In case you haven’t heard yet, Mexico is at the threshold of all-out civil war as Mexican drug cartels slowly but surely continue their ravaging of our neighbor to the south.

To help you realize the level of instability in the Republic of Mexico, look no further than Ciudad Juarez, a border town to El Paso, Texas, that has been at the epicenter of drug-related crimes in Mexico.

Only recently drug traffickers decided that Chief Roberto Orduña Cruz, a retired army major who had been on the job since May, should step down as chief of the town’s police department.

The traffickers did so most poignantly by killing a police officer every 48 hours until Cruz resigned. Drug-related crimes were insurmountable in 2008, resulting in the deaths of more than 6,000 Mexicans, with little reason to believe 2009 can be any better.

An American Free Press report this weekend said that President Felipe Calderón acknowledged on Friday that the country’s drug war is far more serious than he thought when taking office in 2006, while still asserting that he will eradicate the “cancer” consuming Mexico. Calderon said on Mexico’s Milenio TV that “it’s as though the patient told the doctor ‘my stomach hurts badly’ ... and when he is operated on to remove what was thought to be appendicitis, an already widespread cancer is found instead.”

Thousands of Americans throughout southern border towns are in fear of the possibility of a drug war spilling over, resulting in the first Mexico-U.S. encroachment of its magnitude since Pancho Villa in 1916.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has already taken the initiative in preparing for a possible violence spill over in a contingency plan dubbed “Operation Border Star.”

According to The Monitor, a Texas newspaper serving the Rio Grande Valley, Perry’s office drafted the contingency policy in collaboration with local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies in the past year to prepare for all worst-case scenarios.

The situation more or less seems like something out of “No Country for Old Men,” except a thousand times larger and spanning three states, including Arizona.

However, it should be noted that former president George W. Bush and Congress passed legislation for pushing through $400 million in emergency aid to help the Mexican government fight the drug cartels.

Let’s also not forget that, according to a report from ABC News, Phoenix has become the second-highest city in the world behind Mexico City in kidnapping, due in large part to the illegal trafficking and violence from drug cartels and coyotes.

Oftentimes, drug cartels recruit Mexicans to take part in kidnapping drug smugglers or dealers who carry large amounts of cash.

In a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, Sam Quinones described the process of recruiting kidnappers bluntly: “Certain Phoenix bars are known as places where kidnappers recruit, much the way builders go to Home Depot to hire day laborers.”

The situation is all too scary to simply brush off, and with the U.S. in the middle of two wars and a financial crisis, the nation shouldn’t have to be worried about its neighbors, but it better awaken to the fact that showing concern is necessary.

Reach Joseph at joseph.hermiz@asu.edu.