THE BORDER REPORT

The idea seems sound, groups of business owners banding together to take on the criminals who engage in kidnapping and extorting their businesses; bring a vigilante justice to the cities of Mexico. So far, the idea has been floated throughout the northern state of Chihuahua, Pancho Villa territory, in cities like Cd. Juárez and Parral. In Parral, a group of merchants and cattle ranchers banded together after the two sons of a cattle baron and a ranch hand were kidnapped. In Cd. Juárez, the Comando Ciudadano por Juárez intends to kill one criminal a day if the city can’t bring back at least some semblance of order. Reuters reports two murder cases where messages were left on the bodies of the dead men. “This is for those who continue extorting,” reads one. “A message for all rats,” the other. Maybe it’s the work of the Citizens’ Commando, and maybe it’s simply narcos hiding behind a façade of vigilantism while they continue to smoke each other. It could go either way though killers seem to rarely be captured in Juárez these days; in fact, they seem to operate with impunity. The Citizen’s Commando has been loudly declaring itself – which instantly makes me suspicious. Between issuing press releases and holding public press conferences, they’re seeking attention from the media, which, of course, cannot ignore this story. It’s too rich, citizens fighting back, getting some of what they’ve taken for years. It sounds right, but I have to wonder what the real motive is behind this latest movement. Vigilantism has a deep history along the U.S.-Mexico, a land that traditionally has had little infrastructure in place. Assuming that the Citizens’ Commando isn’t a complete fraud, I hope they go away. Juárez and the border in general is no place for them, they simply cannot compete and I doubt they have the resources and the blood-lust that a right and proper vigilante movement requires. I’ve seen the frauds before, the over-hyped Minuteman Project on the border was the last one. That crew of jokers would have run terrified if they’d ever actually encountered Sinaloan backpackers trucking a load across the Huachuca Mountains of eastern Arizona. These days, the group has fallen apart, splitting into factions, mostly using the Internet to promote themselves as a lobbying group. Before they retreated into irrelevance, the Minuteman Project managed to inject a shot of hope into those who wanted some order returned to the border. What they did was something else entirely. For several years, the group took donations, promising to erect impenetrable fences along the Arizona-Sonora border. The most I ever saw were fresh strands of silvery barb-wire stapled up along the edge of some ranch land. And a lot of donations. A lot. But let’s assume for a moment that the Citizens’ Commando is legitimate. I hope, for their sake, that they break at the first real scare they’re faced with. And I really hope that some of that Mexican machismo doesn’t leak out while they’re blustering for the cameras. Because if these businessmen and ranchers think they are equipped to deal with the repercussions of taking on low-level members of the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels, they have lost their minds. Let’s put aside the question of firepower, of resources and reserves. Let’s just look at who’s going to blink first. There’s last week’s Tijuana whack-job who claimed to have dissolved 300 bodies in acid before he was captured. How much of that was posturing and how much of that was true is another story. But that’s not the kind of accounting a rational man will admit to. In Phoenix, a crew of Sinaloan kidnappers punctured the rectum of a victim with a clothes rod, trying to get his wife to kick over a ransom. Some of the kidnappers escaped to Mexico; last week, my contacts in Phoenix tell me, the killers came back; and they’re looking for the victims again. In Mexicali, a few weeks ago, a 19-year-old man was arrested as a hitman working for a cell of the Beltrán Leyvas. Hitmen images always conjure up some suave killer in a top-brand shirt, black gloves, precision weapons, murdered-out cars. This guy was killing people for $300 a hit. I hope this Citizens’ Commando takes one good scare and dissipates, retreating back to trying and lead a normal life in Juárez. And don’t even talk to me of embarrassing the city administration into taking back control of Juárez. The war is out of their hands now. It’s out of the mayor’s hands and it’s out of the army’s hands. A vigilante movement in the fractured days following Amado Carrillo’s death may have worked. But it’s too late now. You’re just going to have to hope for a winner.

