Posted on 02/17/2009 1:25:56 PM PST by AuntB
Responding to fears of escalating violence in Mexico that could spill over the border into Texas and other states, the U.S. government has stepped up law enforcement.
Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration agents were sent to shore up local law enforcement, and to their credit the violence has not spread to those communities and regions. In fact, El Paso — just across the border from Ciudad Juarez, which ranks as one of the most dangerous places in the world — is ranked as one of the safest cities in the United States.
Unfortunately, the stepped-up enforcement in border cities hasn’t kept Mexican drug-cartel violence from the United States. It simply moved it.
Today, cities far afield from the southern border face increasing violence from the cartels. As far north as Sioux Falls, S.D., and Anchorage, Alaska; east to Atlanta; west to you name it, the drug cartels have taken up residence. The Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center says that 230 U.S. cities are home to drug cartel activity.
The United States has not yet seen the beheadings and police executions that are commonplace in many Mexican cities, but the violence is escalating.
Phoenix experienced more than 300 kidnappings last year resulting from cartel drug activity. Five men in Birmingham, Ala., were found with their throats slit after obvious torture by electric shock. The incident list goes on and on.
Mexican authorities have stepped up their interdiction efforts, as have U.S. agencies, but it hasn’t been enough. In fact, the U.S. Joint Forces Command issued a report in recent days that places Mexico on the same level as Pakistan in terms of the risk of potential collapse of the government.
Investigative agencies have determined that the Mexican cartels, at war with each other as well as law enforcement, have ties to Italian organized crime.
All this is fed, of course, by the demand for drugs in this country. At stake for the cartels is $28.5 billion in drug sales in this country.
With that much money at stake, and with nothing to lose back home, the cartels are likely to do anything to hold onto their turf. The cartels have now armed themselves with everything from automatic weapons to rocket launchers.
The answer, of course, is multifaceted. Demand for drugs must be reduced. Law enforcement resources including people and equipment must be augmented. And international cooperation must be continued and improved.
Easy to say, but more difficult to achieve. The cost will be enormous.
Yet the alternative — all-out warfare in the streets of the nation’s cities — is not something that can be permitted to occur.
ALSO....another agent in a shootout with a drug smuggler...this smuggler LOST.
Border Patrol Agent shoots supected smuggler By Ray Gomez
Story Created: Feb 16, 2009
Story Updated: Feb 16, 2009 An alleged smuggler is shot after he tries to flee from border patrol agents. It happened close to the I-35 checkpoint. The incident happened at around eleven last night at mile marker 35. According to Border Patrol, agents were patrolling the area when they saw 10 illegal immigrants getting into an SUV. When the agents tried to apprehend the illegal aliens and the smuggler, they got a big surprise. "A suspected smuggler made an attempt to run over our agent using his vehicle as a weapon. Realizing the threat the agent drew his weapon and discharged his service weapon." The agent shot the smuggler in the upper torso. The suspect was transported to Doctors hospital as well as the agent. The agent was treated and released this morning and doing well. The FBI is now investigating the case.
http://www.pro8news.com/news/local/39679797.html
Here’s a conservative solution:
1. Legalize the drugs. Tax the hell out of them.
2. Abolish the beaurocracy surrounding them.
We’d get:
1. tax revenues
2. this crime would dry up in seconds
(And no, I don’t do drugs. Never have, never will. I just am pissed we’re wasting tax money on trying to protect morons while turning the southwest USA into a free-fire zone.)
Should dumped the perp at the border for the Federalis to deal with.
Recognizing that the barn door was wide open, the US Government is considering serious discussions about closing it.
And the libtards would be too stoned to vote. Diabolical.
The failed drug war is a failure. End it.
Which is of course the very reason it will never, ever be implemented.
L
Whatever works.
The turning point for me emotionally on the War on Drugs was when I had the flu and couldn’t but Sudafed (because, apparently morons turn it into some drug). I realized restricting Sudafed has done nothing but making people with the flu amazing pissed off.
The turning point for me logically was on the War on Drugs was when:
(1) I realized how much money was spent and
(2) how the Netherland’s drug use rates have dropped to 1/2 of the USA drug use rates with several years of legalization.
Exactly why we need the military on the border with shoot to kill orders.
BUILD A DOUBLE FENCE WITH A MOAT!
A-10s and armed predator drones would help too.
defcon 2?
Get in line Mexico. Obrother can only handle one issue at the time, and even that is pushing it.
You are right on target, sir!
Wait to see what happens.
I am split on this but since so MANY teens think there is nothing wrong with Weed I am troubled about the quality of weed they are procuring for their personal use. It could be laced with crystal meth or some other dangerous drugs without their knowledge. This could be the prime reason that it is such a “gateway” drug. The dealer would want to get the kids “hooked” without their knowledge.
Sure, I’m all for it as long as I have the power to use unbridled deadly force without criminal liability to protect myself, family and property from a surge of stoners driving the streets and highways puffing on and sucking down legal and tax evading black market drugs.
The current DUI and self-defense laws address those issues quite well, I think.
Contamination is certainly an issue, which presumably would be resolved by eager trial lawyers happy to sue an above-board, legal, supplier of pot for a defective product.
