In a rational world this is something it might make sense for the United States to intervene in and help to remedy, since it's happening a few miles away, but no. Our very serious foreign policy establishment has spoken and it is our job to attend to the problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Mexico.
Money. And priorities. And public opinion. And how to allocate that money and not lose public opinion. I don't think many Americans care about Mexico (unless it relates to immigration and jobs – think Captain Dobbs). And it's a hard sell. You go to Afghanistan and Pakistan and the mission is to fight terrorism. What about Mexico? It's terror, but it's not the type of 9/11 terror that spills over to, say, NYC. At this point, its "their" problem, not "ours." The obvious danger is that "their" problems - the ones which seem so far removed from our own – often end up (in one way or another) being our problems. I hope the violence ends. But I don't see us doing anything meaningful, both because I think we may lack the will and the capacity (we are all over the place). Besides, there's that skeleton in the closet: our drug policies. No one wants to touch that.
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