Mexican Drug War

Mexican authorities capture more high-ranking cartel figures, but that doesn't seem to change anything. The killing continues unabated.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's suggestion that the US could deploy troops to Mexico to help fight the cartels was not well received by the Mexican government.

The Mexican border town of Matamoros was a virtual war scene Tuesday, and that's just one low-light in another week of unrelenting prohibition-related violence south of the border.

More cartel drug busts, more dead bodies, no apparent impact on the flow of drugs north and cash south.

Between now and the seating of a new Congress after the 2012 elections, drug reform is going to be a tough slog on Capitol Hill. But that doesn't mean reformers are going away, or that there aren't battles to be fought and won.

The Mexican president gave his annual state of the union speech last week, but that had no impact on the killing.

Along with the usual carnage and corruption, suspected Zetas killed 52 casino goers in a gasoline/fire attack, teachers skipped school following extortion threats, authorities bust a Sinaloa Cartel "cell" in Utah, and one cartel has put up "wanted" posters targeting leaders of another cartel and offered rewards for them.

We review John Gibler's To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War and find it very powerful and disturbing indeed.