Rio Sangriento

The Rio Grande now runs red with blood. From El Paso to Brownsville, the border cities of Mexico, large and small, cringe as bloody horror piles on bloody horror. People on both sides of the river go to bed listening for the rattle of automatic gunfire.

Since 2006, when the Mexican government began its “crackdown” on the drug cartels, nearly 30,000 people have been killed—2,000 this year, 10 murders every day, in the border city of Juarez alone. Already wayward gunfire from Juarez has hit the El Paso City Hall. Beheaded corpses are commonplace. The world has seen nothing like it since the French Revolution.

In July, Fox News reported: “Eighteen people were massacred at a party in the city of Torreon on Sunday, while a month earlier 19 people were killed at a drug-rehab center in Chihuahua.” (Torreon is about 400 miles southwest of here.)  The major cities of Tamaulipas, such as Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros are facing economic disaster. This July, narco-gangsters exchanged gunfire and grenades in Renoysa while Sunday shoppers huddled in stores like HEB for protection. Mexico’s largest state, Chihuahua, has at times threatened to collapse into outright anarchy.

Rumors are rampant. Recently a story broke on the Internet that drug gangsters had crossed the U.S. border and occupied two ranches. For a while the Internet did what it does best, rapidly spreading news, be it right or wrong.  Law enforcement agencies were swamped with frantic calls and it took a while to settle things down.

The story was false. But in the light of the ghastly events in this drug war, it was credible. There have been a number of incidents of machine gun-toting thugs crossing the border, and in some cases exchanging fire with lawmen, rival thugs or ranchers.

The day of this false alarm there was a report of a major drug gang shootout on the Mexican side. That the losing side might well have crossed the river to regroup and recoup is not implausible. The cartels are extraordinarily well armed and readily take on the Mexican central government, Mexican Army, corrupt police, and local governments in the battle for dominance. They are utterly ruthless; civilian casualties are of no consequence.

As this blood bath continues across the river, our major media seem remarkably blasé, if not insouciant. They fuss about 2,000 coalition deaths in Afghanistan since 2001, but seem to ignore the horrors in Mexico.

Yet things have been worse. During the 1910 Mexican Revolution, Texas Rangers waged an almost forgotten war against “revolutionaries” (actually more like bandits) who robbed and raided U.S. trains and even towns along the border. The Rangers adopted some ruthless methods against the raiders, and to this day Hispanic groups accuse them of “Gestapo” tactics. But, alas, it worked.

Nonetheless,  in March of 1916 Pancho Villa crossed the border at Columbus, New Mexico, seeking revenge for the U.S. Government selling him lousy ammunition and recognizing Venustiano Carranza’s government. He had already carried out minor raids across the border from Texas to Arizona, frequently killing U. S. citizens who fell into his hands. In Columbus, Villa took on troops of the 13th U.S. Cavalry in October 1916. He was out for blood and got it. With about 500 “Villistas” he attacked the military encampment at 2:30 a.m. The cavalrymen were at first confused but soon mounted up and returned fire. As the Villistas retreated through Columbus they started fires to discourage pursuit, and shot down townsmen in the melee. Total U.S. casualties were reported as 18, while the Villistas lost 80.  (Some accounts put it higher, claiming there was a trail of more than 100 Villista bodies from the town.)

Villa pulled other small raids later that year;  in Glen Springs, then another in San Ygnacio. The worst, committed after the Columbus raid, was the 1916 Massacre at Santa Ysabel, where he shot down 17 unarmed U. S. mining engineers.

As one essayist described it, “When the people of El Paso heard of the massacre, they went wild with anger. El Paso was immediately placed under martial law to prevent irate Texans from crossing into Mexico at Juarez to wreak vengeance on innocent Mexicans.”

Fed up, outraged border residents demanded U.S. intervention. These murderous incidents put the U.S. on the verge of full-scale war with Mexico. President Wilson managed to stop just short of disaster. San Antonio and other military establishments were put on alert. Troop trains loaded up and moved out to the border. Eventually General “Blackjack” Pershing led an expeditionary force to pursue Villa. It was a very expensive and very unsuccessful pursuit. We pulled out of Mexico in February 1917 and into World War I in April.

Mexico’s present situation has ominous similarities with the Era of the Warlords in China from 1916 to 1928. Military factions seeking to control the central government of the young republic battled, robbed, raped and murdered all over China. Every time it seemed that order was at hand, some general would rebel and the whole country would fall back into anarchy.

In both of these examples, Revolutionary Mexico and China, chaos led to mass killings. In such conditions social and moral order collapses. People do things they would normally never do. Sociopaths freely and openly indulge in their worst desires. We see that sort of behavior emerging in Mexico. Civil order is barely holding the country together. However, a major breakdown is possible and can happen quickly. Woe be unto us if we are not prepared.

There are lessons to be learned. Chaos is catching like the flu, and knows no border. As a corollary, failure to take action invites attack. Finally this mess makes me think of Bismarck’s prescient warning that Europe would fall into war because of “some damn fool thing in the Balkans.” He did not live to see it, but oh,  how right he was.