This is not just a cut-and-paste job of press articles by some high school student who lives on the border and is unhappy with the state of affairs in his or her border town. I am an intelligence professional with a graduate degree in Latin American Studies, over eight years of military law enforcement experience, and over three years of experience writing analyses on various SW border violence issues for a government agency. Your teacher or professor or supervisor probably won’t want you citing a blog for your next paper or analytical product. However, I can at least provide you some insight or context regarding significant incidents that occur along the border, as well as more detailed information on issues associated with Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), border politics, and the wide variety of crimes associated with DTO activity. I will also provide links to full news articles or publicly available government documents whenever possible. This is a side gig for me, as I make my living writing analyses part-time for a government organization and full-time as a mom. Some of the border issues I track and perspectives I have are not necessarily relevant to my work, so this is my outlet for informing those individuals working or studying these issues about what’s going on along the border, and WHY. Welcome to what hopefully will become one of your and your colleagues’ top sources of information and explanation of Mexico’s drug war and associated border violence issues.
Sylvia Longmire
I'm an intelligence professional with over nine years of experience in military law enforcement and six years of experience conducting intelligence analysis.
This is fantastic, Syl! I'm looking forward to what you have to say as well as what impact this blog will have on others. Keep it up!
Posted by: Erin Karl | March 10, 2009 at 02:45 PM