Mexico At Civil War?

Things are taking a fast turn for the worse especially at the border and this is a very important situation for all La Carrera Panamericana and Chihuahua Express teams. At this very moment we have many friends who are racing even as I type this and as soon as I hear anything I will post it.

When? March 19-20-21, 2010.

Where? City and State of Chihuahua, Mexico

Location? Chihuahua City is 220 miles south of El Paso, Texas, and only
145 miles west of Presidio, Texas.





CLICK HERE to read about armed gunmen blocking roads.

This news report came in less than 3 hours ago...
Mexico's violence


THREE horrendous killings occurred recently in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. They underlined the severity of the influence of drug cartels in Mexico, but also sounded a warning to Americans.

Shot dead were an employee of the U.S. consulate general, her husband, and the husband of another U.S. employee. What was new was not the execution-style killings, but that these were the first American government officials to have fallen victim to them.

The spreading poison of the cartels in Mexico, which cause some observers to fear that the country of 112 million people is becoming a drug culture, is alarming to Americans. One reason is the historically close relationship between the United States and Mexico.

A second reason is that there are many Mexicans in the United States, who have both legal and illegal status.

And third, although maintaining law and order in Mexico is clearly the business of the Mexican government and not the United States, the fact is that Mexico's drug cartels' existence depends on the hungry market for their product on this side of the border.

The basic relationship between the United States and Mexico will remain in spite of the drug trade and its corresponding slaughter, which has spread from Mexicans to Americans. While there is grumbling in the United States about the impact on jobs here as a result of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, nearly half of Mexico's $140 billion worth of imports last year came from the United States.

Mexico was the second-largest destination for American exports, behind only Canada, the other partner in NAFTA.

In spite of U.S. efforts to control the nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico, it remains porous. The idea of building a fence and wall along the border was abandoned recently because it is not the most effective method of addressing the problem.

U.S. aid to Mexico through the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service is intended to improve coordination, to tighten border procedures, and to control the trade in arms across the border. President Obama is reportedly considering an increase in aid in the aftermath of last weekend's killings.

President Felipe Calderon of Mexico is using the Mexican army to curb violence along the country's northern border. U.S.-Mexican military cooperation has too sensitive a history to offer much promise.

Probably the best action the U.S. government could take to help alleviate the drug cartel problem would be to modify America's own drug policy.

The problem is twofold: the supply of product from Mexico and demand for it from the United States. It is a matter that cries out to be addressed from both ends.