ANOTHER WAR ON TERROR:

VIDEO SHOWS WHY DRUG CARTELS CAN'T BE IGNORED

The barbaric, chilling video is less than seven minutes long. The
beaten and bloodied four men sit, bound, on the floor. An
unidentified interrogator, presumed to be working for the enemy,
prods them. The captives explain how they kidnap and torture their
enemies before shooting them and burning their bodies to ashes. As
the video ends, a black-gloved hand enters the right side of the
frame and shoots one of the four men in the head.

This is the kind of ruthless savagery of insurgencies in Iraq that
still shocks us. And here it is on our southern border. Only 500
miles away - or less - Mexican drug cartels are fighting each other
for power, for turf, for coveted routes such as Interstate 35, from
Laredo to Dallas.

The video, sent to The Dallas Morning News, humanizes the
cold-blooded world of Mexico's drug wars and represents the violence
that has become all too common along the border, violence that we
don't hear about in any meaningful way.

Bodies - many of them shot in the head - floating in the Rio Grande,
decomposing in the Valley grapefruit and orange fields, or burned to
bones in lonely Starr County roads. U.S. residents still searching
hopelessly for sons and daughters, caught in the drug wars either by
accident or by choice. Los Zetas, the Gulf cartel's enforcement band,
terrifying entire Mexican towns, where members are feared more than
police. High-caliber machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades
replacing handguns and rifles.

On the front lines, a coalition of Texas border sheriffs is looking
at ways of integrating county law enforcement resources along the
state's 1,100-mile border with Mexico. We agree with Zapata County
Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez that border security is also a federal
responsibility. "We're doing our part," Sheriff Gonzalez recently
said. "Now, what will you do?"

Mexican President Vicente Fox says the upsurge in violence is the
result of waging the "mother of all battles" on the drug cartels.
With killings linked to organized crime at recorded highs - and still
climbing - and only six months left in the Fox term, Mexico's next
leader will have no choice but to make this brutal war a priority.