Wilderness: Expansion and (Unlawful) Beneficiary Use

The Westerner ^ | Oct. 3, 2010 | Stephen L. Wilmeth

[AuntB]

The Battle of Juarez is showing signs that the good guys are not prevailing. The Juarez newspaper, El Diario de Juarez, has cried uncle in its mixed stance of reporting the progress of the war. In the front page editorial that appeared recently, the editor waved the white flag and asked the cartels publicly what they want from him. The murder of a photographer and another reporter in the recent past are hitting far too close to home for him to continue to be a brave purveyor of the truth.

In a city ravaged by nearly 7,000 deaths since 2006 and the loss of as many as 40% of its businesses, the fear of the cartels is not a surprise. The only question the El Diario should have asked is should it be uncle or tio and should it be capitalized?

Can any American imagine the chaos that would occur in the United States if a city the size of Detroit had experienced the loss of 40% of its businesses and suffered twice the number of casualties that occurred on 9/11? Similarly, can any logical American buy the administration’s premise that border cities are safer than they have been in years?

Numbers never lie, but liars are gifted with numbers, right? Perhaps the logical place to be looking these days is not in the cities, but in the country where conflicting governmental policies and agendas have created physical voids now overrun with lawlessness.

The symptoms are not new

Retired Border Patrol officer, Zack Taylor, has a simple, logical point. “Nature abhors a vacuum. In the case of wilderness on the border, when you lock out or prohibit ordinary law enforcement activities in an area you invite illegal activity and create a safe haven for the criminal to operate.”

Mr. Taylor’s point is best exemplified not on the Mexican border, but in places inland like the Mendocino National Forest in California. How long ago did we first hear fragmented stories about the growth of marijuana businesses in those remote, federally controlled lands? It was years ago and that problem hasn’t gone away. In fact, within the last week Americans have been exposed to more news coverage of the same topic in California and Colorado many miles from the border. The question must be asked, “Where else is it happening and what is causing the problem?”

The answer to what is causing the problem is simple. The environmental movement and the cooperating and coordinating policies of federal land management agencies have created geographical vacuums where illegal activities are allowed to exist and expand. In the case of the most dangerous vacuums, those near the border, control has been seized by Mexican drug cartels. In the case of inland voids, the operational control is shared variously, but cartel influence there is expanding alarmingly.

The most dangerous sector

The most dangerous Border Patrol Sector is the Tucson Sector. Not long ago, the Tucson Sector was known as the sector where not much happened. It was in El Paso and San Diego that bad things happened.

A change in that situation started when then Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar and El Paso Sector Chief Sylvestre Reyes conceived the idea of “Hold the Line” that returned Border Patrol agents to the border. It was there, where in Reyes’ words, “(they) could look the illegals in the eyes” that they successfully stemmed the flow of illegals that were taking over El Paso.

The Hold the Line success carried over into a similar operation in the urban centers of southern California. It was there that the El Paso lessons were combined with stadium lighting and other high tech gadgetry to stem that tide of illegal immigration.

"Few could have predicted that the agenda of the environmental movement and the actions of the federal land management agencies would create a perfect conduit for the pipeline of drug flow into the United States."

It was in southern Arizona where similar actions failed. When the tactics were tried at Nogales, the illegal immigrants found the security of wilderness and administrative safe havens which allowed them to evade CBP surveillance and interdiction. Human and drug smuggling routes were altered and the El Paso, San Diego, and Yuma Sectors were no longer the preferred points of entry. That remains the case today.

Over the last 10 years, the Tucson Sector has had more investment by CBP than any other sector, but the facts suggest that progress has not only failed to match the success of other sectors the conditions have deteriorated. In 2009, nearly half of marijuana interdiction on the entire American border occurred in the Tucson Sector. Total drug flows were up and 2010 deaths among illegals will surpass the record death toll of 2005 when 282 bodies were found. This is all at a time when human smuggling is down dramatically.

The wilderness connection

The Fraternal Order of Police has for a number of years published a list of the 10 most dangerous parks. Consistently, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument directly on the Mexican border has been named the most dangerous “park” and it has become the poster child for the danger posed by border wilderness areas. The wilderness danger, though, is no longer just on the border.

Places like Lake Mead and Saguaro West (near Tucson) are now in the annual listings of areas that pose the most danger to the American public. Whereas the former doesn’t have wilderness the latter does. Both have large expanses of territory that make it difficult to maintain a constant law enforcement presence. Taylor’s “vacuum” bubbles up yet again and illegal activity fills that vacuum . . . every time.

