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On Saturday morning, May 28, Bexar County Sheriff Sergeant Kenneth Vann was ambushed at a local intersection in San Antonio responding to a (disturbance) call in the area. From the outset, the very telling part was what wasn't being written. But the words "multi-agency task force" was a signal (including FBI and US Marshals).

Over the past many months there have been debates and politically correct banter regarding whether the drug violence was crossing the border, and even whether Mexico was or was not a failed or failing state. Well, to most people familiar with things, there never was much question, even though public discussions were pretty hushed.

So the big question is why on May 25th, was a Lieutenant in the Bexar County Sheriff's narcotics office interviewed on the late local news and quoted as saying that she was "expecting drug violence anytime." Was a public statement like that needed (was it necessary to "throw down the gauntlet")?

The first reports identified the suspect vehicle as a small white car. But later, authorities changed that initial report to looking for a Ford F-150. Perhaps coincidentally, south of town there have been a number of modified pick-up trucks found abandoned that were connected to the cartels (modified with compartments either ripped out or created to allow secreting contraband).

With the "multi-agency" task force investigating the murder/assassination, an answer is certain to come. While other motives such as a random act of violence, a gang initiation killing or some personal vendetta against Sgt. Vann have been raised as alternates and need to remain on the table, was his killing sort of a "warning" that "yes, drug violence could happen anytime."

At this point, it should be left to law enforcement to investigate the crime, and for others to postulate about what happened. But I have been writing about the narco-terrorism south of the border for more than 6 years and probably longer. The long hot South Texas summer still lies ahead.

The reward has risen to $127,000. Sgt. Vann's funeral will be on Friday, June 3rd.

90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

In various publications, pictures of semi and fully automatic weapons have been displayed.

Throughout the months since Calderón mounted his effort to combat the drug cartels, one theme has been repeated. That theme? American guns and ammunition were being smuggled to Mexico from the border states and fueling the violence.

Time and again, it is repeated that American weapons and drug use are the cause the violence in Mexico. However, as with many statistics, the statement that 90% of the guns in Mexico originated in the U.S. is faulty. In fact, according to a clarification published by Fox News, only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S. The key distinction is that serial numbers show that only 17% of the weapons can be traced to the United States.

The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

The problem with this argument has been periodic publication of pictures displaying some of the weapons taken in various raids. Knowledgeable observers commented then and now that many of the weapons such as M26A2 fragmentation grenades, M16, U.S. military-issued ammunition -- are not even sold in gun shows or gun shops. So from whence have they been purchased?

Now according to a U.S. Department of State document, in 2009, the United States sold the Mexican government $177 million worth of arms, of which $20 million was used for semi- and fully automatic weapons.

After looking at a warehouse full of high-powered weapons, allegedly stolen by a corrupt Mexican federal police officer, the informant said it was obvious to him that such weapons did not come from the "mom and pop" gun stores identified by the administration.

Aside from the fact that corruption in the Mexican police and military is no secret, additionally, and not surprisingly, it is also reported that "rogue elements" of the Guatemalan military have been selling military grade weapons to the cartels.

So, perhaps it is time for the Mexican government to look to itself to figure out how automatic weapons are finding their way to the cartels. And at the same time, while there is no question that some weapons are being purchased at gun shows and in gun shops in the U.S., the Administration should more closely examine its own sales of weapons to the Mexican government before pointing fingers at Texas gun shops.

This long and difficult war is not won. It is, however, being won.

So far:

Osama bin Laden Killed: 'Justice Is Done,' President Says

Osama bin Laden, the face of terror, killed in Pakistan

Obama: Al-Qaida head bin Laden dead

Senior ISI official confirms bin Laden killed

Osama Bin Laden Body Headed for Burial at Sea, Officials Say

Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan

2. In Libya, Qaddafi's army - including mercenaries from around Africa - has retreated from the key city of Misurata, just east of Tripoli. It continues to shell the city in retreat, however. In the see-saw struggle between Qaddafi and Libyan rebels, the latest ebb for the rebels may put urgency into Qaddafi's negotiations for settlement. This, of course, was the idea of bringing in US drones.

