Since some object to the implication of "Should we care..." threads, I will bring the stories of deaths that seem to go unnoticed in threads like this. I invite civil discussion of what can be done to lessen these deaths in the future.


"more than 1,000 people have been killed in the first eight weeks of this year, ....also said that 6,290 people were killed last year in drug violence"

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AP Interview: Mexico's AG says violence peaking
         
Traci Carl, Associated Press Writer – 22 mins ago AP – Mexico's Federal Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora speaks during an interview with the Associated …

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's federal attorney general said Thursday that more than 1,000 people have been killed in the first eight weeks of this year, but he believes the drug violence is reaching its peak.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora also said that 6,290 people were killed last year in drug violence — the most specific accounting yet of killings that doubled the 2007 toll.

Medina Mora said the world's most powerful drug cartels are "melting down" as they engage in turf wars and fight off a nationwide government crackdown.

The government doesn't expect to stop drug trafficking, but hopes to make it so difficult that smugglers no longer use Mexico as their conduit to the United States, he said: "We want to raise the opportunity cost of our country as a route of choice."

He applauded cross-border efforts to arrest more than 700 Sinaloa cartel members in the United States, but called for more U.S. prosecutions of people who sell weapons illegally to the cartels.

He also would like more U.S. efforts to stop drug profits from flowing south to Mexico: Mexico has spent $6.5 billion over the last two years, on top of its normal public security budget, on the fight against drugs, but that falls short of the $10 billion Mexican drug gangs bring in annually, he said.

Mexico has no choice but to press ahead with its fight, he said, predicting that violence will ease.

"I believe we are reaching the peak," he said, but added that the government won't achieve its objective "until Mexican citizens feel they have achieved tranquility."

While violence in Tijuana is down sharply from last year, killings have spiked in the largest border city, Ciudad Juarez. The city of 1.3 million across from El Paso, Texas, is now the most worrisome of a number of hotspots, Medina Mora said.

"But this is not reflecting the power of these groups," he said "It is reflecting how they are melting down."