In a Jan. 9 meeting with ambassadors and consuls in Mexico City, President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa denied that there was chaos in Mexico and that "the civilian population was being massacred in the streets." He was apparently referring to fighting among drug cartels and between drug traffickers and the government. (La Jornada, Jan. 10) More than 8,000 people have been killed in Mexico's drug wars over the past two years. A study by the US Joint Forces Command, a US military planning group, warns that the Mexican state may "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse" because of "sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels... Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone." (International Herald Tribune, Jan. 9 from Reuters)

(The Norfolk-based Joint Forces Command's "Joint Operating Environment [JOE 2008]" report places Mexico on the same level of threat as Pakistan: "In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico. The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state.")

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 11

See our last posts on Mexico's human rights crisis and the narco wars.