3. A NATO airstrike (read: US Predator drones) destroyed Qaddafi's offices at a compound in Tripoli. The Libyan strongman claimed NATO tried to assassinate him. This is, of course, a claim not without merit. Western politicians have been calling for such, including US senators. UK foreign minister Hague would not rule out the use of US drones to take out Qaddafi. (See Item 2, above.)

4. Report says Pakistan's political leadership is considering approaching the UN Security Council citing territorial infringement in order to pressure the US into halting drone attacks on Taliban & al-Qaeda targets in its tribal areas.

5. Syria, using tanks on its citizens, locks them in by sealing its border with Jordan. US considers sanctions.

2. In Syria, protest remains a deadly endeavor with regime security forces firing on mourners at protester funerals and into crowds from rooftops in one coastal town. Bashar Assad ended the 50-year state of emergency measures as a feigned gesture, but the killing continues.

3. While US and Iraqi political leaders ponder an extension of US force deployments there beyond stated deadlines, protests against it get heavy media attention. Muqtada al-Sadr, a "guest" of Iran's regime for many months, naturally lead protests in Baghdad. All of this while the violence ratchets higher as the withdrawal date nears.

4. Libya's foreign minister is reportedly making his way to Ethiopia to meet with other leaders on a negotiated settlement for Qaddafi. With the NATO adventure looking less palatable by the day, the American administration has vested political interest in driving a negotiated settlement home and ending military commitment.

2. Libyan rebels see some success in Misurata and credit NATO air support - primarily the addition of unmanned drone support. That air support overall, according to Admiral Mullen, has degraded Qaddafi's state forces by 30-40%. This is just enough, however, for a stalemate and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs testified as much before Congress. UK's Prime Minister Howard, meanwhile, assured that NATO is not creeping toward a ground war.

3. As the tension between the US and Pakistan - at least publicly - seems to reach new crescendos weekly, a new drone attack on the Taliban in the tribal areas of Pakistan has reportedly killed 25. This while Admiral Mullen visits Islamabad to defuse tensions between the US and Pakistani military leadership.

4. In Indonesia, a large bomb was discovered planted underground outside a church in what was to have been a massive Good Friday attack to kill scores of worshiping Christians. The bomb was defused and removed without injury.

But a couple of things have transpired since Thursday that are certainly not business as usual, and how much each has to do with the news of a considered ceasefire between the Israelis and Hamas terrorists is a curious bit of conjecture.

First, on Sunday morning, Hamas' deputy foreign minister, Ghazi Hamad, appeared on Israeli state-run radio and Israel deployed its two existing "Iron Dome" defense systems ahead of schedule based on necessity. More densely populated Ashkelon and Beersheba, both near Gaza and within Hamas' range, were designated for Iron Dome defense. And Israel says the systems have intercepted at least 8 rockets bound for the Iron Dome-protected cities. Smaller towns and unpopulated areas remain unprotected. The Reuters report said that 120 rockets had been launched by Hamas total since Thursday, with the vast majority intended for closer, smaller Israeli towns than the two defended by the Iron Domes.

Anyone who claims to know definitively how much the Iron Dome defenses or the Hamas appeal in Hebrew impact the apparent suing for peace is kidding themselves. But because it can't be quantified does not mean it has no impact.

Personally, I'd suggest the Hamas deputy foreign minister appearing on Israeli radio speaking Hebrew in suing for a ceasefire has profound psychological significance for Hamas and Gaza Palestinians and less for Israelis. And I'd also suggest the Iron Dome rocket defenses have profound psychological significance for Israelis - all Israelis, not just those in Ashkelon or Beersheba - and less for Hamas, considering there are currently only two of them.

But either way and to whatever degree, both of these occurrences are most certainly new to this generations-old conflict.

The African leaders arrived in Tripoli earlier today as part of a delegation seeking to negotiate a truce in the Libyan conflict.

The roadmap calls for an end to hostilities, "diligent conveying of humanitarian aid" and "dialogue between the Libyan parties", the leaders said in a statement.

