The Ho-Hum Mexican Drug War

(Cananea, Mexico) A violent gun battle yesterday between drug traffickers and Mexican police resulted in at least a dozen or many more, according to various reports, deaths.

Armed men abducted and killed four Mexican policemen on Wednesday about 20 miles south of the Arizona border, and police later killed eight of the gunmen after tracking them into the hills with a helicopter.

During a gunbattle with 40 armed assailants -- which continued for hours in the mountains south of Cananea, Sonora near the U.S. border -- state police were able to free four other people abducted by the gang, including one police officer and three Cananea residents, said state prosecutors' spokesman Jose Larrinaga.

Another report says 22 deaths resulted.

Two things. First, it's newsworthy that a gun battle took place and it has been reported, however, it's significantly more newsworthy, while getting scant attention, that an ongoing and bloody drug war is being fought throughout Mexico and, particularly, along the U.S. border. The war has endured for years with frequent gun battles, kidnappings and murders.

Secondly, according to estimates, somewhere around 800 or 900 people have been killed so far this year in the drug war. Given leaky governmental loyalties and inconsistent bureaucratic record-keeping, Mexico may have tallied many more deaths in the drug war than have been estimated.

Even so, projected for one year, the total number killed in the Mexican drug war is well over 2,000. And well over 2,000 deaths can reasonably be presumed to have occurred for the last few years. Therefore, basic arithmetic estimates that at least 10,000 people have been killed in the Mexican drug war since 2003.

My question? Where is the mainstream media reporting on the Mexican drug war? Based on the number of deaths alone, it appears that fighting in Mexico generally parallels the fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Okay, that's a bit of a stretch but it's not a stretch to assert that the MSM largely ignores Mexico.

Contrasting the reporting on Mexico, the MSM eagerly awaits the approach of milestones in the number of deaths in the Middle East and South Asia. It's a drumbeat on the nightly news.

"Ten more American died today in Iraq, bringing the total to ...."

"Another bloody day in Afghanistan with 12 Americans being ambushed and killed, bringing the total to ...."

At any moment, editors, reporters and producers can likely tell you the exact total number of Americans killed and can generally give estimates of enemy deaths. All the while, the media will have pencils at the ready to chalk up the tally to the next celebratory milestone.

Yet, ask the average news-consumer about the total carnage in the Mexican drug war and I'm confident you'll get a blank stare. Logically, the millions of Hispanics in the U.S. and elsewhere would like to know how many of their friends, neighbors, relatives and countrymen have been slaughtered in the Mexican Drug War. A sad statistic, for sure, but a necessary one because it establishes relevance.

As it is, the shooting war in Mexico is barely on the public's radar thanks to the MSM's "Ho-Hum" attitude toward spilled blood in Mexico. Figuratively, the MSM broke out party hats and noisemakers when deaths of Americans in the Middle East reached 3,000. Watching them do something similar when the number of dead Mexicans reaches 12,000 or 15,000 would be enlightening. It would also be objective reporting of the facts, not necessarily a strong attribute of the MSM.