Protecting the border comes first. We can worry about drugs later.
COOL!
The Pure Food and Drug Act adresses that concern quite well I think.
Besides when was the last time you heard about Budweiser contaminated their product with Bourbon in order to hook drinkers on something 'harder'?
Come to think of it Bud puts rice in their beer, so I do suppose anything is possible.
L
I assumed a rational meaning in your first post. Sorry.
My mistake.
No, no will never work....makes MUCH too much sense!
Unfortunately, the two issues are inexorably intertwined. Certainly, properly securing the border will go a long way towards mitigating the flow of drugs from down south.
“Unfortunately, the two issues are inexorably intertwined. Certainly, properly securing the border will go a long way towards mitigating the flow of drugs from down south.”
Plus a fence & armed patrols would be stopping them from coming up here to grow in the national forests and parks and brew meth in the off season. All the meth ingredients are coming out of Mexico. They import the stuff by the barrel.
I agree and I think we agree that step one is securing the border to get the situation under control on our end.
I’m ok with marijuana legalization but pot smokers will still scream about oppression when they see the laundry list of laws that will arise to deal with it.
In other words, let us become like the drug dealers in aiding a abetting the death of our youth. I have a better idea. Let’s have a real drug war and start executing drug dealers. That would be a real war and I suspect have quite a curb on the dealers who are destroying the youth of this nation.
Retreat is not an option.
Allowing the enemy to stride victoriously across our nation is what the traitorous left wants.
We need a surge in the war on drugs.
We need to take the fight to the enemy, and fight them over there so we won't have to fight them here.
“In other words, let us become like the drug dealers in aiding a abetting the death of our youth.”
Actually, the drug use in the countries that have decriminalized drugs drops.
http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/67
For example, the Netherlands, has HALF the rate of drug use that the USA.
When I was up in the UP last June we asked a park ranger about wandering off the trails a bit. He said it was OK if we did but asked if we knew what pot plants looked like and warned us to back away from them and report it if we found any.
Even in the far north they’re growing it in the national and state forests.
I did not know WF Buckley realized the futility of the drug war.
It’s a waste of money, time, and freedom to try to save morons from themselves.
“
When I was up in the UP last June we asked a park ranger about wandering off the trails a bit. He said it was OK if we did but asked if we knew what pot plants looked like and warned us to back away from them and report it if we found any.
Even in the far north they’re growing it in the national and state forests”
I’m drawing a blank...where is UP?
Here’s more on this with lots of photos of these cartel grows. Our sheriff tells us...stay out of the woods...hard to do when you live there!
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/search?q=invasion+800+miles
The Mexican border has moved 800 miles north- On Lou Dobbs Tonight!
I’ve found it all over my ranch along the river. Cultivated areas. I just call the Sherriff and send him the GPS location.
I figure one of my hands will get shot hunting a lost cow someday.
I don’t see prostitute wars being fought all over my country.
Upper Penninsua of Michigan.
“very people you would like to legitimize”
Huh? The scum would be crushed out of the market in a second.
Phillip-Morris, Altria Group, Reynolds American and Lorillard would take over the market and distribution.
Your answer to the war on drugs is to surrender to the enemy. It's nothing but utopian liberal-tarian fantasy which would turn our nation into one big needle park. Then you could sit back and feel superior to all those "morons."
While thinking of Phillip Morris, think about Busch, Coors, Miller Brewing and the like.
Don’t see many Chicago mobsters running them, do you?
Same would happen with legalization.
The underbelly only can survive due to the black market created by government regulation.
“Who would control the black market?”
What black market? It’d be sold above-board.
“Who would American corporations do business with?”
Farmers, just like they do with tobacco.
“Where would they get the drugs that they would get rich selling to Americans?”
Farmers, just like they do with tobacco.
What would happen is that the government would tax the drugs like they tax tobacco. Government would become a drug-pusher, getting rich off of the destruction of the American people and their enslavement to the interests of foreign terrorists who control the Coca and Poppy fields. It wouldn’t be a libertarian or conservative solution at all, but a socialist one. People who value freedom and love their country would fight such an evil drug-pusher government.
I guess one man's terrorist is another man's "farmer."
Doesn’t happen with alcohol or tobacco, and they are taxed similarly.
Truth is, studies show drug use declines when legalized. Happens everywhere where tried.
We’ve lost the social control experiment known as the drug war.
In the process, we’ve spent more than WWII, built a secret police that Obama will use against us, created massive violence in the US Southwest, FUNDED TERRORISTS (Taliban get their $$ from drug sales), and destablized the entire southern portion of the Western Hemisphere.
Yeah, let’s do MORE!
“The black market that would be there so people could avoid paying exorbitant “sin taxes” on their drugs.”
Yeah, I see all them rum-runners trying to outrun the rev-e-newers all day. Why, Beau and Luke Duke just got away from Boss Hogg.
Pffft. Just not going to happen.
Instead of declaring failure and surrendering to our enemies, I offer another solution, destroying them. We should fight a real drug war in Colombia and Afghanistan and win it, instead of playing defense fighting an unwinnable war on the streets of America.
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