Cross Border Shame

OffHisMeds has gotten numerous letters to the editor published over the years in the local Editorial section, mostly as a matter of persistence and volume. The math is simple: Write ten letters and you tire them down. Eventually, they publish your crap every tenth time. Got one published yesterday, my 20th - give or take - in 20 years. Here was the text, represented fair by the Houston Chronicle, a rag for which I have no love other than erratic fits of sanity. Here is the text of the letter:

In response to the recent slaying of ICE agent Jaime Zapata, Carl
Pike, assistant special agent in charge of special operations for the
DEA said “We want all the cartels to realize this. It is the
schoolyard mentality — a bully situation. The cartels have pushed — if
you don’t push back, you become the victim. U.S. law enforcement is
not going to become the victim.”

Mike Vigil, retired international operations director for the DEA,
said if the Cartels “are going to engage in this type of violence,
there is going to be hell to pay.”

It's a crying shame that it took losing one of their own to get our
law enforcement establishment to do their jobs. How many tens of
thousands of American civilians might be alive today if we had stopped
the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants that brought them 25 years
ago, when DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena was tortured and murdered
by the Cartels?

I agree wth Raul Benitez, the Mexican national security analyst who
was quoted as saying: “These operations are fine, but they should be
happening all the time. What I don’t like is that they only launch
these types of actions when they attack an American agent.”

So sadly true.