“Mexico’s violent drug cartels increasingly resemble an insurgency with the power to challenge the government’s control of wide swaths of its own soil, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.

Clinton’s comments reflected a striking shift in the public comments of the Obama administration about the bloodshed that has cost 28,000 lives in Mexico since December 2006. They come as U.S. officials weigh a large increase in aid to the southern neighbor to help fight the cartels.

Clinton compared the conflict in Mexico to Colombia’s recent struggle against a drug-financed leftist insurgency that, at its peak, controlled up to 40% of that country. She said the United States, Mexico and Central American countries need to cooperate on an “equivalent” of Plan Colombia — the multibillion-dollar military and aid program that helped turn back Colombia’s insurgents.

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/09/clinton-says-mexico-drug-wars-starting.html

“Although Monterrey, Nuevo Leon is suffering through it’s worse security crisis in history, a report made public yesterday by the citizen awareness organizaion, Nuevo Leon Seguro, states crime rates in neighboring Texas cities are the same, if not worse.

The organization’s founder, Roel Santiago, said homicide and auto theft statistics in San Antonio and Houston, two cities which have become popular alternatives for emigrating regios seeking secure environments, are alarming to say the least and should be reviewed before choosing to abandon Monterrey.

The study is based on reported incidents of homicide, auto theft, rape, and assault in rates per 100,000 habitants in the following five cities: San Antonio, Houston, Monterrey, San Pedro, and San Nicolas.

While I most definitely agree, the U.S. is not exempt to violent crime, attempting to validate Monterrey’s non-existent security by publicizing butchered facts goes far and beyond the absurdity of ‘comparando peras con manzanas‘.

Even the simple comparison of homicide and auto theft statistics, on it’s own, is ludicrous.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s a hell of alot of difference between having your vehicle stolen from your local Walmart parking lot in Texas and having a 17 year old, AK-47 wielding cholo rip you and your family from your moving vehicle during a downtown Monterrey narco-bloqueo.

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/09/crime-rates-are-worse-in-texas-claims.html

Narcos hijack buses to block an intersection in Reynosa.

In Reynosa and Monterrey, citizens have begun to use the online social networking service Twitter to alert fellow residents of potentially dangerous situations such as shootouts and blockades.

Twitter allows users to send out 140-character messages to their “followers.” It also allows users to create topics called “hash tags” by preceding words with a hash symbol (#). The way in which Twitter organizes information allows users to communicate and disseminate very short messages very quickly.

“The Afghan Taliban leader has said his fighters were close to victory in driving foreign forces out of the country.

In a message on Wednesday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month Ramadan, Mullah Omar called on Afghans to redouble their struggle and push for foreign troops to withdraw, saying the Nato-led coalition was losing the war.

He said victory “over the invading infidels is now imminent” attributing the progress to “belief in the help of Allah and unity among ourselves”.

He said “those military experts who have framed strategies of the invasion of Afghanistan or are now engaged in hammering out new strategies, admit themselves that all their strategies are nothing but a complete failure”.

The Taliban leader added that the occupying foreign forces “are now under pressures from their people due to the growing and heavy military expenditures, casualties and the fruitlessness of the war”.

Mullah Omar called on Barack Obama, the US president, to withdraw troops “unconditionally and as soon as possible” saying it is “the best option for regional stability”.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/2010990391117976.html