Mexico’s Drug Violence Overstated?
It was only six months ago that Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, in an address to Congress, blamed the escalating drug war violence in his otherwise tranquil nation on lax American gun laws. He even called for reinstatement of the 1990s weapons ban—to thunderous applause from the leftists in the audience—even though the high-powered weaponry employed by the cartels doesn’t come from our shores and can’t be acquired here under current laws.
Now Arturo Sarukhan—Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S.—in an address to the Council on Foreign Relations, wants to tell a different story.
[Sarukhan] has criticised the international media for paying excessive attention to the drug-related violence in his country.
So which is it? Is the drug violence—rising murder rates, including beheadings and other gruesome and torturous executions—an impending disaster which can only be averted by undermining American sovereignty or is the reportage of the crisis overblown? You can’t have it both ways.