Blame Mexico's Calderon for Arizona's Law

The real unsung villain of the Arizona immigration debacle lives south of the border, writes Bryan Curtis in the Daily Beast. Felipe Calderon's insane war on drugs has turned his side of the border “into a bloody slaughterhouse, complete with torture and beheadings. You can draw a straight line between the border's climate of terror and political opportunism in Arizona.”

Calderon won the presidency by a razor-thin margin, so to look strong, he unleashed the military on drug gangs. “It's like the New York police, during the heyday of the Italian mafia, going to war against all five families at once.” The result has been horrific, with thousands of civilians killed in the crossfire. The violence hasn't actually spilled into Arizona, but people living mere miles away are “understandably terrified,” and Republicans used that fear to pass the law. (More Felipe Calderon stories.)