Small War In Mexico, Many Dead.

One topic that never came up in the US election was the drug war that is raging between the Mexican government and the cartels. This has been escalating for a few years now and thousands of people have been killed yet it gets little attention. Just to put the carnage in context the annual death toll exceeds all the killings that occurred during Northern Ireland's 'troubles' over a 30 year period. There is a real danger though that the war could spill over into the United States especially as the cartels have put American citizens including police officers, on their hit lists.

On the day of the election Mexico's 37 year old Interior minister, responsible for fighting the cartels and likely to be the country's next president, was killed in a plane crash, which may just be an accident but you have to wonder.

This situation could be one of the big issues of the next few years, partly because Mexico is an important large country in its own right and partly because it has a rather porous border with the USA and the violence could easily spill over into the South-Western states. It could make border controls and the "War on Drugs" important issues again.