SOUTH DENNIS

IS THIS STILL America . . . or what?

With incursions into the United States across the Mexican border by heavily armed killers, I’m beginning to think, “or what?” I’m not talking about Pedro sneaking across the border to make some money to send home to his impoverished family in Mexico, but about the death squads sent by Mexican drug cartels to murder targets in the United States — death squads that violate the sovereignty of the United States.

On June 22, such a Mexican death squad, dressed like the Phoenix Police Department Special Assignments Unit (their SWAT team), complete with insignia and AR-15s equipped with Aimpoint sights, raided a home in Phoenix to serve a warrant — a death warrant, signed by a Mexican drug lord. Over 100 rounds were fired in a well-coordinated military-type operation, killing the target, with the killers speeding off in two cars.

Three of the killers were soon captured because a real Phoenix SAU, which was nearby, rushed to the scene. Only by trapping one of the escape cars and calling for backup were American casualties avoided, as the trapped killers said they had planned to ambush the SAU until overwhelming reinforcements showed up.

The target reportedly was a Jamaican drug lord, so who cares? But what we should care about is the repeated violations of our sovereignty and the danger that eventually American citizens will get caught in the crossfire. Incursions by armed drug-cartel personnel dressed as Mexican police or Mexican army in military vehicles have been reported in El Paso, Laredo and other border towns. These hardly make the news as our timorous government attempts to placate the Mexican government by playing down these incidents.

This is wrong. Traditionally, if a nation could not control its people to the point where American citizens were placed in danger, we defended them, and our sovereignty, by force. My two favorite examples are the responses to the kidnapping of American Ion Perdicaris in Morocco, in 1904, and the Pancho Villa raids into Texas, in 1916.

Perdicaris was kidnapped by the notorious bandit Raisuli in Tangier and held for ransom. President Theodore Roosevelt immediately sent a battleship task force to the Mediterranean and asked the sultan of Morocco to get Perdicaris back. U.S. Marines rushed ashore to protect the American consulate and Mrs. Perdicaris.

After a week of no results, Roosevelt pressured the lackadaisical sultan. Roosevelt knew he had to do something or no American citizen would be safe anywhere, a lesson that our recent crop of presidents seems to have forgotten or never learned. Roosevelt issued an ultimatum to the sultan, “The U.S. government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” Perdicaris was quickly ransomed, and the crisis ended.

In 1916, in response to multiple Mexican incursions into U.S. territory and the killing of a number of Americans over a two-year period, President Woodrow Wilson sent the Mexican Punitive Expedition to do what the Mexican government could not do. The force was commanded by Gen. John. J. “Black Jack” Pershing and included a young first lieutenant named George S. Patton Jr. Their mission was to kill or capture Pancho Villa and put an end to the border raids.

Their 10,000-man force penetrated 350 miles into Mexico and routed Villa’s forces. Villa was wounded but escaped. The advent of World War I necessitated the withdrawal of our troops from Mexico for duty in Europe, but Mexico learned a lesson about respecting American life, property and sovereignty.

I believe Mexico needs that same lesson today. I know the drug cartels have suborned much of the police, the army and the government and that they may be the most powerful force in the country. They are ruthless and feared. A series of Mexican administrations has let the situation get out of control. But we have satellites and smart bombs and we know where they live. This is no time to worry about their sovereignty when our sovereignty is threatened.

We must ourselves strike decisively, with or without the Mexican government’s cooperation, to put an end to this growing and deadly threat. It’s time to once again send notice to the nations of the world that we will protect our sovereignty and our citizens if they can’t, or won’t.

Solon Economou, a frequent contributor, is a retired Army officer and Cape Cod-based writer ( capecodder1@hotmail.com).