MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS STEP UP RECRUITING EFFORTS: HANG HELP WANTED BANNERS

I wonder if there's a sack race at the company picnic...

It was printed on a 16-foot-wide banner and strung above one of the busiest roads here, calling out to any "soldier or ex-soldier."

"We're offering you a good salary, food and medical care for your families," it said in block letters.

But there was a catch: The employer was Los Zetas, a notorious Gulf cartel hit squad formed by elite Mexican army deserters. The group even included a phone number for job seekers that linked to a voice mailbox.

Outrageous as they seem, drug cartel messages such as the banner hung here late last month are becoming increasingly common along the violence-savaged U.S.-Mexico border and in other parts of the region. As soldiers wage a massive campaign against drug trafficking across Mexico, they are encountering an information war managed by criminal networks that operate with near impunity.

The cartels' appeals -- which authorities generally believe to be authentic recruitment efforts -- seem designed in part to taunt a military plagued by at least 100,000 desertions in the past eight years.

Wake up America!
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