Nine Americans were slaughtered in broad daylight Monday in an apparent ambush by a drug cartel in Northern Mexico. The LeBaron family, with ties to Utah who lived in the La Mora Mormon fundamentalist community located in Mexico’s Sonora state were traveling in a caravan of three SUVs that were attacked by the cartel, with a dozen family members still missing who were likely kidnapped.
At least six children and three women were killed in the attack, and several of them, including a pair of infant twins were burned to death when one of the cars blew up.
The episode highlights the escalating violence happening just across the U.S.-Mexican border, where massive drug cartels have launched a growing insurgency against a failing state. Democrats running on the presidential campaign trail however, have remained eerily silent. Not one of the seventeen Democrats still in the race issued a statement on Monday’s attacks.
President Donald Trump on the other hand, voiced outrage over the attacks on Twitter, condemning the violence and calling on the Mexican government to come down harder on the cartels.
“This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth,” Trump wrote.
This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2019
….monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively. The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2019
The Mexican military however, has been losing the fight. Just last month, a drug cartel defeated Mexican military forces in Culiacan, Mexico, located in the northwestern part of the country.
Meanwhile, the epidemic of terrorism along the southern border runs counter to the Democratic narrative resisting the need for stronger border security. Instead, Democrats chasing their party’s presidential nomination have looked the other way from the growing crisis on the border and have focused on the deteriorating conditions of U.S. migrant shelters being overrun by migrants fleeing the violence.
The Federalist’s political editor John Davidson written extensively on the violence taking place across the Rio Grande. Reporting last month on the Mexican military’s defeat, Davidson explained the horrific reality facing the Mexican government:
What’s happening in Mexico right now is more like an insurgency. Yes, drug-trafficking is one of the things the cartels do, but it doesn’t nearly describe what they are or what role they’re playing in the disintegration of civil society in Mexico. Indeed, over the past decade cartels have diversified their economic activities to include everything from oil and gas production to industrial agriculture to offshore commercial fishing.
