Imagine if gunmen shot Meg Whitman – that just happened in Mexico!

Photo courtesy of the Wall St. Journal

Imagine the uproar that would break out if gunmen were to walk up to Meg Whitman’s campaign vehicle and open fire, killing her and her staff as they ran out of the vehicle.  The equivalent of that happened in Mexico today.

Rodolfo Torre, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed Mexico until 2000, and at least three others were killed when his campaign convoy was ambushed by gunmen on a rural highway in Tamaulipas state.

The candidate, his chief of staff, campaign chief and at least one bodyguard died, officials said. Televised images showed several bodies, covered in white sheets, laid out on the pavement near the candidate’s convoy of bullet-riddled SUV’s. Mr. Torre and the others are believed to have fled their cars during the attack, but didn’t get far. (Wall St. Journal)

Torre was going to win.  Now he is dead and even his opponent is grief-stricken.

I hate to say it but Mexico is quickly turning into what Columbia used to be like.  And its our fault.

Americans use a lot of drugs.  And it is our guns that are snuck over the border and sold to the drug dealers.  Mexico’s warring cartels have killed 23,000 people since President Calderón took power in December 2006.  Think about that for a moment.  Imagine if that were happening right here in the U.S.

Mexico has lost over seven times as many people as we lost during the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Center.  Those terrorist attacks killed 2,973 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

And what is our reaction?  We scapegoat Mexicans at every turn.  Innocent people are dying just south of us.  And most Americans could give a damn.

We could end this, swiftly, be ending our drug war and decriminalizing drugs.  But don’t expect President Obama or the U.S. Congress to act on that anytime soon.

So Mexicans will keep dying.  And now their politicians have a bullseye on their backs.  The dominant political parties in Mexico are even telling their candidates not to campaign.

May God help the poor people of Mexico, where it is illegal to own guns for personal protection.  Only the cops, soldiers and bad guys have guns.  What a mess.