#ICE

President Obama has promised Zapata’s family that the US government will spare no effort to bring the Mexican gunman responsible for the attack to justice, and Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, has express outrage, declaring “The full resources of our department are at the disposal of our Mexican partners in this investigation.”

Given the dearth of substantive press coverage on both side of the border, and the muted attitude of US officials toward Mexico’s efforts to curb drug trafficking and cartel violence over the past five years—during which roughly 38,000 people have been killed, including scores of US citizens—the vocalization of even these stylized objections is noteworthy.

It’s only the media–not a special, dedicated tunnel team–who might believe the identification of Guzman as the tunnel mastermind qualifies as breaking news.Any agent who’s worked the southwest border for a while already knows that if a tunnel or any other kind of operation is high-end, it’s almost certainly the work of “El Chapo”…

The discovery of a drug tunnel, no matter how long it may be or how lavishly outfitted–even the seizure of millions in coke or marijuana–means nothing, unless it leads authorities, in hot pursuit on both sides of the border, up the criminal hierarchies, to the drug lords, and their corrupt accomplices in the police, military, banks, business, and government. To everybody waiting, in Mexico and the US, for their ‘taste.’