The War at Home

The United States has been too occupied with wars far from home in the last 10 years to notice that there is one growing at the doors of its own house. The assassination of two American citizens and one Mexican on the streets of Ciudad Juárez a week ago has been the trigger that has woken the neighbor to the north out of its dream.

The triple murder has generated serious diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Mexico has perceived the American promise to find the culprits as a threat of interference, and the first statements made by Janet Napolitano, the secretary of Homeland Security, did not help much. She criticized the absence of results from Felipe Calderón’s security strategy, which, among other things, included the deployment of 8,000 soldiers to Chihuahua, which has now become one of the most violent states in the world. Mexico has also accused the United States of being the main client of the drugs that have stained Chihuahua with blood (an average of 6.6 violent deaths occur per day) and of arming the combatants through its laxity in the cross-border arms trade.

After these initial moments of tension, good sense seems to have returned to the two neighboring countries. The White House has hurried to publicize the invitation of Mexico’s president to Washington this May, and has announced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Mexico this March, when she will be accompanied by a high-level group, including Napolitano herself. The agenda for both meetings will include the joint fight against narcotrafficking, which the FBI and DEA have already started to pursue aggressively in El Paso, the peaceful Texan city close to Ciudad Juárez. There, the hit men seem to find the rest — and the ammunition necessary to impose the brutality of their laws on the other side of the border.