Screw the Mafia: Cartels, The New Threat to the United States

     The Gambino, Colombo, Banano, Genovese and Lucchese names that once struck fear into the hearts of many Americans who were told that the Mafia did not even exist, and all the disappearances of people of the street a minor figment of the imagination. For nearly four decades the United States has been able to breath easily knowing that there is no all powerful criminal organization that can snatch them out of their beds at night. But in recent years there has been considerably more to worry about from criminal organizations. Since 2006 Mexico has been engaged in an ongoing full scale war against the Mexican drug cartels, a war which has been spilling over into America and terrorizing along with claiming the lives of innocent people living in the Mexican border region.
     There are many people who have seen the movies The Godfather, Good Fellas and so on and some of those movies were relatively accurate in their depictions of the mafia. Consider now those same movies but the handguns being replaced fully automatic weapons, armored vehicles and other military grade weaponry. These are just thugs gathering in the cities and beating shop owners for protection money; the Mexican drug cartels have far more resources and training than that. The leader of the Zetas, Heriberto Lazcano known as "El Lazca" is an ex special forces operator for Mexico and now leads Los Zetas one of the two most power drug cartels.
     These Cartel's have now displaced the Colombian cartel's in the market for cocaine and heroin trafficked to the United States and have many of the Mexican politicians in their pockets. Military force has been used to combat these organizations since 2006 and only  a few of the leaders have been captured and still 34,612 people have been killed in the drug wars according to BBC news.
     Most of America's cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetemines come from Mexico and are trafficked in men with military training, military grade weapons and who know the territory of the south western United States and northern Mexcio better than anyone. These men are extrememly dangerous and need to be dealt with as opposed to just ignored by the United States government lest more lives ,many of them American, be lost.