Please Freepmail me to be added to the Ollie North ping list.
Posted on 08/20/2009 9:13:23 PM PDT by jazusamo
WASHINGTON — Last week's brief "Three Amigos" summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, has been all but forgotten in the growing storm over "health care reform." That may be what the three North American heads of state, Presidents Felipe Calderon and Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, wanted. All three leaders did their best to ignore the skunk at their picnic — the serious threat posed to all of us by narco-terrorism. If comments after the confab reflect their thinking, thousands of dead and wounded at the hands of violent drug cartels warrant less attention than the "threat" of global warming and the H1N1 virus.
In his closing statement at the summit, Calderon devoted one sentence, just 43 words, to stopping "the traffic of weapons and of money that go from north to south that strengthen and nourish organized crime gangs." Harper, who spoke first in French and then in English, said that Canada "recognizes the courageous commitment taken by President Calderon to combat organized crime in Mexico." In English, he substituted "drug traffickers" for "organized crime." That was it.
Mr. Obama did better, noting that the three leaders "resolved to continue confronting the urgent threat to our common security from the drug cartels that are causing so much violence and death in our countries." He went on to assure that "Mexico has the support it needs to dismantle and defeat the cartels," emphasizing "our commitment to reduce the demand for drugs" and promising "to stem the illegal southbound flow of American guns and cash that helps fuel this extraordinary violence."
There is considerable dispute about how much the "flow of American guns" contributes to the carnage, but there is no doubt that the phrase "extraordinary violence" is dead on the mark. On Aug. 11, just one day after the Guadalajara summit, Mexican police in Sinaloa arrested a cartel "hit man" and four other suspects and announced that they had thwarted yet another attempt to assassinate President Calderon. Since then, violence in Mexico has spiked.
For the past three months, our Fox News' "War Stories" team has been investigating how drugs, money and narco-terror are connected. What we saw and documented — from the Andean basin, in South America, to Mexico to deep into the American heartland — is a chilling story that has been widely ignored by the so-called mainstream media.
Since January 2007, a staggering 11,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico. That's more than double the number of Americans killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. Savage gunfights among heavily armed drug cartels have spiraled out of control and threaten to spill across the U.S.-Mexico border. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, narco-terrorists connected to Mexican drug cartels already have infiltrated 230 American cities.
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, immediately south of neighboring El Paso, Texas, is arguably the most dangerous municipality in the Americas. The mayor, Jose Reyes Ferriz, told me that in the past 12 months, more than 1,600 of his citizens have been murdered as his city became the epicenter of a vicious "turf war" among rival drug cartels vying for larger slices of the lucrative "drug delivery business." When he called for help, President Calderon sent in the only force he could trust: the Mexican army. Retired military officers now run the city's police force, and joint military/police units patrol the streets. Even this hasn't stopped the bloodbath. Last month, more than 240 people perished in this murderous metropolis.
Fueling the violence next door: illegal narcotics. Nearly all the world's cocaine originates with coca plants grown in South America, and 90 percent of the coke that ends up on our streets travels to the U.S. through Mexico. Eighty percent of the methamphetamine consumed by Americans is produced there. Our southern neighbor is also the main foreign supplier of marijuana. According to Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora, "At least $10 billion in bulk cash" related to drug trafficking "crosses the U.S.-Mexico border each year" — meaning that narco-dollars are nearly on par with tourism, which produces about $13 billion annually for Mexico.
With the help of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agents, our investigation took us from a cocaine-processing laboratory hidden beneath the jungle canopy in South America's Andean basin to the coastline of Colombia, where drugs are sent north on "go-fast boats" and semi-submersibles to the streets of Mexico City and across the U.S.-Mexico border — all the way to a drug bust in an American back alley.
The result: an unprecedented, eye-opening look behind the curtain into the shadowy world of narco-terror — and those who put their lives on the line to keep the cartels from bringing their bloody battles into our neighborhoods. The extraordinary efforts of these brave law officers and steadfast soldiers deserve more attention than the short shrift they received at the Guadalajara summit.
Please Freepmail me to be added to the Ollie North ping list.
Suppose the price of this stuff plummeted 95% overnight... just suppose...
Did you know that 9 out of 10 paper bills test positive for traces of cocaine?
Thanks for the ping jaz.
“The extraordinary efforts of these brave law officers and steadfast soldiers deserve more attention than the short shrift they received at the Guadalajara summit.”
Bears repeating.
see this!
Novak North bump.
Looking forward to seeing Brother Novak in Heaven.
Then the social costs of rampant drug abuse would skyrocket in direct relation.
I saw that yesterday, it’s almost hard to believe but it was said if a bill that’s been used to sniff it is put in a cash drawer it contaminates most of them. That’s still a lot!
Bump!
Amen
All the neocons knee-jerk thus, but why of all America’s ills was only alcohol on the radar prior to the 20th century? One could easily get opium, morphine, cocaine, marijuana in the civil war century.
