulate in Cd. Juárez; the Americans continuing to state they believe that it was a case of mistaken identity. Departing from my skepticism of the theory for the  moment, let’s say it’s true. Let’s say the killers targeted the wrong people. So who were they targeting? Follow me for a moment because this is confusing.

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THE BORDER REPORT

One rumor I’m hearing today is that U.S. Marines were present with the Mexican Navy last night during the gunbattle with Arturo Beltrán Leyva.

It may or may not be true. I have it tertiary from sources within the Sinaloa factions working here in the U.S. that I talk to from time to time. And of course, every time a significant arrest or killing is conducted in Mexico, there is a healthy suspicion that Americans were somehow involved. This of course, isn’t helped by the fact that American federal agents have been spotted at some murder scenes, standing alongside their Mexican counterparts.

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