Safer Than It’s Ever Been! Really![Tex-Mex Border]

National Review ^ | Sept. 29, 2011 | Mark Krikorian

[thouworm]

Safer Than It’s Ever Been! Really!

By Mark Krikorian

September 29, 2011 9:46 AM

Both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal agree that, since illegal crossings are down at the Mexican border, it’s time to proceed to amnesty and huge increases in immigration (9 percent unemployment? Who cares!). The border is safer than it’s ever been, in the words of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. The only thing left to do is dig a moat and fill it with alligators, joked President Obama.

Well, someone didn’t tell the two retired generals who’ve just released “Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment”:

During the past two years the state of Texas has become increasingly threatened by the spread of Mexican cartel organized crime. The threat reflects a change in the strategic intent of the cartels to move their operations into the United States. In effect, the cartels seek to create a “sanitary zone” inside the Texas border — one county deep — that will provide sanctuary from Mexican law enforcement and, at the same time, enable the cartels to transform Texas’ border counties into narcotics transshipment points for continued transport and distribution into the continental United States. To achieve their objectives the cartels are relying increasingly on organized gangs to provide expendable and unaccountable manpower to do their dirty work. These gangs are recruited on the streets of Texas cities and inside Texas prisons by top-tier gangs who work in conjunction with the cartels.

The authors are Barry McCaffrey, Clinton’s drug czar and former proconsul of Latin America (aka, head of the Southern Command), and Robert Scales, former head of the Army War College. Which is good because what we’re facing on the border is no longer analogous to war — it is war:

America’s fight against narco-terrorism, when viewed at the strategic level, takes on the classic trappings of a real war. Crime, gangs and terrorism have converged in such a way that they form a collective threat to the national security of the United States. America is being assaulted not just from across our southern border but from across the hemisphere and beyond. All of Central and South America have become an interconnected source of violence and terrorism. Drug cartels exploit porous borders using all the traditional elements of military force, including command and control, logistics, intelligence, information operations and the application of increasingly deadly firepower. The intention is to increasingly bring governments at all levels throughout the Americas under the influence of international cartels.

And this comports with what I heard from ranchers in Arizona earlier this year, that the numbers are down, but the danger level is up:

Farmers and ranchers whose families have spent generations on the Texas side of the border reflect on how the character and intent of border crossing immigrants have changed over the past three years. They now see most of the intruders on their land as men tattooed with the marks of cartels, gangs and in some cases Hezbollah members. They are confronted often with border-crossers who demand to use their phones or trucks. Texas homes are now surrounded by strangers who harass the owners until they concede their land for use by the cartels. Farmers refuse to travel at night.

And it’s not just drugs and obviously not limited to Texas; as Gen. Scales told Great Van Susteren:

Not only drugs. Think of the transshipment, very dangerous people by the cartels across the border from places like Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Ethiopia. They’re coming across the border paid for by the cartels. Many of them get across without being registered. This is an insidious problem that goes beyond drugs. It deals in human trafficking, the war on terrorism, on and on and on. This is an American, not just a Texas problem.

It looks like Glynn Custred was prophetic in his piece a couple years back outlining possible military options if the dren hits the fan in Mexico. Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen on BHO’s watch, because it would make President Gore’s response to 9/11 look muscular in comparison.

[thouworm]

Related article ping OR ping for BORDER WARS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VIDEO: Maj. Gen. Bob Scales interviewed by Greta Van Susteren.

Border War: Not Just a Texas Problem

Sep 28, 2011 - 4:59 -

Maj. Gen. Bob Scales details report that illustrates why Lone Star border security concerns are a national problem

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1187416414001/border-war-not-just-a-texas-problem

[thouworm]

Related thread:

DOJ: ‘Mexican-Based Trafficking Organizations Control Access to the U.S.–Mexico Border’

"The Mexican drug trafficking organizations do not operate only at or near the U.S. border, according to the assessment. Their operations have penetrated every corner of the country.