THE BORDER REPORT

We're just going to file this under unsubstantiated gossip for the moment, but what I'm hearing is that the U.S. Border Patrol is reducing training time to 54 hours which, if true, is astonishing. It wouldn't be the first time the agency reduced its training hours. Last year, in a hurry to meet its goal of hiring 6,000 new recruits, the Border Patrol shortened training time to 11 weeks from 19 weeks. At the same time, the agency lowered its standards on its entrance exams from 85 percent pass to 70 percent. Now, I'm told, the Border Patrol is worried that newly-minted Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano is going to be eyeing the National Guard again, which is something the woman enjoyed doing when she was  Arizona's governor. And that's got Patrol officials worried, and as a result, they've dropped training time to a little more than a work week. If this is true, you can start training on Monday and be ready to hit the lines by the following Sunday. Or it's not true, also a possibility but I'm just going to throw this out there and see what bites.

THE BORDER REPORT

Claiming that rushed hiring practices have infested the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson sector with criminals and that special interests were behind the agency's vaunted SBInet system, a group of anonymous Border Patrol agents have been circulating a letter through the sector that arrived at my desk yesterday afternoon.

Anonymous letters present all sorts of credibility issues and in fact, I waited a while before posting this because I wanted to make sure Patrol agents were circulating this thing amongst themselves. Turns out this letter's been making the rounds in Tucson sector for a while. That said, take it as you will, as a joke, as a hit-piece or as a serious concern. Download the pdf here: Letter to David Aguilar

THE BORDER REPORT

Now that we've gotten the inauguration out of the way, we can look around at what to expect from Pres. Obama's administration on this border.

And so far, it's looking like a Hail Maria pass, replete with talk of Mexico as a failed nation, one that is presenting as many if not more problems than Iraq and Iran and the re-introduction of the conversation about the U.S. military being placed on the border. This time, nobody talks about unarmed National Guardsmen, either. I think that is one element of Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano (man, that's a weird proper noun to type out) that's been skipped over: her enthusiasm for soldiers on the border. She was a key cheerleader for them in 2006 and as recent as last November, was pushing for them to return. And now there's a very, very different level of discourse about Mexico; Washington's talking about militarizing the border, not to keep illegal migrants away but to stop cartel wars from spilling over. Take a look at some of the warnings high level Feds tossed out within the past month: Sometime around Christmas when Homeland Security leaked to The New York Times that if the border violence were to spill over, the department has a plan for activating special response units to quell any problems. (Myself, I’ve been watching the Special Response Units, SWATs for the Feds, race from Douglas, Ariz., to Nogales and back east to Naco half a dozen times in the past year alone, usually because of something a snitch leaked out. I think Homeland Security would be better served by investing in better intelligence in Mexico than hurtling armed agents at whomever they think is coming but nobody asked me what I thought.) Then CIA chief Michael Hayden said Mexico poses a bigger problem for the incoming Obama Administration than Iraq. Then National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley piped up, saying Mexico’s democracy is being threatened by warring cartels. The conversation’s going viral, bouncing from official to official to the media and out to the public. Topping the list, the U.S. Joint Forces Command, with the ominous message that Mexico is right down there with Pakistan as a country facing potential collapse: “The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. ... Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.” Clearly, someone is orchestrating this debate; the question is why? I’ve been hearing about Mexico’s impending collapse since 2003; at the time, it was usually blamed on the Brain Drain, an exodus of intelligence and education to the United States as people fled the lack of decent jobs. Then the blame shifted to the Zetas after Nuevo Laredo exploded. And now it’s the Sinaloans and an apparently ceaseless war that’s drawn on since at least late 2004 when Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes and Arturo Guzmán were murdered. (Happy anniversary to Chapo Guzmán on eight successful years on the run, by the way). It's a new day but it's an old border. Watch the U.S.’s next maneuver toward placing soldiers on the border. It'll be interesting to see how it manifests itself. Will someone (Napolitano) directly propose it? Or will it begin with an incident; training exercises along Cabeza Prieta, maybe. And as always with these things, the question arises, who’s going to benefit.

THE BORDER REPORT

The Tucson Citizen, Arizona's oldest newspaper, is going to close down by March 21 unless a buyer is found before then. And frankly, nobody's buying newspapers these days.

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