America's Mexican Border Wars

[David Guyatt]

Indeed Tosh, and the story has now reached the ears of the BBC eh.

[Tosh Plumlee]

Indeed Tosh, and the story has now reached the ears of the BBC eh.

Yes, I know. Also the French has picked up on it also. However, the mainstream American media has not, and will not... they have been told to "backoff" The AIG and the economy is the only important news today.

I see it as a deversion to keep our eye on one matter so as not to expose the sins of another. If you go to far into this drug war then a whole can of past worms will be opened up. You don't hear to much talk about the old Savings and Loan and BCCI scandel of years past... wonder where Neal Bush is these days? I will be gone for a few days and not available, but hope to return with more "before the fact" information...

[Peter Lemkin]

Good work Tosh. I'm sure the MSM will not cover this much and only for a day, if at all....they'll find or invent some other story that is pure circus or a diversion. You are absolutely correct on the other bank scandals - vanished into thin air, along with all the money. One could add Nugan-Hand, the gold from WW2 both in Germany and Japan and others. It is like a grand magic act.

[David Guyatt]

Ah, Neil Bush, plunderer of Silverado Savings & Loan. Nice chap. Great wavy hair. Serious demeanour. Toothy grin. Crooked eyes.

Drug dealer eh?

[Tosh Plumlee]

New Border fence between Mexico and New Mexico at mile mark 124 half way between Columbus New Mexico and El Paso Texas. Your $$$ at work.

Shell casings found at murder site in Mexico south of Juarez MX

Notice the old barb war fence behind monument. That was the old fence before the new three foot high iron fence was installed last year. This is a drug runners crossover point, between Columbus New Mexico and El Paso Texas.... mile marker 124 about one mile south of NM Highway 09.

Its still in use today. 'same ole-- same ole'. It is a very dangerous place at night. More than one person has met their end-- three hundred feet from the monument. The old car was shot up a few years ago. Three people were gunned down next to the car. The old car is now used to hide drugs, until they are picked up and transported north. The saddle in the mountain five miles north of the border was used as a stagging area for the drug runners for a number of years. It is said by BP that it is still in use.

(3rd picture from the left, you can still see part of the old fence in the center right of the picture. Its a two strand barb wire.

notes used to be left on the fence by the drug runners and the coyoties that controled this area. The Border Patrol would not go near this place, to dangerous and they were under staffed... still are.

As the pictures show, it is a desolate place and still very dangerous. You can be walking along and then suddenly the sand kicks up in front of you and in the back from automatic weaponds... a warning to clear out.... I always did.

(more to come)

[David Guyatt]

Just the place to covertly insert SpecForces I would've thought? That is if there is a genuine will to do something positive about the drug running in this area.

[Tosh Plumlee]

Crossover point for drug smugglers between MX and New Mexico. This new iron fence will keep them and others out of the USA. The old fence (on the right) did not do this. In the center picture is the old fence before Dec. 08. I feel a lot more safe now.

[Magda Hassan]

Yep. That will do it.

Well, Tosh, it's all fixed now. You can come home and relax safe in the knowledge that the barbarians will not be able to breech the defenses.

[Tosh Plumlee]

A FAILED DRUG WAR'S RISING BODY COUNT
by Debra J. Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle

"The war on drugs is a failure," the former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month. "Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalization simply haven't worked," Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Cesar Gaviria and Ernesto Zedillo wrote.

In Mexico, an estimated 6,290 drug-related murders occurred last year. On Feb. 20, Roberto Orduna Cruz had to resign as chief of police of Cuidad Juarez after drug traffickers announced they would kill a police officer for every 48 hours Orduna remained on the job - and made good on the threat. As Cardoso, Gaviria and Zedillo warned, "The alarming power of the drug cartels is leading to a criminalization of politics and a politicization of crime." Their countries have received billions in U.S. aid for drug interdiction, yet the former presidents suggested "the possibility of decriminalizing the possession of cannabis for personal use."

Now that baby step is big. They should have used the l-word, legalize, as decriminalizing drugs would leave trafficking and big profits under the control of violent cartels. But as Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, figures, "decriminalization is often used as a euphemism for legalization," in part because voters perceive legalization as complete lawlessness, when it should entail regulation "by a state by state basis and a drug-by-drug basis."

Which is why Norm Stamper, the former Seattle police chief, now speaks for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. He grew up in San Diego and has spent a lot of time in Mexico. "I love the country and it's heartbreaking to see what's happening, when we know there's a solution for it," Stamper told me. "There's a simple but profound stroke that can drive the cartels and the street traffickers out of business - end the prohibition model and replace it with a regulatory model."