“Mexican-based TCOs were operating in more than a thousand U.S. cities during 2009 and 2010,” says the assessment....

In April, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the U.S.-Mexico border is not “overrun or out of control” -- adding that those who make such claims are just trying to score political points.

[MestaMachine]

This is the kind of article I had in mind when I thought of a Border Wars ping list. Please let me know.

Input needed. Thinking of starting a new ping list called BORDER WARS since so many of these stories are starting to intersect and overlap. I would like to keep the Gunwalker threads separate. Responses and/or advice welcome.

[MestaMachine]

Thanks, thouworm. Maybe this will go.

[Arrowhead1952]

Border ping worthy?

[heartwood]

“But Perry stood by his argument that building a fence along the entire Mexican border was unwise. The Texas governor said that the fence would likely be expensive, ineffective and violate the property rights of those who owned land on the border.”

http://thehill.com/video/campaign/184433-perry-apologies-for-heartless-immigration-comment-pushes-border-bona-fides

Has Gov. Perry asked the landowners if they object to a fence along the land? If their property rights would somehow be more violated than by armed trespassers who cut fences, kill animals, “borrow” trucks and phones and make it too dangerous to go out at night?

How did you Texans elect this nitwit anyway? I’m voting anyone but Perry in the primary. If it was him vs. Obama, pulling the lever for him would hurt.

[philman_36]

In April, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the U.S.-Mexico border is not “overrun or out of control” -- adding that those who make such claims are just trying to score political points.
And people can easily recognize that those who make the claim that the border is secure, despite the inaccuracy of the claim, are also "trying to score political points".
Good try, Janet, but it won't float any longer.

[thouworm]

Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment” [PDF file]

Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment was released on Sept 20, 2011

The 82nd Texas Legislature recognized this critical issue and the numerous accounts of cross-border violence and tasked the Texas Department of Agriculture via House Bill 4, to conduct: “an assessment of the impact of illegal activity along the Texas-Mexico border on rural landowners and the agriculture industry and working in conjunction with other appropriate entities to develop recommendations to enhance border security.”

In accomplishing this legislative directive, the Texas Department of Agriculture joined with the Texas Department of Public Safety to jointly commission retired four-star Army General Barry McCaffrey and retired Army Major-General Robert Scales for this unique and strategic assessment.

General Barry McCaffrey is the former Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Bill Clinton and former Commander of all U.S. troops in Central and South America. Major-General Robert Scales is the former Commandant of the United States Army War College.

The report offers a military perspective on how to best incorporate strategic, operational and tactical measures to secure the increasingly hostile border regions along the Rio Grande River. It also provides sobering evidence of cartel criminals gaining ground on Texas soil.

Pg 4 of the Report:

America’s fight against narco-terrorism, when viewed at the strategic level, takes on the classic trappings of a real war. Crime, gangs and terrorism have converged in such a way that they form a collective threat to the national security of the United States. America is being assaulted not just from across our southern border but from across the hemisphere and beyond.

All of Central and South America have become an interconnected source of violence and terrorism. Drug cartels exploit porous borders using all the traditional elements of military force, including command and control, logistics, intelligence, information operations and the application of increasingly deadly firepower. The intention is to increasingly bring governments at all levels throughout the Americas under the influence of international cartels.

Pg 9:

Tactical

At the tactical level of war the cartels seek to gain advantage by exploiting the creases between U.S. federal and state border agencies, and the separation that exists between Mexican and American crime-fighting agencies.

Border law enforcement and political officials are the tactical focal point. Sadly, the tactical level is poorly resourced and the most vulnerable to corruption by cartels. To win the tactical fight the counties must have augmentation, oversight and close support from operational and strategic forces.

History has shown that a common border offers an enemy sanctuary zone and the opportunity to expand his battlespace in depth and complexity. Our border with Mexico is no exception. Criminality spawned in Mexico is spilling over into the United States.

