Fears in U.S. drug war will destabilize Mexico

clipped from www.sfgate.com (03-12) 04:00 PDT Washington - -- Concern about a potential failed state - not Pakistan, not Somalia, but California's neighbor Mexico - is mounting in Washington as an all-out war involving 45,000 Mexican military personnel fails to quell rising drug violence that is spilling from such Mexican cities as Tijuana into the United States. An estimated 6,290 drug-related murders occurred in Mexico last year, six times the standard definition of a civil war, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a leading scholar on the issue at the Brookings Institution. He said a timber company employee had been held at gunpoint by a Mexican gang, and he worried that hikers could be threatened. There also have been gang confrontations with firefighters. Others contend that Mexico is in danger of becoming a "narco state" where drug cartels control large parts of the country and the government cannot perform its most essential task, ensuring the safety of its citizens.