Sky's chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay, who is in Tripoli reporting under the restrictions of the Libyan authorities, said it could be the crucial first step towards peace.

It could be that "crucial first step towards peace" - and it could also be little to nothing. It all depends what one presumes to be the definition of 'peace.' Too many may likely read into this report a form of capitulation on the part of Qaddafi.

It is highly unlikely at this stage - a relative position of strength for Qaddafi - that a "road map to peace" has any road leading Qaddafi out of Tripoli.

Don't just take my word for it. Listen to the British Defence Secrectary, Liam Fox. "The truth is that the Gaddafi regime is quite well dug in," he said.

Why would Qaddafi, who still has the ability to slug it out with the 'rebels' indefinitely, suddenly capitulate? "Peace" and surrender, you see, are two entirely different things no matter how peace is defined. For Qaddafi, at this point, it's quite plausible that "peace" means something along the lines of "how about you boys quit blowing up my gear?"

Matt Lauer and a few CNN hosts may get excited about such a report, perhaps desiring to read more into it than is there, as the Obama administration requires a settled end to this for a face-saving exit. But you should be more cautious.

But when you have Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu predicting outright armed battles between his people and cartel gunmen, it is time to listen.

A gunbattle is all but certain, Babeu told The Arizona Republic, because his deputies and members of a regional SWAT team are now routinely working to stop smugglers from pushing cargo through Pinal. "We have had enough," Babeu said. "That's why we're going into these areas and sending a very clear message to the cartels: We see you and we're not going to let you through."

Our border with Mexico remains insecure. Frankly, I am tired of writing about this problem. It hasn't gotten any better since 2006 when I started writing here, and it isn't going away. Two years ago, ThreatsWatch posted America's Unacknowledged War

So the question again must be asked, what will it take? How many Americans need to die because of the cartels (on our side of the border)?

This raises another question that flared last week. Why would an American citizen knowingly cross to the Mexican side of the border? I heard an interview with the wife of the jet skier who was shot and killed on Falcon Lake last year. I am very sorry for her loss. I truly am. But in the interview it became clear that they crossed to the Mexican side of the border because they wanted to see a church. The same goes for the used truck buyers and everyone else. I am sorry for pain, suffering and loss of life. Why expose yourself to clear risk?

That said, the Egyptians protesting in Tahrir Square in Cairo erupted with vocalized anger when it became apparent in Mubarak's address that he was not stepping down and leaving.

It is amusing to listen to Wolf Blitzer at the end of the CNN broadcast clip below, as he is outwardly befuddled why the crowd was 'cheering.' Blitzer remarked, "Uh, I - I don't know why these crowds would seem to be exuberant, because it would seem to be disappointing. Uh, Mubarak seemed to be saying, uh, he was staying in business, uh, at least for the time being. He spoke about the scheduled elections. But, Fred, you're there on the scene at Tahrir Square. What do these folks think he said?" We presume Fred straightened Wolf Blitzer out in short order.

But Wolf Blitzer's confusion is less dangerous than the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's proffering of the notion that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is a "largely secular" group. One is left to suppose that the Brotherhoods' remarkable secularism is why the group's faith is prominently part of its name, and that the restoration of the caliphate has no religious basis whatsoever.

It is one thing to argue the Muslim Brotherhood's social programs in Egypt and elsewhere. It's quite another to make the leap to a secular label.

Parting random thought...

There are great dangers of a leaderless revolution. Some have been quick to dismiss any comparisons between today's revolutionary Egypt and revolutionary Iran of 1979. Both began as truly a popular groundswell of discontent. Iran's revolution, like Egypt's, was also initially leaderless. Until it wasn't.

Caveat emptor.

Mubarak's sticking around in whatever capacity slows the race from anger to vacuum. It gives Egypt a better chance of emerging with a more thought-out representative governance than an immediate vacuum filled more with urgency than reason. The slower the transition, the better the chance of keeping the caliphate-seeking Muslim Brotherhood sidelined as an alternative is given chance to take shape.