Texas is the tactical close combat zone and frontline in this conflict. Texans have been assaulted by cross-border gangs and narco-terrorist activities. In response, Texas has been the most aggressive and creative in confronting the threat of what has come to be a narco-terrorist military-style campaign being waged against them.

Texas as a Narco-Sanctuary

A successful sanctuary permits insurgents to move freely and operate on whichever side offers greater security. In a curious twist of irony, the more successful the Mexican military becomes in confronting the cartels, the greater likelihood that cartels will take the active fight into Texas as they compete against each other in the battle to control distribution territories and corridors.

Federal authorities are reluctant to admit to the increasing cross-border campaign by narcoterrorists. Until lately, denial has been facilitated by a dearth of evidence that an organized and substantial campaign exists inside Texas. Evidence collected for this report, principally from Texas border counties, reveals a palpable sense of frustration concerning the effectiveness of U.S. federal border operations.

Accounts of this violence, both data driven and anecdotal, compiled by federal agencies, Congressional testimony and the Texas Department of Agriculture underscores the daily activity and constant threat of a larger presence of narco-terrorists than previously thought. The Federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not attribute many narco-crimes to the cartels. Many cross-border crimes are routinely not reported by border farmers and ranchers due to fear of retribution from cartels.

The cartel’s foot soldiers who fight the tactical battle in Texas are "transnational gang" members many of whom are drawn from prison gangs such as the Mexican Mafia, Texas Syndicate, Tango Blast, Barrio Azteca and others that formed in U.S. prisons for selfpreservation and protection from other gangs. These transnational gangs not only have continued to expand in Texas and the nation but constitute a very tightly knit network of cooperation and connectivity that has been growing between prison gangs and Mexican cartels.

Federal authorities are reluctant to admit to the increasing cross-border campaign by narcoterrorists. Until lately, denial has been facilitated by a dearth of evidence that an organized and substantial campaign exists inside Texas. Evidence collected for this report, principally officials are the tactical focal point. Sadly, the tactical level is poorly resourced and the most vulnerable to corruption by cartels. To win the tactical fight the counties must have augmentation, oversight and close support from operational and strategic forces.

[Scythian]

but, but, perry’s giving them free college?

[thouworm]

MM: Look at these posts I have developed from the doc (only read 9 pgs so far) & interview with Gen Scales (bolded items---and note particularly the timing). Wondering if this should also be added to your Gunwalker ping list also. Gen Scales said, "in the last TWO years" THREE TIMES in his interview! Gunwalker ping list might make some important connections.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Excerpts of Greta's interview with Gen Scales (see post #2):

GEN SCALES: "What we have seen in the last two years is a shift in the---to use a military term--- strategic intent of the cartels to shift their border operations north of the Mexican border one county deep>/b> into Texas for three reasons:"

1) escape increasing effectiveness of the Mexican military

2) establish trans-shipment points for drugs and illegal trafficking

3) use as throughput to push those drugs into 270 cities throughout the US

It's a NATIONAL problem because the cartels have a new strategy.

Question: ...How is Mexico, this war in Mexico the same or different from Afghanistan?

SCALES: It's different for a couple reasons. Over the last two years we've seen a shift in the leadership of the cartels away from mafia businessman, the people who want to make money on drugs, to increasing to these cartels being run increasingly by criminals, just nasty, evil men who kill for the sake of killing. That's different than it's been in the past.

Secondly, the level of violence is escalating, not just south of the border, but north of the border where hundreds of Mexicans have been found abandoned in these border counties. The violence is escalating. There's shootouts along the Rio Grande. It's getting worse and worse every day, and it will continue to get worse until we do something about it....

VAN SUSTEREN: It's my impression that's United States isn't taking this seriously, maybe Texas is, maybe Arizona, but the United States is not taking as a country what's going on in Mexico with the level of intensity I think it should. I know Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described it as Colombia 20 years ago and got rebuked by the president. Am I exaggerating this?

