Violence explodes as Perry skips Border Governors' Conference

Governor Rick Perry this week skipped out on the binational Border Governors' Conference in Monterrey, sending Deputy Chief of Staff Kathy Walt in his stead. But surely there can't be many other priorities more important than Texas' border for the Governor to be focused on? Rather than go to Monterrey to discuss security and economic issues critical to the state, on Wednesday the Governor was in Lubbock to criticize President Obama's health care plan.

As if to emphasize those missplaced priorities, on the opening day of the conference eighteen people were murdered at a drug rehab center in Ciudad Juarez across the river from El Paso, and 22 others were murdered the same day by cartels in the state of Chihuahua alone. This was the third recent attack on an Juarez rehab center, which authorities say "have frequently been used by drug cartel members as hide-outs from police or rival gang members."

I've gotta tell you, if I were Governor and that kind of violence was going on right next door to my jurisdiction, I'd be damn interested in discussing the matter with my counterparts in Mexico. It's hard to see how debating federal healthcare policy in Lubbock could be a more important priority than seeking solutions to the border crisis.

Whether or not Governor Perry is sufficiently engaged, increasingly it's becoming clear that Mexico's crisis runs much deeper than just a law enforcement matter. Given the failure of Mexico's military response to curb the growing violence, many observers fear a deeper political and social upheaval is in the works.

For example, this article from GroupIntel provides background on La Familia Michoacana, including a discussion of the group's bizarre religiosity, deep regional social ties, and its unmitigated penchant for violence. The group operates on a model that's closer to Hezbollah than Pablo Escobar, encouraging the public to rely on them instead of the government for personal security and social services.

As such populist strategies become more entrenched, cartels feel ever more free to escalate violence against government agents and others who oppose them. An informative piece on MexiData.Info recently argued that violence is escalating because "Mexico's cartels are evolving distinct political aims" and are more willing than ever to confront the government directly. Traditional crime fighting approaches, the authors argue, are inadequate to combat what's essentially become "a series of interlocking criminal insurgencies."

So far, Mexican violence hasn't significantly spilled over into Texas, at least not on the same scale as in Juarez or Michoacan. But we mustn't forget that the prizes these cartels are battling for are actually transit routes into the United States. This isn't just Mexico's problem, even if our leaders choose to ignore it.