Retired Border Patrol Sector Chief, Gene Wood, believes strongly that the border wilderness and safe haven corridors have had a profound effect on expansion of the drug trade. “We are continuing to recognize the impact these border corridors have had on not only Arizona, but the entire United States. When you interdict nearly half the marijuana intercepted across this country on just this border section, you must realize the implications of that. This border area has become the preferred point of entry. It is not only dangerous it has become an open wound in the American fight against drugs. It has affected the entire nation.”

Joe Dreyfuss, a fifth generation Arizonan, hosts a radio talk show from Tucson on Sunday evenings. In a recent show, Mr. Dreyfuss commented on hunting in the Chiracahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. “I have hunted a particular area in those mountains on and off for 30 years and I will no longer hunt there. Local friends (ranchers) know where two permanent (drug) spotter locations are on a particular ridge and those guys are armed with night vision and automatic weapons. I will not hunt under conditions like that.”

Similar comments are made by a growing number of folks. Former Chief of Flight Operations, Border Patrol, Richard Hays, talks similarly about the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge area. “I used to hunt down there and love that country, but I wouldn’t hunt there now on a bet. It is overrun with cartel activity. It is a dangerous place.”

The observations of Taylor, Wood, Dreyfuss, Hays and others who have lived their lives and spent entire careers on the border are attempting to sound the alarm, and yet the lessons are being ignored by the leadership that represents the folks who are most affected.

In New Mexico, wilderness legislation introduced by Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall include border areas that duplicate Arizona conditions. If CBP enforcement activity is altered and constrained, there is every reason to believe that the same corridor expansion will occur on those lands. The Taylor vacuum will be introduced and the cartels will find the seam.

Federal land management connection

Few could have predicted that the agenda of the environmental movement and the actions of the federal land management agencies would create a perfect conduit for the pipeline of drug flow into the United States. The designation of wilderness seemed like an honorable and harmless endeavor except to the few Americans who were unfortunate enough to have duties, responsibilities, and private property rights in its footprint. Congressional leadership agreed and federal legislation was enacted.

Meanwhile, the drug trade was moved from Columbia to Mexico. The turf war that ensued escalated as the corridor growth into the lucrative United States market was developed. The urban centers were the initial ports of entry but that changed when American wilderness areas were discovered. The corridors created there allowed unlimited expansion of business and the turf war erupted into a revolution to control drug movement. Juarez became one of the primary battle grounds.

Today, the environmental groups and the cartels have a continuing mutual interest in the land. The wilderness areas and the large federally managed lands offer opportunities for each. To the environmental camp, the designation of wilderness remains the gold standard for preserving lands into perpetuity. To the cartel camp, the designation of wilderness is continuing to be the gold standard for delivering drugs across the border onto American sovereign territory.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. In his work on current border issues, he is becoming more convinced that the escalation of the First Mexican Revolution of the 21st Century has been expanded because of a similar expansion of the drug trade created by the Arizona smuggling corridors.

“The Arizona Class corridors have created direct access onto sovereign American soil for the drug cartels while the United States Congress has played politics”.

Also see the following by Mr. Wilmeth:

Wilderness: Expansion and (Lawful) Beneficiary Use

Wilderness’ Economic Revolution – Catron County

And then, there were 10, but still no Champion

The Arizona Smuggling Corridors

[AuntB]

Two 5-gallon backpack sprayers were used to spray pesticides directly on the buds of marijuana plants, California officials said. Toxic chemicals are just one of the problems in national forests, where drug cartels have infiltrated to grow illegal crops

This photo is from a few years back. But ties well into the above article. The irony seems lost on the liberals and McCain wing of the GOP, who claim to 'protect the environment', while pushing for more 'wilderness' (Thank you UN agenda 21!), and more illegal immigation year after year.

Mexican pot cartels sully U.S. forests, parks Wilderness areas polluted by toxins, pesticides used in marijuana trade

Oct. 2008

PORTERVILLE, Calif. — National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals used to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said.

The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast's Cascade Mountains to federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 — and authorities say the 1,800-square-mile Sequoia National Forest is the hardest hit.

Weed and bug sprays, some long banned in the U.S., have been smuggled to the marijuana farms. Plant growth hormones have been dumped into streams, and the water has then been diverted for miles in PVC pipes.

