In recent weeks, the U.S. mainstream press has trumpeted warnings issued by Washington bureaucrats that narco-traffickers in Mexico are kidnapping and murdering U.S. citizens in Mexico and that law enforcers along the border are being targeted by the “cartels.â€
The hype resulted in the State Department issuing an advisory for U.S. citizens traveling to Mexico. The FBI also issued a bulletin– which was leaked to the mainstream press – advising law enforcers along the border of an alleged plan by narco-traffickers to kidnap and murder federal agents.
The nature of these bureaucratic warnings, however, is highly suspicious, given that narco-traffickers don’t kidnap and murder innocent U.S. citizens unless there is money to be made, and there has been no sudden rash of ransom demands being made by drug organizations. And the FBI, only days after issuing its “internal†bulletin, admitted that the alleged kidnapping and murder scheme was not credible.
Narco News recently contacted the U.S. embassy in Mexico City asking for figures that would back up the State Department’s claims that narco-traffickers are increasingly targeting U.S. citizens. Strangely, those figures could not be produced.
“We don’t have figures to respond to this question at this time,†said Diana Page, assistant press attaché for the U.S. Embassy Mexico. “The consular section is working on helping Americans, so getting statistics together has to wait.â€
Narco News has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of State seeking the “statistics,†because the truth should not have to “wait.â€
So what are we to make of all this hysteria over narco-traffickers targeting Americans? Only the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., know the real agenda. But the truth is not likely to be found in an agenda that appears to be focused on fear-mongering to justify narrow-minded policy goals – whether that is an effort to manipulate the upcoming Mexican elections or to spread disinformation that takes the focus off of real problems here on U.S. soil with the so-called war on drugs.
