From the Washington Post:
Mexico Voters Fear Nation on Edge of Chaos
By JULIE WATSON, The Associated Press, Wednesday, May 17, 2006; 6:12 AM
MEXICO CITY -- Police enraged by the kidnapping of six officers club unarmed detainees. A bloody battle between steelworkers and police leaves two miners dead. Drug lords post the heads of decapitated police on a fence to show who's in charge.
Less than two months before Mexicans elect their next president, many fear the country is teetering on the edge of chaos _ a perception that could hurt the ruling National Action Party's chances of keeping the presidency and benefit Mexico's once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose candidate has been trailing badly.
Some blame President Vicente Fox for a weak government. Others say rivals are instigating the violence to create that impression, hoping to hurt National Action candidate Felipe Calderon, who has a slight lead in recent polls.
A poll published Friday in Excelsior newspaper found 50 percent of respondents feared the government was on the brink of losing control. The polling company Parametria conducted face-to-face interviews at 1,000 homes across Mexico. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
The conflicts are "a warning sign," said Yamel Nares, Parametria's research director.
Security is the top concern for Mexicans, and Fox has struggled to reform Mexico's notoriously corrupt police. Meanwhile, drug-related bloodshed has accelerated, with some cities seeing killings almost daily...
You can read the whole article HERE.
Hat Tip to Tammy Bruce for the link. She has been speculating on her blog about what all this Mexican lawlessness means:
...I think this explains, in part, President Bush's rush to open the border and allow the US to officially become Mexico's steam valve. With violence of this sort leading up to their elections, and the profile of revolutionaries increasing in the lead up, there must be concern about everything collapsing if the voting ends up rigged or the "wrong candidate" wins. If Mexico melts down, perhaps president Bush realizes the border will require the National Guard to keep the chaos from causing a catastrophic flood of Mexicans, drug runners, rebels, etc from streaming across--an invasion, if you will, that will make what we're dealing with now look like child's play...
You can read the whole of Tammy's post HERE.
It makes you wonder too, about the Mexican Government's threat to sue the U.S. if we use the National Guard to detain Mexicans illegally crossing our border. Is suing the US is a way to effectively deal with THEIR problems? Are they losing their grip?
Be sure and check out this article by Tony Blankley:
The Price of Secure Borders
He gets right to the heart of the matter. Some excerpts:
...Ultimately, this country of 300 million can absorb the current 10 to 20 million illegals in the country. It probably cannot absorb and culturally integrate the further scores of millions who inevitably will come if the border is not soon secured. Thus, for me, the central question is whether we can negotiate a sufficiently secure border...
...the question remains whether the anti-illegal immigrant and resident movement should accept some undesirable guest worker or path to citizenship provisions -- if that is the price we have to pay for getting a secure border.
This is where the sanity matter comes into play. Especially regarding the guest worker provision, if we pass no legislation this year, we will continue to have a de facto guest worker program with millions of new arrivals every year and no secure border. Moreover, it is inconceivable that the November election will elect a congress more amenable to our cause. The next congress will have, if anything, more Democrats. Disgruntled conservatives will have no way of strengthening the anti-illegal immigrant vote: Their choice will be a soft Republican, a bad Democrat or abstention (which in effect is the same as a bad Democrat). It would seem to me that we lose nothing by trading an otherwise inevitable de facto guest worker condition for a genuinely secure border and employer sanction regimen.
On the other hand, the path to citizenship is not inevitable and should be fiercely resisted. Granting sacred citizenship to scofflaws is reprehensible...
You can give the whole article a read HERE, it makes a lot of sense.
There are a lot of widely diverging views about what should be done. This problem with immigration and our borders has been ignored for a long time, by many administrations, precisely because it is so contentious, and the resulting inaction has led us to where we are today.
As our government works on a compromise solution, it's likely nobody is going to get everything they want. But I think Tony Blankley wisely points out, that if we do not pass a compromise bill, the situation will just continue as it is, and that would be even worse.
Tony paraphrases an old rock'n roll song:
"...you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you can get what you need".
Yes indeed! Let's hope so.
Related Links:
Illegal aliens not an "immigration" problem?
I pick my battles carefully
Why hasn't Bush responded?
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