Your thought process simply reflects the folly of making an item, rather than the use of an item, into a crime.
Scary stuff. Drugs, guns, BIG $$$ ...
bumpers!
Not as easy as you seem to think in the USA, and in countries where Opium and cocaine use was rampant, India and the UK, who were the main supplier/ peddlers of the stuff, the social destruction soon became overbearing, which is why it was stopped.
It also caused the opium wars between china and the UK, (British East India Company and the Qing Dynasty of China from 1839 to 1842) but I guess that was all well and fine too, as long as people got their supply of opium so they could sit around in their stupor all day.
If you knew about the nostrums of that century (hint: a nostrum is not something that goes in your nostril) you might not be so quick.
The social harm go up in direct proportion? That is a laugh; with the ban overturned all the crime associated with dealing goes away. There’s no more profit. Every single neocon I’ve ever seen approached with this suggestion does the “social harm” calculation WITH the crime assumed to be the same. That proves their dishonesty and you are solidly on that boat.
Face it buddy: some Christians want the easy way out and seek legislative fascism rather than gospel preaching.
That's nothing but a load of horse crap. Government simply becomes the regulator and all the laws regarding dealing, growing, smuggling etc. and punishment that go along with it remains the same, just as it is for alcohol and tobacco.
Why potheads think decriminalizing the stuff will be better just amazes me.
Government will have yet more addictive substances to get revenues from, which will make it more EXPENSIVE, not cheaper, as was and is the case for alcohol and tobacco.
Addicts will still do the crimes for the cash they need to support their habits, plus extra for the tax.
How was morphine taxed at the turn of the (19th-20th) century, pray tell?
Now look in your own mirror for the equine manure.
Confess it, you peeked in the mirror and saw a coil of you know what where your head was supposed to be....
(And if you don't think the king of England received his share of 'tax' on the opium business you are again daydreaming.)
you can even look up how much revenues England made on the opium trade if you've a mind to
I’m saying... morphine WASN’T taxed more than any other medicine. Think outside the box.
Is that all you know how to do when you fail in your attempts to argue the virtues of drug abuse? Or and other subject for that matter I’ve noticed.(today with pissant on another thread for example)
You are a Democrat, aren’t you. At least you sure act like one when you turn to insulting people because you can’t present a valid argument on a subject
LOL another banbot goes off the deep end
Off the deep end? Are you on drugs now?
You sure don’t seen to be reading very clearly.
The only one who appears to gone off the deep end is you.
I could care less about anything you type.
And I could care less about how expensive recreational drug abusers habits become.
The more expensive the better. In fact I hope potheads do manage to get pot and other drugs ‘decriminalized’, and they are forced to smoke government regulated and taxed pot.
And I’ll laugh when they all cry about how expensive it is, because government WILL tax it to high heaven to pay for the expense of the health care required to treat all the paranoid schizophrenics long term pot use turns potheads into.
And I’ll laugh even harder when they are busted for dealing, busted for growing, busted for smuggling and do the exact same time for the felony it will still be.
ban-bot! ban-bot!
Oh and HA! HA! HA!
- - We think so 'cuz we believe in individual LIBERTY, something for which the US was once known & respected for around the world.
- - We think so 'cuz Prohibition has proven, time & time again, that it doesn't work. It causes more problems than it solves.
- - We think so 'cuz we are going to use our God-given right to pursue happiness in our own way REGARDLESS of what the law says...provided that we don't violate the God given rights of others to pursue happiness as they see fit.
- - We think so 'cuz there is nothing in the Constitution that gives the federal government the authority to criminalize the responsible use of marijuana or other recreational drugs by adults, & the 10th Amendment leaves that function to the states.
Shall I continue?
America has a plethora of bans today, not just for drugs, that would have been unimaginable in the 19th century.
As a Christian I hate to say things that make Christians look bad, but as I mentioned to NZ I think the laziness of engaging Caesar against more and more vices displaced gospel work. It is Christian or at least bible-compatible beliefs which made American liberty possible in the first place, because people agreed that they were responsible to a God from which it was impossible to hide. Caesar can never do more than mop up.
Suppose the price of this stuff plummeted 95% overnight... just suppose...
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Stop talking sense ... the cops need the overtime and the excuse to intrude on ALL our privacy... if prices fell due to removing the “backdoor gov’t price supports” we would see crime disappear ,, some already addicted weaklings would die out and I’m perfectly OK with that.
In countries where you can literally walk into any pharmacy and buy whatever you want there is no additional crime associated with that.
Phooey Phriday!
As a patriot he knows a lot about communists and terrorists also and done much more than just talk about it.
A good choice of words, they both suck.
Col. North ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
A simple, yet elegant tribute to a fellow warrior.
“In countries where you can literally walk into any pharmacy and buy whatever you want there is no additional crime associated with that”
Which countries are these?
In Asia, you can buy most prescription drugs over the counter, but not narcotics.
BTTT!
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