| | |  Americas & Beyond 
'Send in the U.S. Military': Calls for Help in the Texan War Against Mexican Drugs Cartels
 Daily Mail UK
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November 20, 2010
Last updated at 11:12 PM on 19th November 2010
| | War on the border: The Texas Department of Public Safety has a fleet of 16 state-of-the-art helicopters to fight Mexican drug cartels. | |
They fly helicopter missions, deploy tactical strike teams and gather field intelligence, but the battles they fight aren't in the Middle East, they're in America.
The Texas Department of Public Safety is engaged in an undeclared war with Mexican drug cartels, running militaristic operations day and night.
He spoke out as Texan law enforcement chiefs revealed they are already fighting a virtual war along the border with the increasingly powerful traffickers.
The governor said the U.S. should intervene in the same way that it did in Colombia to bolster the government’s attempts to regain control of the country.
‘They are vicious.They are armed to the teeth. I want to see them defeated – and any means that we can to run these people off our border and to save American lives we need to be engaged in.’
Speaking on MSNBC, he said: ‘I think we have to use every aspect of law enforcement we have, including the military. I think you have the same situation as you had in Colombia.
‘Obviously, Mexico has to approve any type of assistance that we can give them,’ he added.
Even without Washington’s help, the Texas Department of Public Safety says it is already running militaristic operations day and night in the border battle.
'I never thought that we’d be in this paramilitary type of engagement,' Captain Stacy Holland told Fox News of her work with the DPS. 'It's a war on the border.'
The Texas Department of Public Safety has a fleet of 16 state-of-the-art helicopters to fight Mexican drug cartels.
In recent years, the drug cartels have adopted increasingly terrorist-like behaviour.
The gang members are armed with powerful AK-47s, are dressed in camouflage and they recruit ex-prisoners from America to do their dirty work.
They employ spotters to hide by the Rio Grande and alert to U.S. officials patrolling the border.
The cartels have executed more than 10,000 people since January, including American citizens, holidaymakers and innocent bystanders.
Despite fencing and patrols, Mexican drug cartels move an estimated $25 billion from US drug sales back into Mexico in a single year.
According to Texas DPS Director Steven McCraw, Mexican drug cartels move about $25billion from their US drug sales back into Mexico in a single year.
But, law enforcement have confiscated just $130million in illegal drug proceeds during the last four years, 'It certainly is a war in a sense that we’re doing what we can to protect Texans and the rest of the nation from clearly a threat that has emerged over the last several years,' said McCraw.
The Texas forces must constantly adapt new strategies, as the cartels try new tricks.
'Recently they’ve adapted their tactics to utilize smaller loads, cross with rafts, stolen vehicles on our side,' McGraw told Fox News.
'To suggest the southwest border is secure is ridiculous,' Holland said.
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