(CNN) -- A shootout in a border city that leaves five alleged drug traffickers sprawled dead on the street and seven police wounded. A police chief and his bodyguards gunned down outside his house in another border city. Four bridges into the United States shut down by protesters who want the military out of their towns and who officials say are backed by narcotraffickers. Mexican police carry a body after a clash with gangs that left 21 dead in the state of Chihuahua on February 10. That was Mexico on Tuesday. What is most remarkable is that it was not much different from Monday or Sunday or any day in the past few years.
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Drug-related conflicts bring waves of violence, death that some liken to a civil war
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U.S. helps fuel violence with market for illegal drugs, weapons supply for drug gangs
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"The drug gangs are better equipped than the army," expert says
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Pervasive corruption among public officials also at center of drug cartels' success
Mexican
Mexico
"It's as if the burden of being the main arena of the anti-drug war has overwhelmed @placeholder institutions," Birns said.