SCALES: I don't think you are at all. I think part of the problem is we haven't done a good job of telling the rest of America how Arizona and Texas affects them directly. Remember now, there are 18,000 cartel members operating in Texas...a full army division....

VAN SUSTEREN: I guess I've always been intrigued by the fact that one of the worst cartels are the Zetas. They are ex-military, essentially the special forces who have gone rogue.

SCALES: It's very sad, and they're increasingly violent. Two years ago this was a criminal enterprise that was done for profit. Increasingly today it's just sheer, raw violence inflicted on the citizens of Texas, and that's why they're worried.

VAN SUSTEREN: I don't like to overstate it, but your description, the 18,000 in Texas, the number of people around the city, that it doesn't differ that much in our mind to our thoughts and fears of Al Qaeda originally, having cells around. I mean, this is not flying a plane into a building or a dirty bomb, but this is drugs, which are killing people, and there's violence associated with it.

SCALES: Not only drugs. Think of the transshipment, very dangerous people by the cartels across the border from places like Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Ethiopia. They're coming across the border paid for by the cartels. Many of them get across without being registered. This is an insidious problem that goes beyond drugs. It deals in human trafficking, the war on terrorism, on and on and on. This is an American, not just a Texas problem.

See video and full transcript here

[philman_36]

Just ignore Scales. Can’t you see that he’s nothing more than a racist bigot. /sarcasm

[MestaMachine]

Remember Johnny Sutton? Johnny Sutton, GWB’s good buddy?

TRUST NO ONE. Drug money runs the banks and plenty of swell people are lining their pockets and padding their bank accounts.

[MestaMachine]

Remember how we talked about catagorizing TM? This just might be the way to do it. Nothing hits closer to home than this.
Now we need an Islamic Plot ping list.
A Union Thuggery ping list.
I have a Gibson Guitar ping list of one. A Honduras ping list of one.
And we really need to start paying attention to Honduras. Lobo is taking his marching orders from obama. Got rid of the national security chief and others considered too right wing and too popular.
It’s getting very hairy out there.

[thouworm]

Remember: The BHO Adm ALWAYS tries to kill 2-3-4 birds with one stone. There were bigger F & F motives than “Mexican voters” and lining pockets and bankers’ laundering drug money and BHO trying to get his gun confiscation passed. I started to realize that yesterday. Now I am certain of it.

Please ping this thread as a related Gunwalker ping article. They will best be able to make connections-—or at least to think about this info. It can still be a BORDERS WARS ping as well if you decide to do that.

[thouworm]

“And we really need to start paying attention to Honduras. Lobo is taking his marching orders from obama. Got rid of the national security chief and others considered too right wing and too popular.”

I noticed that...As news accounts report on Lobo & Obama, they are still calling Zelaya’s ouster a “coup.”

[MestaMachine]

Related ping

FOR REFERENCE:

DAVID CODREA'S PROJECT GUNWALKER

A Journalist's guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part One

A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Two

A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Three

A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Four

A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Five

A Journalist's Guide to 'Project Gunwalker'-Part Six

FOX VIDEOS

CNN VIDEOS

CBS VIDEOS

DRUDGEWATCH
(updated daily)

Input needed. Have now started a new ping list called BORDER WARS since so many of these stories are starting to intersect and overlap. I would like to keep the Gunwalker threads separate. Let me know if you want on the Border Wars list. It will NOT be the same as Gunwalker, though they might overlap occasionally.

[MestaMachine]

you got it.

[thouworm]

TY...

Inside Obama & handlers' collective brain: Gotta get this damn country under control, talking about what I want them to talk about.

Talking Point Memo to all libs and MSM: Keep public attention away from the Mexican border. All of this bad press from the South makes us (the royal "us") look like we are indifferent to national security.
~~~~~~~~~~

Just out today:

U.S. mulls Canadian border fence

"The United States is looking at building fences along the border with Canada to help keep out terrorists and other criminals."

U.S. eyes fencing along Canadian border

[SwinneySwitch]

Ping!