1/22/2008: Commentary: Mexico: The War No One Hears About:

Living close to the Mexican border, it is easy to form the impression
that a war is going on in Mexico. Thousands of elite troops in battle
gear stream toward border towns and snake through the streets in jeeps
with .50-caliber machine guns mounted on top while fighter jets from
the Mexican Navy fly reconnaissance missions overhead.

Gun battles between federal forces and drug-cartel members carrying
rocket-propelled-grenade launchers have taken place over the past two
weeks in border towns like Río Bravo and Tijuana, with deadly results.

Yet what is happening is less a war than a sustained federal
intervention in states where for decades corrupt municipal police
officers and drug gangs have worked together in relative peace,
officials say. The federal forces are not only hunting cartel leaders,
but also going after their crews of gunslingers, like Gulf Cartel
guards known as the Zetas, who terrorize the towns they control.

The onslaught has broken up a longstanding system in which the local
police looked the other way for a bribe and cartel leaders went about
their business.