permissive environments in mexico have been created by powerful drug trafficking cartels because they invest hundreds of millions of dollars to corrupt virtually all levels of government in those particular permissive environments. what this administration, our administration in the united states needs to focus on is getting serious on focusing on corruption on our side of the borderer. megyn: president calderon has been making that point. he says you have to stop the demand for drugs and you have got to stop the drugs coming from of the border. thank you both for being here. coming up at at top of the hour. studio b with shepard smith. shep: much more on afghanistan in the next hour. the wall street journal reports that the pakistan spy agency is pressing fighters to
there was cooperation, most likely, ongoing, by some of those lieutenants which led to his arrest. julie: before i let you know, i want to point out the fact that the possibility still does exist that as he faces punishment in mexico, he could potentially buy his way out of it? well, listen, he s too big of a fish, too important of a catch to for anyone to allow him to buy his way out. the caka calderon administratio aggressively addressing the corruption issues with just as aggressively as they are attacking the powerful drug trafficking cartels and they are getting their house in order and will get their house in order, providing we continue to apart them and they don t lose the will to fight. i don t believe they will. julie: let s hope not. all right, michael, thank you very much, we appreciate you coming on. thank you. gregg: a trial set to begin very soon in the 1998 bombings
now it feels like all bets are off and the violence is moving solidly there, too. business leaders took ou a full page ad to calderon saying we need more troops, we need to crack down. the mexican government doesn t have a lot of choices here. what people need to understand is it took mexico 5 to 6 decades to get themselves in this situation with far too many government officials and politicians tried to negotiate with these drug trafficking cartels. most times fortunately it was to try to keep them in check. but the reality of the situation is, sadly to say, some of these deals were cut to line the pockets of politicians and government officials. with every one of these negotiations the only thing that these folks did was succeeded in empowering the cartels. and they got strong and more prolific and they got more
34 years in this business. you ve seen this unfold over many years as well. some things that really trouble me about this is, it is a growing trend, and just one of the cbp or custom border patrol points of entry along the arizona desert in 2009 there were about 130 teenage, american teenage kids that were arrested for carrying drugs into the united states. that s an 83, or 85%% jump over the 2008 numbers. and there are some things that i think need to be considered that a lot of folks aren t thinking about. this kind of activity is straight out of the playbook for the mexican drug trafficking cartels. these kids are young, they prey on them, they test their metal smuggling small amounts, two, three pounds of marijuana or cocaine across the border, and as they grow older by the time they hit 17, 18, 19 years old