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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 9:47 am Post subject: Feds Plan 'Surge' if Mexico Drug Violence Spills Into U.S. |
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EL PASO, Texas � If Mexican drug violence spills across the U.S. border, Homeland Security officials say they have a contingency plan to assist border areas that includes bringing in the military.
"It's a common sense extension of our continued work with our state, local, and tribal partners in securing the southwest border," DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said Friday.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who described the contingency plan in an interview with The New York Times this week, said he ordered specific plans to be drawn up this summer as violence in Mexico continued to mount.
The plan includes federal homeland security agents helping local authorities and maybe even military assistance from the Department of Defense, possibly including aircraft, armored vehicles and special teams to go to areas overwhelmed with violence, authorities said.
Kudwa would not give specifics on the so-called "surge" plan, but said it does not create any new authorities.
In the last year, more than 5,000 people have been killed and police and military officials have become common targets for violent drug cartels who are fighting with each other and the government for control of lucrative drug and human smuggling routes across Mexico.
More than one-fifth of the deaths have occurred in Ciudad Juarez, the hardscrabble border city just across the Rio Grande from El Paso.
Officials in Mexico reported about 1,600 homicides in Juarez in 2007 and at least 20 people have been killed in the first nine days of this year.
To date, there has been no significant violent spillover from the drug war in Mexico, but U.S. authorities have spent a tense year watching and waiting.
In October, Hidalgo County officials issued fully automatic weapons to deputies patrolling the river in the Rio Grande Valley. Sheriff Lupe Trevino also authorized his deputies to return fire across the border if smugglers or other criminals took aim at them.
In El Paso, the country's largest border community and one of the safest metropolitan areas in the nation, Sheriff Richard Wiles said that while he doesn't anticipate the city or county being overwhelmed by border violence he applauded the DHS plan to quickly respond if the worst should happen.
"I think it's appropriate for the federal government to have a contingency plan all the way up to the worst case scenario," Wiles said.
The contingency plan was news to most border states.
"At this point, DHS has not contacted the California National Guard to bring any forces ... to support first responders, i.e. (U.S.) Border Patrol, at the border in California," California National Guard spokesman Jonathan Guibord said Friday.
He said National Guard officials in California know only "what's been publicized" about the plan, but added that state military officials routinely train and prepare to respond to any order from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or the president.
Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said Texas officials were briefed on the plan but were not consulted beforehand about a plan to fight Mexican drug cartels on the 2,000-mile U.S. border, more than half of which is in Texas.
Cesinger said the state has its own specific security plans for each area of the Texas border should violence from Mexico become an issue. She declined to give specifics of those plans.
Officials with New Mexico's Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said they are in constant contact with federal Homeland Security officials but weren't aware of any specific security plan that could include Department of Defense assets.
"We haven't seen a specific operational plan for a specific region or specific threat. The use of Defense Department resources ... would have to be an extreme situation," said Tim Manning, the New Mexico Homeland Security director.
Homeland Security officials did not respond to questions about which local or state agencies were notified about the surge plan. |
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479088,00.html
Mexico is in a serious crises. It is unlikely that the disintegration of law and order in that nation will be contained within her borders. I suppose the US should prepare appropriately. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 11:09 am Post subject: |
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Does this presage the return of Pancho Villa?
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| On March 9, 1916, General Villa ordered 700 (disputed, one official US Army report stated "500 to 700") Mexican members of his revolutionary group to make a cross-border attack against Columbus, New Mexico. The raid was conducted because of the U.S. government's official recognition of the Carranza regime and for the loss of lives in battle due to defective bullets purchased from the United States.[7] They attacked a detachment of the 13th US Cavalry, confiscated 100 horses and mules, set the central part of the town on fire, and killed 84 people. This was the second time U.S. land was attacked by another country. Unconfirmed rumors and false newspaper notes claimed that Pancho Villa's right-hand men Charlie McEvoy and Ari Najarian infiltrated all of the enemies' ports and were key in his raids across the land. On May 15 attacked Glen Springs, Texas, killing a civilian and wounding three American soldiers; on June 15 bandits killed four soldiers at San Ygnacio, Texas; on July 31 one American soldier and a U.S. customs inspector were killed. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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| It seems to me that reducing violence in Mexico would be an excellent way to reduce illegal immigration. |
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Bigfeet
Joined: 29 May 2008
Location: Grrrrr.....
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| Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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| All the dopers in America are helping to ruin Latin America, and especially Mexico, in a big way. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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| more reason to legalize drugs. or at least not be so hell bent on eradicating it. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:36 am Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| more reason to legalize drugs. or at least not be so hell bent on eradicating it. |
I totally agree.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_11386093?_requestid=14521
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EL PASO - Mayor John Cook on Tuesday vetoed a unanimously supported resolution from City Council asking the federal government to seriously study the legalization of narcotics as a way to respond to the plague of violence that last year killed 1,600 people in Ju�rez.
The council on Tuesday had voted 8-0 on a resolution drafted by the city's Border Relations Committee, outlining 11 steps the U.S. and Mexican governments can take to help El Paso's "beleaguered and besieged sister city."
All city representatives also supported an amendment by South-West city Rep. Beto O'Rourke that added a 12th step: the encouragement of the U.S. federal government to start a "serious debate" on the legalization of drugs. |
Seems that some people see the real problem. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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Apparently the Bush administration has followed my advice. Unintentionally, and obviously it hasn't changed the situation at all.