Rat poison has been sprinkled over the landscape to keep animals away from tender plants. And many sites are strewn with the carcasses of deer and bears poached by workers during the five-month growing season that is now ending.

"What's going on on public lands is a crisis at every level," said Forest Service agent Ron Pugh.[snip]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27134226/

[AuntB]

This is one of the best articles on the subject of property rights and organized Mexican crime I’ve seen.

“Few could have predicted that the agenda of the environmental movement and the actions of the federal land management agencies would create a perfect conduit for the pipeline of drug flow into the United States. The designation of wilderness seemed like an honorable and harmless endeavor except to the few Americans who were unfortunate enough to have duties, responsibilities, and private property rights in its footprint. Congressional leadership agreed and federal legislation was enacted.

The urban centers were the initial ports of entry but that changed when American wilderness areas were discovered. The corridors created there allowed unlimited expansion of business and the turf war erupted into a revolution to control drug movement. “

Today, the environmental groups and the cartels have a continuing mutual interest in the land. The wilderness areas and the large federally managed lands offer opportunities for each. To the environmental camp, the designation of wilderness remains the gold standard for preserving lands into perpetuity. To the cartel camp, the designation of wilderness is continuing to be the gold standard for delivering drugs across the border onto American sovereign territory.”

Several more stories, photos here:
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Armed Mexican Cartels take more US land, resources
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2010/10/armed-mexican-cartels-take-more-us-land.html

[HiJinx]

Ping!

[stephenjohnbanker]

Yhanks for the great info!

[tiki]

And right here on the New Mexico, Texas, Mexico border they are putting a huge chunk of land into wilderness soon. It is already the middle of nowhere but the agents can get around on 4-wheelers but when they put it in wilderness they will no longer be able to get in there.

[AuntB]

“And right here on the New Mexico, Texas, Mexico border they are putting a huge chunk of land into wilderness soon. It is already the middle of nowhere but the agents can get around on 4-wheelers but when they put it in wilderness they will no longer be able to get in there”

Indeed! Thank you.

BLM document reveals big change in federal land management

Bad news. This has huge implications.

Look into Deep Ecology for why.

People should also be aware of this bill:

HR 5101, the Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act, incorporates the legislative provisions of Section 481 of HR 2454 (the House version of the climate bill) and Section 6009 of the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill draft. These sections authorize a wildlife corridors information system. HR 5101 builds on this with implementation programs, mostly to be housed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Funding mechanisms and public-private structures are included. The bill has been referred to the House Natural Resources Committee.

This bill is intended to lead to the formal creation of several continental-scale wildlife corridor systems that include core habitat, connectivity, and buffer systems. Please read it carefully and spend some time considering what its passage would mean to your livelihood and interests.

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2565662/posts?page=2#2

[AuntB]

" Today, the environmental groups and the cartels have a continuing mutual interest in the land. The wilderness areas and the large federally managed lands offer opportunities for each. To the environmental camp, the designation of wilderness remains the gold standard for preserving lands into perpetuity. To the cartel camp, the designation of wilderness is continuing to be the gold standard for delivering drugs across the border onto American sovereign territory."

ping!

[mmercier]

years of pesticide sprayed on the weed and the propensity of most leftists to stay stoned could be connected.

perhaps a trillion dollar multiyear study and some brain crossection analysis could shed light.

[AuntB]

More border news today by way of NAFBPO.
http://m3report.wordpress.com/

El Bravo (Matamoros, Tamaulipas) 9/30/10

Seven U.S. citizens and seven Mexicans were arrested by U.S. officials at Hidalgo, Texas, (right across the Rio Grande River from Reynosa, Mexico) while attempting to enter Mexico aboard a bus bound for Mexico City. They were carrying a total of 3.1 million dollars, all undeclared and hidden in at least 17 suitcases and in deflated air mattresses. All seven US citizens were born between 1988 and 1992, while the Mexican citizens’ year of birth ranged from 1959 to 1970

El Bravo (Matamoros, Tamaulipas) 9/30/10

http://www.elbravomatamoros.com/noticias.aspx?seccion=1&noticia=257976

[GladesGuru]

“The future of communism in America will be the environmental movement.” Gus Hall, National Chairman, Communist party USA.

The “Great Unnatural Acts” (Wilderness, Endangered Species, Clean Water, Clean Air) were designed from their inception to further the collectivist/statist goal of destroying American capitalism with socialism.

