In case you haven’t seen this list, for­mer CIA chief Michael Hay­den left a “list” of the United States’ top con­cerns for 2009 for his suc­ces­sor, new CIA chief Leon Panetta.  The list is as following:

1. Al Qaeda
2. Vio­lence in Mexico
3. Iran’s Nuclear Program
4. Europe and the War on Terror
5. Insta­bil­ity caused by the low price of oil
6. Pak­istan
7. Afghanistan
8. North Korea
9. China
10. The Mid­dle East

Now this list sur­prised me.  I hon­estly thought Pak­istan and/or the Mid­dle East would have been in the top five.  I knew Mex­ico was dire, but I didn’t think it would be num­ber two.  This tells me one thing:  We (the United States) could have to step in to help Mex­ico fight the drug car­tels before year’s end.  We cer­tainly can­not afford to let their cen­tral gov­ern­ment fall.  Then noth­ing would stop the drug run­ners from com­ing into Texas or Cal­i­for­nia, if they’re not already here.

This just makes secur­ing the bor­der all the more cru­cial.  We must increase the num­ber of bor­der patrol agents and increase the length of the fence.  I know we can’t real­is­ti­cally do this by the end of the year, but I also know that 700 miles of fence won’t pro­tect us, either.  I know, I know…we can’t afford it.  We’re hav­ing a finan­cial melt­down.  But it would be absolutely dev­as­tat­ing to our econ­omy if Mex­ico fails.  We would have mil­lions, MILLIONS of refugees flee­ing if the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment col­lapses.  Let’s just pray that doesn’t happen.