More DEA Implications

According to a classified DEA report, Sinaloa cartel hitmen received weapons training in Iran, and Juárez hitmen learned from the FARC. Assuming the report is true, it doesn't really tell us a whole lot. Unless the DEA is suggesting an operational relationship or some sort of militant indoctrination, I don't think there is a whole lot of difference between them receiving training in Iran rather than Israel. They come back to Mexico to wreak havoc just the same. Just like the report of cartels doing business with Hezbollah in South America, this seems to fit into a blatantly political and misleading pattern of talking up the threat of the Mexican cartels by tying them to other enemies of the United States. The cartels are a national security threat to the United States, not to mention Mexico, but not because they have some very limited links with Middle Eastern groups. 

This also fits with the general pattern in the Bush administration of conflating rather than separating our enemies. It may help for the next round of Mérida Initiative funding (Mexican cartels+Islamic terrorists=more money), but why try to create a connection that doesn't really exist? Why try to join in anti-Americanism two groups that are so separated by philosophy, strategy, and geography? How is that in the nation's interest?