State Department advisers gunned down in Mexico

On Sunday, a report surfaced that sounded like something out of a movie.

Three US State Department officials were gunned down in the streets of Mexico outside of a taco stand.

Targeted killing

The attack took place on Friday in Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, when gunmen pulled up and opened fire on three men who were eating tacos.

Two of the men were killed, and the third was seriously injured. All three of them had been teaching courses to Jalisco State Police officers.

Two of the men, Carlos Amador Chavela (who is now deceased) and Pablo Cajigal Del Angel (seriously injured) had also worked for the State Department as well as other agencies as advisers.

The attack is being investigated as a targeted hit.

Kidnappings

This is far from an isolated incident, as Americans or people working with the United States seemed to have a target on their back during the Biden administration.

I go back to a report that surfaced in March 2023, where four Americans were kidnapped in Mexico, two of them never making it back home. One of those survivors was also seriously injured.

The four individuals were driving through a Mexican city when gunmen opened fire, then grabbed the four victims and manhandled them into the truck.

According to reports, one of the victims traveled to Mexico for an elective surgery.

American hostages

In addition to these random kidnappings, which happened far too often during the Biden administration, we also see foreign governments taking Americans hostage, even more so than terrorist groups, which is unbelievable.

A September 2023 report in NPR where Northwestern University political scientist Danielle Gilbert explained, “Hostage taking has always been a tactic that weaker actors use against their stronger opponents in conflict. So a hostage taker can be much weaker. They don't have to have the same kind of capabilities to really assert leverage against a much stronger opponent.

“Fifty years ago, that was hijackings and embassy sieges and then turned into a trend of kidnappings by terrorist and criminal groups. And in the last decade, we've seen this trend shift toward hostage diplomacy where states use their criminal justice system to take foreigners hostage.”

To his point, remember the arrest of Brittney Griner in Russia, where Biden turned over a notorious gunrunner to get Griner back? Last week, Jarred Shaw, an American basketball player in Indonesia, was arrested for marijuana candy, in a case that is eerily similar to Griner’s. There was a time when other countries were terrified of the big stick the American government wielded, but that time has clearly passed. Hopefully, Trump is able to bring that fear back and have our country respected to the point that these animals would not dare consider taking an American.