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| Immigration prosecutions have steeply risen over the last five years, while white-collar prosecutions have fallen by 18 percent, weapons prosecutions have dropped by 19 percent, organized crime prosecutions are down by 20 percent and public corruption prosecutions have dropped by 14 percent, according to the Syracuse group�s statistics. Drug prosecutions � the enforcement priority of the Reagan, first Bush and Clinton administrations � have declined by 20 percent since 2003. |
That being said, perhaps local authorities have filled in:
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| United States attorneys on the Southwest border, who handle the bulk of immigration prosecutions, usually decline to prosecute drug suspects with 500 pounds of marijuana or less � about $500,000 to $800,000 worth. As a result of Washington�s decision to forgo many of those cases, Mr. Goddard said, local agencies are handling many of them and becoming overwhelmed. |
Legalize it and both local and federal prosecutors can focus on more important issues. |
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Bibbitybop
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:06 am Post subject: |
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| Bigfeet wrote: |
| All the dopers in America are helping to ruin Latin America, and especially Mexico, in a big way. |
Real stoners don't smoke Mexican weed. Ask Snoop. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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Just finished reading Radley Balko's "The Drug War's Collateral Damage" and came accross this vignette:
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| The U.S.-backed and heavily U.S.-funded drug war has led to a particularly bloody civil war in several provinces in Mexico. Large swaths of Mexican police forces are working for the country�s drug cartels. Meanwhile, U.S. drug agents and politicians have been corrupted in their own way�in their willingness to accept brutal violence in Mexico as collateral damage if it brings hope for a diminished drug supply in the U.S. In one case, federal drug agents looked the other waywhile one of their confidential informants participated in a series of brutal murders across the border, because they didn�t want to compromise their investigation. Or witness a former federal drug warrior write in an Arizona newspaper.that all the death and carnage in Mexico is welcome news�merely a necessary step on the road to �victory.� Just last year, the U.S. Congress approved another $400 million in drug war aid to Mexico, despite concern from human rights organizations that the Mexican military may be killing innocent Mexican citizens in its vigor to crack down on the drug lords. |
Moreover...
People have been getting high since time immemorial, I see no reason to fight a war over it.
Update: The Wall Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady chimes in on the the continuing violence in Mexico.
- As many as 6,616 people were killed in drug related violence last year according to Mexico's attorney-general.
- At least 354 drug related murders this year
- Particularly brutal assassinations, including beheadings of gov't officials and police.
- Mexico is now on par with Pakistan as becoming a "failed state"
- US drug consumers provide more than $25 Billions a year to these violent drug cartels.
The corruption and violence is seriously getting out of hand in Mexico. I really hope the new Barrack Obama is seriously considering changing course with regards to the Drug War and Mexico. |
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Bagpipes11
Joined: 10 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:37 am Post subject: |
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It is time for drugs to be legalized. Prohibition has made the trading of 'drug commodities' so valuable...they are worth killing each other over.
Ounce for ounce, marijuana (one of the cheapest illegal drugs) is worth more than gold.
With the United States of America basically having a pharmaceutical industry that is worth more than a trillion dollars a year....they will continue to lobby congress and lawmakers to keep drugs illegal. Why would they want a competing product?
On the same token, what would be the need for such elaborate federal budgets on law enforcement if the drug trade were legal. This gives Law Enforcement the incentive to keep drugs illegal.
Lawyers and prosecutors also have incentive for drugs to remain illegal. If it was legal to possess drugs, there would be no chance of arrest, therefore no chance of persecution and no need for a lawyer.
The jails are full and the treasury is empty. Prohibition of alcohol ended during the Great Depression and public works such as the Hoover Dam emerged, putting thousands back to work. (WWII provided alot of jobs too).
Will marijuana see a similar fate as alcohol did in the thirties? Not likely. Lobbyists from pharmaceutical companies are too rich and powerful. If you want to see 'Democracy' work better...lobbying should be illegal. Lobbyists are motivated by self interest and not the greater good of society. We have to make politicians accountable to those in their riding, not to the lobbyist with the biggest checkbook. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Watch The Wire. Season 3 addresses legalization. |
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the_wicker_man
Joined: 14 Jan 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 7:49 pm Post subject: |
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As a fellow Catholic, I am allowed the analogous n-word utterance toward fellow Catholics. That would be the c-word or more rightly "corruption". The church teaches Latin America ethics, that is difference between right and wrong and they are doing a poor job. Just because Americans consume drugs doesn't someone has to provide the drugs. No one is forced to do that.
Will legalization really do anything? I think the corruption will just move to another area. The end of prohibition stopped the related crime but now we have drunken driving and bad health effects of alcohol. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 7:11 am Post subject: |
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| the_wicker_man wrote: |
Will legalization really do anything? I think the corruption will just move to another area. The end of prohibition stopped the related crime but now we have drunken driving and bad health effects of alcohol. |
You are assuming consumption of coke, H etc would increase. Likely not. Ergo, we already have the health and other social effects. But we also have the horrible drug crime.
BBum, The Wire did it best. It is also Obama's favorite show, and his favorite character was Omar (the gay drug dealer). I think he knows the deal. But what he is able to do is a whole other story. |
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loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Bagpipes11 wrote: |
Ounce for ounce, marijuana (one of the cheapest illegal drugs) is worth more than gold.
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Who are you buying ur drugs off of? I think ur gettin ripped off dude.
Well, I suppose an ounce of hash, and certainly premo buds, costs more than an ounce of gold in Korea.
But anywhere else? |
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