Largely, they have succeeded.

The cure is simple - repeal the Great UnNatural Acts.

The Constitution does not allow such Federal land ownership or such Federal intrusion into land management.

Remember Paul Johnson’s “If the American experiment in self government fails, that which comes after will be unspeakably worse”.

“Unspeakable” now defiles the White House.

Ditto for all too many CongressCritters.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Border Patrol veterans speak out [Tom Tancredo]
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=210613

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Google Street View captures dead bodies—real ones
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2600687/posts
“Whenever Google sends its Street View cameras to a new country, there is always more revealed than was anticipated. And so is the case with the launch of Google Street View in Brazil. Just a day after the service launched, up popped a couple of corpses. One, on the Avenida Presidente Vargas in Rio, the other in Belo Horizonte. The images, which first reportedly surfaced on Gizmodo Brazil are disturbing because of their apparent normality. They are not in deserted areas, but in places where people and cars can be seen, places where city life just goes on.” [snip]

[KeyLargo]

911 Tape Released in Mexican Pirate Attack on U.S. Couple

Published October 03, 2010 | FoxNews.com

FOX NEWS.COM

A Colorado tourist was shot in the head and thrown from his jet ski as his wife frantically tried to dodge bullets and escape from Mexican pirates marauding on a U.S.-Mexico border lake, according to a transcript from a 911 call released Saturday.

Search teams over the weekend combed the U.S. side of Falcon Lake for David Michael Hartley, 30, whose wife told police he was shot in the the head Thursday after being ambushed by gunmen on boats.

The gunmen are suspected pirates who have turned Falcon Lake, a water-skiing and bass fishing hotspot down the border from Laredo, into uneasy waters for fishermen and boaters. There have been at least five reported run-ins with pirates on the lake this year, though prior holdups had never been deadly.

In a 911 call made to deputies on Thursday, Tiffany Hartley, 29, describes how her husband was thrown off his Jet Ski after he was shot in the back of the head. Hartley told authorities that she was forced to leave her husband in the water as pirates in three boats fired shots at her.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/01/search-teams-seek-man-shot-mexican-waters/print

[AuntB]

“The future of communism in America will be the environmental movement.” Gus Hall, National Chairman, Communist party USA.

The “Great Unnatural Acts” (Wilderness, Endangered Species, Clean Water, Clean Air) were designed from their inception to further the collectivist/statist goal of destroying American capitalism with socialism.”

Exactly!!!

[blackie]

It started with Teddy Roosevelt and has gone downhill ever since.

Be Ever vigilant!

[AuntB]

The Nexus of extreme enviromentalism, Mexican organized crime and congress/president/UN push toward ‘wilderness areds’ is explained in this important article.

Anyone remember those maps of the ‘wilderness corridors’ and other maps of ‘smuggling corridors’? It would be interesting to compare them.

Another article from some time back...I haven’t checked to see if these were voted in or has become part of current law.:

Compliments of Rep. Raul M. Grijalva of Arizona:

Grijalva Wilderness Corridor For Illegals Proposed

You’re not going to believe this. Rep. Raul Grijalva has introduced two bills that could be used to create a virtual free passage highway for illegals and drug smugglers as a fast track into the United States. Rep. Grijalva is Chairman of the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee.

The first bill is the Tumacacori Highland Wilderness Act of 2007 that creates a new Forest Service Wilderness Area in Arizona on the border with Mexico. This bill, HR 3287, creates a new wilderness
area exactly where a major illegal traffic area already exists. Technically the proposed Tumacacori Wilderness Area is not “on the border with Mexico.” It is contiguous with the small, old, Pajarito
Wilderness Area that is directly on the border and links the Pajarito Wilderness Area with Interstate 19 and the Interior of the country.

We call HR 3287 the Open Door Into Our US or ODIOUS Act.

If that was not enough, Rep. Grijalva has also introduced HR 2593 which would shackle the hands of the Border Patrol on Federal lands. Believe it or not, Rep. Grijalva calls HR 2593 The Borderlands Conservation and Security Act of 2007.

HR 2593 is full of cute phrasing and words to throw the reader off as to its true intent. But you might as well just handcuff the Border Patrol on all Federal lands all along the Mexican Border. This bill will have a huge impact on illegal traffic if Congress should pass it. It even blocks the building of a fence along the border.

We call HR 2593 the Handcuff Our Border Law Enforcement Act or HOBLE Act.

