Is Vincente Fox The 21st-Century Pancho Villa?

Pancho Villa was a self-styled Mexican freedom fighter during World War I. Given the rampant political instability of Mexico during this time, the practical term for Villa's occupation was "mercenary." He fought on behalf of and against a series of coups and counter-coups and counter-counter coups, and when the U.S. administration of Woodrow Wilson happened to recognize the latest one in 1916 - which happened to be one Villa had been opposing - Villa took it upon himself to carry out his own personal invasion of the United States, raiding and sacking the town of Columbus, New Mexico.

Why do I bring this up? Because a variation on that history appears to be repeating itself:

The incident began when Border Patrol agents tried to stop the dump truck on Interstate 10, sheriff's officials said. The truck fled to Mexico in the Neely's Crossing area.

The truck got stuck in the riverbed, and the driver took off running. Agents "started to retrieve the bundles (of marijuana) when the armed subjects appeared," said Agent Ramiro Cordero, a Border Patrol spokesman.

The Border Patrol called Hudspeth County sheriff's deputies and Texas state troopers for backup, both agencies confirmed.

Doyal said the truck driver returned with the armed men, including men who arrived in official-looking vehicles with overhead lights and what appeared to be Mexican soldiers in uniform and with military-style rifles.

The Mexican army is used in anti-narcotics operations. Army officials could not be reached for comment.

The standoff ended when the "soldiers" used a bulldozer to pull the dump truck into Mexico, sheriff's officials said.

As Cap'n Ed elaborates, this means one of three things: (1) Mexican drug-smugglers possess sufficient resources to carry out small-scale armed incursions into U.S. territory; (2) Mexican drug-smugglers have infiltrated the Mexican military and subverted parts of it to their own use; (3) Mexican drug-smugglers control the Mexican government, which is approving such incursions by its armed forces.

Regardless of which option, or combination of options, is the case, it really, REALLY casts the border control situation in a harrowing light, and makes the Border Patrol look like the pathetic, unserious, underfunded afterthought it truly is. If the BP is helpless against a Villa-like band of modern-day bandits, what chance would they stand going up against al Qaeda infiltrators?

President Wilson's response to Pancho Villa's raid was to send, in concert with Mexican government forces, a 12,000 man invasion force, complete with air support, into northwestern Mexico to capture or kill Villa and crush his guerilla forces. Compared with that, fortifying our southern border, up to and including with troops, doesn't sound like that unreasonable a suggestion.