Not far from the United States border to Mexico, another mass grave was discovered only days ago.

Mass graves, beheadings, hangings, and bullets in the back of the head or three to the chest executions are fairly commonplace among the drug cartels littering Mexico.

These tactics are used to intimidate the people living in “drug towns” — towns used for the smuggling of drugs, weapons and kidnappings back and forth across the U.S. border — into working for the cartels and to establish territory between the rival cartels.

While most of the violence is staying on the Mexico side of the border, the kidnappings and attacks on border patrols are increasing on the U.S. side, and shootings are spilling over.

The so-called war on drugs the U.S. is floundering in is a topic of much debate between liberals and conservatives nationwide. But less often addressed are the battles with gangs in the U.S. moving the narcotics supplied by the cartels in Mexico. The real war on drugs rests with the attempts to stifle the violence of these cartels and the shipment of the drugs into the U.S.

Unfortunately, the intelligence networks between the U.S. and Mexico are not flowing smoothly, and the violence is only escalating as the U.S. clamps down on the drug trade from the Caribbean, causing more business for the Mexican cartels and even more violence for our neighbors to the south.

The U.S. is busy with combat in Libya and Afghanistan, and while those bloody events unfold, 34,612 people have been killed in the past four years as of Jan. 12. From gang members to security forces to bystanders, no one is safe from the violence of the cartels as they vie for control of the $13 billion per year industry of trafficking drugs from South America through Mexico and into the U.S.

And what can be done? The police in Mexico are generally corrupt, and the army is being used to combat the cartels to little avail. The U.S. can continue to fight drugs in our states, and might make headway into eliminating some of the gangs currently distributing the drugs, but that will not solve the problem. The U.S. efforts against drugs will accomplish little so long as the cartels exist.

Legalizing drugs in the states will not happen any time soon — sorry folks. Mexico’s president has admitted to considering the option of legalization in Mexico as an effort to quell violence from the cartels, which does little to stop the drugs from flowing into the U.S.

So, where do we go from here? We are entrenched in other countries to fight for freedom and end terror, while violence akin is running rampant on our border. When do we stop arguing about what the war on drugs is and start avidly working toward stopping the cartels and assisting our neighbor country? The cartels are terrorists the same as al-Qaida, and we need to be treating them as such.