Do U.S. politicians fully understand the threat from the drug cartels?

At a May 2010 press conference, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that it is simply cheaper to treat teens for drug addiction than it is to stop drug smugglers at our border with Mexico.

A CNSNews reporter asked Pelosi: “Are you committed to sealing the border against the influx of illegal drugs from Mexico and, if so, do you have a target date in mind for getting that done?”

She replied: “Well if your question is about drugs, I’m for reducing demand in the United States. That is what our responsibility is on this subject. The RAND Corporation a few years ago did a report that said it would be much less expensive for us to, through prevention first and foremost, but through treatment on demand to reduce demand in our country, is the cheapest way to solve this problem.”

She continued: “Incarceration is the next cheapest. It costs seven times more to incarcerate than to have treatment on demand. It costs 15 times more to interdict at the border.”

Pelosi went on to say that she sees no reason to “seal” the border.

Unfortunately, Pelosi’s attitude is common throughout the halls of Congress, and has not been lost on the Mexican drug cartels. The lack of concern for the safety of the American people has led to the presence of cartel operations in every major city and town across the U.S.

In mid-2010, the U.S. Justice Department issued their annual National Drug Threat Assessment. The findings were startling.

The following statistics were taken from the report:

-Mexican DTOs (Drug Trafficking Organizations) were the only DTOs operating in every region of the country.

-Nineteen percent of youth aged 12 to 17 report past year illicit drug use (nearly 1 in 5 teenagers).

-An average of three Border Patrol agents are assaulted everyday at or near the U.S. border (with 752 assaults in FY2006 increasing to 1,097 in FY 2008.)

-In 2009, there were 267 kidnappings in Phoenix in, which translates to one kidnapping every 1.37 days—or one every 35 hours. Nearly all of those kidnappings are attributed to drug and human smuggling gangs.

-Drugs are now being distributed on behalf of the Mexican DTOs in every region of the U.S., by such gangs as MS-13, the Mexican Mafia, the Latin Kings, the 18th St. Gang, the Bloods and Crips.

The report states: “In 2009, midlevel and retail drug distribution in the United States was dominated by more than 900,000 criminally active gang members representing approximately 20,000 street gangs in more than 2,500 cities.”

Since her confirmation, rather than focusing on her official duties, we have seen Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano spend a great deal of her time working as a lobbyist for the legalization of this nation’s illegal alien population.

In November 2009, Napolitano told a crowd at the Center for American Progress, that border enforcement was now much tougher and we can now proceed with an Amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens inside this country.

Citing the supposed improvements in border enforcement, Napolitano said: “I've been dealing hands-on with immigration issues since 1993, so trust me…I know a major shift when I see one, and what I have seen makes reform far more attainable this time around.”

Since her reassurance that the border is being “enforced,” Arizona rancher, Rob Krentz and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry were both murdered by drug cartel gunmen on U.S. soil.

In 2005, the Bush administration used U.S. combat troops to patrol the borders which define Iraq. In fact, at the time, he announced that there would be a complete lockdown on Iraq's borders during that nation's elections. Obama is now using our troops in that same capacity, as well as in providing border security for Afghanistan.

While protecting the borders of foreign lands has been a priority for both Presidents Bush and Obama, neither has ever shown a portion of that commitment to their own country.

Protecting this country from those who would transform it into a narco-terror state should not be a liberal nor a conservative issue, but one merely of survival.