Border drug war is too close for comfort

Columbus, a settlement of 1,800 people clinging to a wind-swept patch of high desert in southern New Mexico, was a picture of tranquillity. But less than three miles south, in the once-quaint Mexican town of Palomas, a war is being waged. Over the last year, a drug feud that has killed more than 1,350 people in sprawling Ciudad Juarez has spread to tiny Palomas, 70 miles west, where more than 40 people have been gunned down, a dozen within a baseball toss of the border. More -- no one knows how many -- have been kidnapped, and the Palomas police chief fled across the border last year and has asked for political asylum. Now Columbus is on edge. A haven for baby boomer retirees seeking cheap living, small-town values and blissful, if unpolished, solitude, Columbus can't quite believe that a bloody brawl has broken out on its doorstep...Several residents of Palomas have bought property in Columbus recently, paying cash. Skinner, the B&B owner who's also the town's lone real estate agent, had her best sales year in 2008, even with the market nationwide in a nose-dive. New Cadillac Escalades, and cars with thousand-dollar chrome rims, have appeared suddenly, in a town without a single traffic light. Columbus residents think they know what those trends mean: The men who traffic drugs in Mexico are moving their families to Columbus for sanctuary. And where the drug lords go, residents assume, violence is sure to follow...From the LA Times