On March 7, the Economist resumed its call for an end to the war on drugs: "Prohibition has failed; legalization is the best solution." Noting that more then 800 Mexican police officers and soldiers were killed since December 2006, the editorial noted, "Indeed, far from reducing crime, prohibition has fostered gangsterism on a scale that the world has never seen before."

Thursday, CNN anchor Rob Marciano read parts of the Economist piece to Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Garden Grove ( Orange County ), then asked her about legalizing drugs. Sanchez responded ( please bear with this quote, it's a bit garbled ), "Certainly there is one drug - it's called alcohol - that we prohibited in the United States and had such a problem with, as far as underground economy and cartels of that sort, that we ended up actually regulating it and taxing it. And so, there has always been this thought that maybe if we do that with drugs, it would lower the profits in it and make some of this go away."

San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has introduced a bill to legalize and tax and regulate, "the state's largest cash crop" - which would help with Sacramento's chronic budget shortfalls. I think it's fair to assume that if the bill passed, California would see an increase in marijuana use - which is not good - but a decrease in drug profits and violence - which is good.

At a House panel hearing last week, Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., figured $15 billion to $25 billion in annual profits from U.S. drug sales bankroll Mexican cartels purchases of guns from America. "The profits and guns - and drug precursors in some cases - then find their way back across the border to Mexico and fuel the increasing violence."

Sterling said of the violence in Mexico, it "is not senseless. It's very deliberate. The reason the violence becomes more gruesome is because it's murder as message. It's an attempt to intimidate the government to make the government the way it used to be."

Sidney Weintraub of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told The Chronicle that 40 percent of Mexico's drug sales are marijuana. "What we have to do is change our policy and decriminalize marijuana."

Think the l-word, instead, to put more kingpins out of business. Except that to question the drug war is to risk losing tax money. When the El Paso, Texas, City Council passed a resolution calling for "open, honest, national dialogue on ending the prohibition of narcotics," state and national politicians threatened to withhold government funds. The Associated Press reported on a letter by five Democratic state representatives warned that the resolution "does not bring the right attention to El Paso. It says, 'We give up and we don't care.' " The El Paso mayor vetoed the measure and it died.

I'd say that to not ask if prohibition actually works is give up and not care.

Now here's a moral question: How many Mexican police officers have to die because American parents believe that U.S. drug laws will keep their teenagers from doing something their kids may or may not do whether it is or isn't legal?

Follow-up question: Will parents feel safer if the drug cartel violence moves north? (end)

US OR: Column: The Drug War Body Count

Bend Weekly, 16 Mar 2009 -
The war on drugs is a failure Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Cesar Gaviria and Ernesto Zedillo - the former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico - wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month. "Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalization . simply haven't worked", they wrote. In Mexico, an estimated 6,290 drug-related murders occurred last year. On Feb. 20, Roberto Orduna Cruz had to resign as chief of police of Cuidad Juarez after drug traffickers announced they would kill a police officer for every 48 hours Orduna remained on the job - and made good on the threat.

As Cardoso, Gaviria and Zedillo warned, "The alarming power of the drug cartels is leading to a criminalization of politics and a politicization of crime... Their countries have received billions in U.S. aid for drug interdiction, yet the former presidents suggested the possibility of decriminalizing the possession of cannabis for personal use...".

(end)

Another successful battle in the War on Drugs?

September 17, 2008

This morning the US Department of Justice trumpeted a press release about its September 16, 2008 arrests.

"175 Alleged Gulf Cartel Members and Associates Arrested in Massive International Law Enforcement Operation"

“'Project Reckoning", leads to the Seizure of $60 Million American dollars and More Than 40 Tons of Illegal Drugs From One of Mexico’s largest Drug Trafficking Cartels"

DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart said, "We successfully completed a hard-hitting, coordinated and massive assault on the powerful and extremely violent Gulf Cartel. We have arrested U.S. cell heads, stripped the cartel of $60 million in cash, imprisoned their brutal assassins and significantly disrupted their U.S. infrastructure.”

But as reported in today’s New York Times article, "Blasts Kill 7 at Independence Day Celebration in Mexican President's Hometown," by Marc Lacey, the drug lords were not long in retaliating. By 11 p.m. last night there were seven dead and over a hundred injured in hand grenade attacks. The war on the drug cartels in Mexico and their supported mexican gangs, is spreading north toward the borders of Mexico and the United States. (end)

[Peter Lemkin]

Uncle Sam and his rich buddies are all addicted to the profits of the Drug Trade and only make stage gestures about trying to control it....what they really try to 'control' is who gets the profits and who does not. The 'War' also serves to control certain aspects of the Public and give a 'wartime' atmosphere in which they can control and take 'wartime' measures. Its a fake War - in fact one on which 'we' are really fighting on the 'other side'.