Heavily Armed, Well-Funded Insurgency-- Right Across The Rio Grande

I hadn't realized that "Extreme Prejudice" was actually a documentary:

Three Americans were part of a well-armed gang that waged a gun battle with soldiers and police officers in Rio Bravo on Monday, the Mexican authorities said.

...

For more than a half-hour around noon, the streets of Rio Bravo turned into a war zone after federal agents tried to stop a van carrying three men with machine guns in full view. The men fired on the officers and then fled to a nearby house to join other members of their organization.

Machine-gun fire ripped the air and rocket-propelled grenades whizzed and exploded, as soldiers and federal agents surrounded the house and the gunmen tried to repel them, witnesses told local reporters. There were unconfirmed reports of two other skirmishes in other parts of the city around the same time.

That was the Gulf Cartel shootout in Rio Bravo on Monday, January 7, not to be confused with the Reynoso shootout on Jan 9th:

Separately on Tuesday, two federal police died in a shootout with with suspected drug gang hitmen in the border city of Reynosa in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, the dailies Reforma and Excelsior said on their Web sites .

Two witnesses told a Reuters reporter the suspected hitmen attacked a police patrol vehicle in downtown Reynosa and in the ensuing gun battle, a pick-up truck belonging to the gunmen exploded when bullets hit grenades inside.

Got it? Here's a picture of the haul in Rio Bravo:

Is the Taliban armed this well?*

Remember folks, the border is a two-way problem. Two of those American killers were from Detroit, one from Texas--doing the job that Mexican sicarios just won't do.

Oh, while you chew on that, note this egregious stupidity in the International Herald Tribune story (first link above):

After the gunfight, the federal authorities raided four houses in Rio Bravo and recovered a large cache of military weapons: 16 sniper rifles, 7 machine guns, one grenade launcher and 12 automatic pistols. Flak jackets, a safe, radios, grenades and ammunition were also seized.

It remained unclear where the group purchased the weapons, but officials here have sharply criticized the United States in recent days for doing too little to stop the flow of guns into Mexico from states with weaker gun-control laws, like Texas. They acknowledge, however, that Mexico could do more to search vehicles crossing their border.

THE FREAKING ROCKET LAUNCHER, HAND GRENADES, and M249 LIGHT MACHINE GUN** on the table are not in Mexico because of "lax" Texas gun laws.

How can reputable journalists print that kind of bull with a straight face?

Excuse me. How can "reputable" journalists print that kind of bull so often with a straight face?

*AP photo by Eduardo Verdugo
** I hope someone is checking serial numbers. There may be an Army quartermaster somewhere getting nervous about that weapon turning up in Mexico.