VIEWPOINT: “When Do We Say ‘Enough Is Enough’?”
by Jerome Tilghman
I went to the Conference on Border Security close out luncheon. I wanted to hear the summary statements of those who plan and prosecute the strategy for “keeping America safe” from any splash of violence spilling over the border and into America’s second safest city.
Though I am certain that lots of good and well-intended work took place before the conference’s end on Friday, the closing comments by the Commissioner for Customs and Border Protection left much to be desired — long on superlatives yet short on substance.
The weekend following the conference these words made our El Paso Times front page (August 17th) — below the fold:
[In the Times today…] “51 die in Juarez: Juarez suffered one of its most violent days yet Sunday, with 24 people being slain. A total of 51 died this weekend.”
Printed just below and on the same page read: ” Agent suicides – The number of Border Patrol agents committing suicide spikes and the agency has quietly begun to act. “
Our own Defense Department is having a similar experience with our veterans. The obvious question is “Why?” Could it be that our policies are frustrating those who are charged to carry them out? As it pertains to Mexico, with every border conference and every passing year the body count just keeps going up.
Perro que ladra no muerde. Have our policies become fancy lunches and cocktail conversation; has our policy regarding border violence / drug interdiction become a “a dog with a bark, but no bite??
Here in El Paso and ostensibly for our southern neighbor, incidences of violence and murder are becoming so pervasive and persistent, the shock and outrage is viewed as pass. Daniel Borunda”s story about the murders in Juarez has slipped from the ‘A -to-the-B’ section in the local paper. What is more alarming and surprising is the perception of the Latino community [-of-nations] response. I remember the excitement of The World Cup, Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona, and Mexican flags paraded through American streets in acts of redress toward US immigration policy. Yet, we see 51 new deaths added to the near 28,000 already and not a single grass roots march or public murmur. Sin ganas?
Some call Juarez our sister-city. Well, our little sister is getting her butt kicked and, what do we do? The consulate closes, an Irvin High School teacher is killed over a car, a high school teen killed while visiting relatives and friends and a consulate employee and his wife and unborn child are chased and murdered. Many adult deaths also add a growing roster of orphans. Several of my students have been and remain traumatized by acts of violence committed right in front of their faces. A toddler has a plastic bag placed over his head.
The front page of a recent Times Magazine shows an Afghan woman with her nose cut off — tacitly justifying our military presence in Southwest Asia. There is no need to import pictures of atrocities occurring a hemisphere away. Juarez is beginning to look like Mozul, Baghdad, the Anbhar province. Beheadings, body parts, car bombs, corpses handing from bridges and mass graves are right next door. So what, they are only Mexicans-killing-Mexicans. Is that what we are saying? Human rights around the world must be measured with the same yardstick. That does not seem to be the case.
Customs and Border Commissioner Allan Bersin spoke to a virtual roster of “who’s who” at the summary luncheon. From Members of Congress to law enforcement commanders; city leaders and state legislators and members of El Paso’s perceived aristocracy and many others applauded as the Commissioner admonished us to “stay the course.”
What comments stirred me the most was his comparison of the plight of America’s appetite for illegal drugs and the ensuing murders in Mexico to the decade it took to vilify the tobacco industry, deglamorize smoking in the U.S., and remove cigarette commercials from America’s broadcast media. That took 10 years. Over four years and 28,000 Mexican-deaths-due-to-drugs, that is almost 7,000 murders a year. Multiply that by a decade and that’s 70,000 Latinos. Add to that the number of American NBCs (Non Battle Casualties) and President Calderon and his political progeny will have presided over the fastest growing graveyard in the Western Hemisphere.
Left unchecked and without formidable challenge, this violence and the stay-the-course attitude from the leader of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and his political and civic disciples is but fertile ground for its growth. Tombstones will blossom in graveyards irrigated by the wanton bloodshed and political / public slow, lack luster response. For those who continue to kill without retribution Mexico has become the “land of the free; and for those who try to live among the violence waiting for resolution, it has become the “home of the brave.”
How many directions can we look away before we collectively turn and say…”I am my brothers keeper and …enough is enough?”
Jerome Tilghman is a UTEP Political Science Lecturer and retired from the Army.
