Just imagine the uproar if a drug kingpin knocked off an American police chief coming home from work. Think of the live continuing news coverage, the outrage, the congressional hearings, the candlelight vigils, the marches, and the fiery speeches laced with a thousand never agains. 

But here in Mexico, sadly, this sort of incident is becoming so common that it barely merits a two minute mention on the news, before the broadcast breaks for the latest on the Chivas-America soccer rivalry. Police who go after cartels are being killed by the dozen, some are requesting asylum in the United States, and citizens and journalists, especially in the border regions, are also caught up in the crossfire. The Bush Administration recently issued a travel alert encouraging US citizens to use extreme caution when traveling to Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.  

What’s going on? Chalk it up to President Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on drug cartels, large organized crime corporations. He’s deployed the full faith and credit of the Mexican army against them, but still doesn’t appear to have gained the upper hand, as the New York Times reported recently.

The War on Drugs is a reality in America, but it looks different. It’s cops arresting people, sometimes people you know. It’s that burglary or mugging that you experience or hear about that you know is connected somehow to drugs. It’s laws against users that are often applied unevenly. And it can get violent, but on the whole, not that violent.

The Mexican experience, especially these days, is just bloody, as drug cartels continue to refuse to pick on someone their own size. Here in Zamora, according to the local gossip mill, things are solidly controlled by one cartel, so there’s no cause for a turf war. Still, cops here and everywhere have to make a choice: You can take money from the cartels to supplement your own lousy salary and look the other way. (Normal cops in Mexico City draw a monthly salary of about $700, just a hair more than this part-time English teacher.) Or you can risk life and that of your family (neatly summed up in the expression “silver or lead”). Those cops who stand up for the rule of law can easily find themselves on the business end of an agitated machine gun.

It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s worth taking a minute to understand the background. To that end, I’ve assembled a couple of links to more information.

And as for the current situation, more information can be had from articles courtesy of…

Normally I would wish you happy reading. Maybe next week.