Soob

I've whined quite a lot about the limited coverage Mexico's drug war has received in the mainstream. Perhaps that coverage is coming around. Thanks to the Historian for alerting me to this Investors Business Daily editorial. A snippet:

Some 4,400 Mexicans have been killed in the drug war this year alone — including a record 58 in one day last week. Grisly killings of honest cops, officials, innocent bystanders, kidnap victims and other traffickers engulf border towns like Juarez and Tijuana.

But the carnage is spreading even to formerly placid vacation spots such as Rosarito Beach on the west coast. The tourists, of course, are gone, U.S. State Department travel advisories are up, and local economies are withering.

Mexico has also become the kidnapping capital of the world, not only in numbers but in viciousness. Victims are often killed even after a ransom is paid. And they're no longer confined to the wealthy.

A week ago, the 5-year-old son of impoverished street merchants was taken and then, when a ransom wasn't paid, killed with an injection of acid into his heart. This week, 27 farm laborers were kidnapped. Twenty-six Americans have also been abducted in Mexico, and there are signs that it's spreading north of the border. A few weeks ago, 8-year-old Cole Puffenberger of Las Vegas was taken because a relative owed debts to drug cartels.

Two years ago, when Mexico went on the offensive against the drugs, every analyst dismissed the idea of Mexico becoming "another Colombia." No one believed that the impact of the drug trade could ever be as pervasive as in that South American country.

There, drug lords aligned with Marxist terrorists, burned down the Supreme Court, won seats in Congress and fought pitched battles with weapons more advanced than those used by the Colombian military. By 1998, they had nearly toppled the government...