As Egypt awaits Hosni Mubarak's address to the nation expected this evening, the speculation is rampant that he will step down with the speech. The people of Egypt will have suddenly and unexpectedly effected their own regime change.

When the Chief of Staff of the Egyptian army tells ABC News it is over, it's more than simple speculation about ttonight's coming events. When asked if Mubarak will leave Egypt after tonight, General Sami Enan said, "I can't say, but I can say this is over."

Even after tonight, there will be infinitely more questions than answers - for Egypt and its people, for the people under regimes in the region, and for security and the future of the Egyptian-Israeli peace.

But Egypt also matters far beyond the Middle East region. More than most busy Americans realize. The events in Egypt will directly impact our lives here at home for generations to come.

History is being made with futures in the balance. As the situations unfold, we will unpack the events with an eye and an ear ahead, explaining things as we see them and in plain English.

But this is not so regarding the simple domestic nature of the threat, sans the Obama administration's "right wing" identifier. For, even if not politically identifiable as "right wing" much to the political disappointment of the American Left, several threats and attacks originated with individuals who were American citizens - technically if not culturally.

And so it is acknowledged today by DHS Secretary Napolitano that "the threat facing us is at its most heightened state since [the September 11] attacks," and that "plots to attack America increasingly involve American residents and citizens." You know the principal suspects. US citizen Najibullah Zazi and his New York subway bombing plot. US resident Faisal Shahzad and his ill-fated attempt to detonate a propane tank-rigged car bomb in Times Square.

Yet, with all of the talk of the "homegrown" threat, the deadliest prime example is never spoken of by Janet Napolitano or the administration. Nidal Hasan, an Army major and radicalized Islamic extremist, shot and killed 14 soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood. He shouted "Allahu Akbar!" while firing, murdering. He was in contact with the same radical Yemeni-American al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al Awlaki that Napolitano cites in reference to other "homegrown" terrorists. Yet not a single mention in context with terrorist attacks.

Says Jim Robbins and the Washington Times editorial board:

The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee recently concluded a year-long look into the circumstances of the domestic terror incident that took 14 lives. The committee report concluded that the Department of Defense and the FBI "collectively had sufficient information to have detected [Major Nidal] Hasan's radicalization to violent Islamist extremism but failed both to understand and to act on it."

[...] The White House response to the Fort Hood massacre is a textbook study in denial and coverup. The Obama administration refused to admit it was a terrorist attack, calling it instead an example of "violence in the workplace." The Army's official "force protection" report whitewashed the incident and avoided any reference to Hasan's jihadist motivations. The message to the federal bureaucracy was that even when blood is spilled, even when a soldier slaughters his fellow troops with a cry of "Allah akbar," official silence will be maintained. Radical Islam is the hatred that dare not speak its name.

DHS Secretary Napolitano's elephant in the room is hardly Conspiratus Pachydermicus, but rather Jihadiyun Violentia Mahemicus. Ignoring it won't reduce the threat. Calling it something else won't bring back the dead. Certainly neither will save its future prey.

2. While many continue to argue that the Muslim Brotherhood is an acceptable organization - primarily because the are "not al-Qaeda" - fact remains that they are an Islamist organization seeking to create a Caliphate. Palestinian Media Watch has translated a book authored by the Brotherhood's leader for many years titled "Jihad Is The Way."

3. While Britain's Prime Minister Cameron implored Western leaders to vigorously defend their nations' culture of Liberty and demand assimilation, its Foreign Minister Hague berated Israel and called on the Jewish state to drop its "belligerent language" on Egypt.

2. Pakistan warns the US over demands that the Pakistani government release a US citizen arrested for shooting and killing two Pakistani men in Lahore. The man and the US maintain he was being robbed and fired in self defense. Meanwhile, after yet more attacks on NATO convoys heading to Afghanistan, Pakistan announces a new tax on Afghanistan shipments.

3. Southern Sudan, with a high Christian population, referendum resulted in 98% voting for secession from Muslim majority Sudan. July recognition as nation slated. An armed group murdered a Catholic nun in South Sudan this week, and a bishop in Khartoum said violence in region towards non-Muslims will increase, not decrease.