These two bills might be called the missing link in the corridor where illegals and drug smugglers will be protected and the Border Patrol handcuffed.

By passing these two bills, Congress will create a massive area open to illegals and vastly strangle the ability of law enforcement and the Border Patrol to fight drug importation and illegal immigration.

You should be outraged. You must take action.

See another perspective at: http://www.icmj2.com/RecentNews/Tumacacori.htm

AN EXCERPT FROM THAT WEBSITE:

Under this proposal Hunters would lose the use of the roads and jeep trails that allow them to reach base camps and to recover harvested game. The Arizona Game and Fish Department would also lose the use of the closed roads that are needed for enforcement actions of hunting and fishing regulations.

The proposed wilderness area and the closure of roads and jeep trails will halt the ability of the United States Border Patrol to protect this country. The wilderness would use the United States and Mexico Border as its southern boundary and would provide an open and lawless corridor for drug runners, coyotes, illegal immigrants and foreign terrorists intent on operating within the United States.

http://www.outragedpatriots.com/Grijalva%20Wildlife%20Corridor%20Propasal.htm

[AuntB]

Figure 1 A depiction of what the Wildlands Project might have required if the Convention on Biological Diversity was fully implemented according to recommendations by the UN funded Global Biodiversity Assessment. The red areas are wilderness reserves and corridors and the yellow areas buffer zones. An earlier version of this map was used to stop the ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity in the U.S. Senate. (Used by permission from Environmental Perspectives Incorporated, Bangor Maine)

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.freedom21.

[snip]A companion to Agenda 21 and the Biodiversity Treaty is the United Nations-funded Global Biodiversity Assessment (GBA). The United Nations contracted the World Resources Institute to write the GBA to provide the justification and implementation strategies for Biodiversity Treaty. To protect biodiversity, claims the GBA:

Representative areas of all major ecosystems in a region need to be reserved, that [reserved] blocks should be as large as possible, that buffer zones should be established around core areas and that corridors should connect these areas. This basic design is central to the Wildlands Project in the United States (Noss, 1992), a controversial ... strategy ... to expand natural habitats and corridors to cover as much as 30% of the U.S. land area.2

Wildlands Project Map Figure 1 A depiction of what the Wildlands Project might have required if the Convention on Biological Diversity was fully implemented according to recommendations by the UN funded Global Biodiversity Assessment. The red areas are wilderness reserves and corridors and the yellow areas buffer zones. An earlier version of this map was used to stop the ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity in the U.S. Senate. (Used by permission from Environmental Perspectives Incorporated, Bangor Maine)

The reference to Noss, in turn, states that the Wildlands Project requires that:

One half of the land area of the 48 conterminous [United] States be encompassed in core [wilderness] reserves and inner corridor zones (essentially extensions of core reserves) within the next few decades... Half of a region in wilderness is a reasonable guess of what it will take to restore ... natural disturbance regimes, assuming that most of the other 50 percent is managed intelligently as buffer zone.... Eventually, a wilderness network would dominate a region and thus would itself constitute the matrix, with human habitations being the islands.3 org/alternative/us_wild_color_web.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.freedom21.org/alternative/chapter2.html&usg=__5S3i1ToCOX01y7L9JHAFI4HRNgM=&h=182&w=288&sz=44&hl=en&start=4&zoom=0&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=kQuPYN5HVmmXRM:&tbnh=73&tbnw=115&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmap%2Bunited%2Bnations%2Bwilderness%2Bcorridors%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DG%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26tbs%3Disch:1

[blackie]

Bring the troops home who are stationed in all of the counties around the world, put them on the borders and this insanity will stop.

They’re getting paid.

They may be as be doing something useful!

Be Ever Vigilant!

[MileHi]

What a nightmare.

Thanks for the link

[dixiechick2000]

““The future of communism in America will be the environmental movement.” Gus Hall, National Chairman, Communist party USA.

The “Great Unnatural Acts” (Wilderness, Endangered Species, Clean Water, Clean Air) were designed from their inception to further the collectivist/statist goal of destroying American capitalism with socialism.”

It was said for many years that the new “Hitler” will come from the environmental movement.

I put “Hitler” in quotes because it’s what has been said before...and not from me.*

The Constitution has been defiled in so many ways.

I hope we are on the cusp of returning it to it’s rightful place in America.

*Mods...if you feel that you need to pull this post because I mentioned Hitler, please feel free to do so.