The U.S.-Mexico border is the most deadly region in the world due to turf wars between drug cartels, and the number of gangland deaths in just Chihuahua -- the Mexican state below TX and NM -- "during the first nine months of 2011 exceed the number of Afghan civilians killed in roughly the same period in all of war-torn Afghanistan" as reported by Edwin Mora for CNS News.
Ironically, more than 200 people on both sides of the border, including U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, have been murdered by guns supplied to the Mexican drug cartels by the United States government pursuant to the Fast and Furious operation.
In Arizona where Agent Terry was murdered the state legislature is opening an investigation into Fast and Furious to determine "whether the program broke any state laws — raising the possibility of state penalties against those responsible for the operation" as reported by Stephen Dinan for The Washington Times.
The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also is investigating the gun running debacle, and last Friday Patrick Cunningham, the chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in that probe as reported by Dennis Wagner for the Tucson Citizen: "in a letter informing Cunningham of the subpoena, [Committee Chair Darrell] Issa said he believed the Arizona prosecutor played an 'outsized role' in Fast and Furious."
The Mexican drug cartels smuggle $50 billion in bulk product and bundled cash back-and-forth over the border each year, and increasingly are enlisting corrupt U.S. lawmen in their efforts.
Last week a U.S. border patrol agent from the Yuma, AZ sector was charged with working for an unidentified cartel as reported by James King for the Phoenix New Times: "according to the feds, [the agent] would 'obtain and disclose sensitive information--including sensor maps, combinations to gates located near the U.S/Mexican border, computer records concerning prior drug seizures, and the identity of confidential informants--to which he had access by virtue of his membership in a Border Patrol intelligence unit.'"
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