Free Republic

21st Century SocialismThe attempt to destroy democracy in Latin America.  The Obama administration started out on the wrong foot in world affairs. It used techniques better suited for domestic political campaigns — popularity contests — in its foreign policy. In our own hemisphere, the result was confusion for our allies and our enemies alike. The overriding objective of U.S. policy — in Latin America and elsewhere — should be to advance U.S. national interests, not to curry favor with foreign leaders. If we can be liked while advancing our interests, so much the better. But when we try to befriend...

Top FARC commander "Mono Jojoy" was killed by Colombian state forces. President Juan Manuel Santos confirmed the death of the rebel leader from New York City, where he is attending the U.N. General Assembly. The head of the FARC's Eastern Bloc and member of its Secretariat was killed in a massive air strike in a region called La Macarena in the central Colombian Meta department, 200 miles south of Bogota. Some 20 other guerrillas were killed and five members of the security forces were injured in the attack, the government's Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said. Mono Jojoy, also known as...

SAN JUAN —Police reunited a teenage woman with her family Monday afternoon, nearly 19 hours after she was abducted, blindfolded and dumped in a Reynosa field. The 18-year-old woman, whose name was not disclosed by police, was walking to a friend’s house about 6:30 p.m. Sunday. A black van pulled up alongside her and three men hopped out, San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez said. They snatched the girl, blindfolded her and took her to Reynosa. The kidnappers began calling the woman’s family demanding ransom money. “The kidnappers somehow missed it that she had a cell phone,” Gonzalez said. “We...

Yesterday's violence in Nuevo Laredo caused people to rush across our bridges in fear. Now today, Mexican officials are confirming what happened, saying at least a dozen people are dead and many other are wounded--including some children. Video off of youtube.com reveals the sound of gunfire in Nuevo Laredo. In a recent statement, the Federal Interior Department said nine suspects were killed as well as two civilians and one soldier. The Associated Press says 21 people were caught in the crossfire and are wounded, including three children. There have also been reports of shooters opening fire on a school bus,...

Osama Bin Laden's terrorist organization has become increasingly reliant on organized crime, including cocaine smuggling, human trafficking and kidnapping, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in Manhattan's federal court. The charges filed against three alleged al-Qaeda associates by the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan is the latest chilling evidence of a convergence between terrorism and organized crime. Oumar Issa, Harouna Touré and Idriss Abelrahman were snatched in Ghana on Wednesday by a Drug Enforcement Administration sting and shipped to New York, where they arrived on Friday to face charges of conspiracy to commit acts of narco-terrorism and providing material support...

Firefights in Matamoros Violence associated with organized crime and the drug trade continues throughout Mexico, with the number of homicides so far this year reaching almost 5,000. For comparison, the 5,700 organized crime-related killings in 2008 made that year the deadliest yet in the country’s cartel war. With nearly four months left in 2009, it is all but inevitable that 2009 will be another record year for violence. One particularly noteworthy incident from this past week occurred on the afternoon of Sept. 4 in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. The incident began after Mexican authorities...

He calls himself "Cesar," but his real name is Gerardo Aguilar Ramirez. As "comandante" of the 1st Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- and one of the top 10 leaders of the hyperviolent FARC -- he has well-earned credentials as a drug-dealing terrorist with a penchant for trading in hostages. On Thursday, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents put Cesar in shackles, marched him aboard an aircraft here in Bogota and took him to the United States to stand trial for his crimes. Our Fox News' "War Stories" team was here to record the event -- and a...

BOGOTA — He calls himself "Cesar," but his real name is Gerardo Aguilar Ramirez. As "comandante" of the 1st Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — and one of the top 10 leaders of the hyper-violent FARC — he has well-earned credentials as a drug-dealing terrorist with a penchant for trading in hostages. This Thursday, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents put Ramirez, aka Cesar, in shackles, marched him aboard an aircraft here in Bogota, and took him to the U.S. to stand trial for his crimes. Our Fox News' "War Stories" team was here to record the event...

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2009 – Afghan and coalition forces detained several suspected Taliban militants overnight during an operation designed to disrupt Taliban bombing and rocket attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. In the province’s Nad Ali district, a combined force patrolled near the village of Marjeh, to compounds where intelligence sources reported a known Taliban commander was located. While clearing the compounds, the force encountered a threat. Officials did not provide details of the threat, but said it was “eliminated” after several escalation-of-force measures. The force completed the search without further incident, detained a handful of...

Mystery continues to surround Hezbollah’s alleged links to the seventeen suspects arrested on drug trafficking charges on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao on April 28. According to Curacaon authorities, approximately 250 law enforcement officials took down a major drug trafficking and money laundering ring led by a criminal network that shipped and sold cocaine and other contraband from Latin America and the Caribbean to Europe and the Middle East. In a significant twist, Curacaon authorities announced that the suspects had ties to international organized crime networks linked to Hezbollah in Lebanon; the suspects are accused of, among other things,...

Drug cartel members are using a variety of fronts and subterfuges - from fake tamale stands to child decoys - to gather intelligence about enhanced U.S. border security and exploit weaknesses to send in people and drugs, according to a new report obtained by The Washington Times. The findings, by the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, underline the growing threat to U.S. security from a porous border. Mexican drug cartels continue to probe for gaps in border defenses while fighting one another and Mexican authorities in a violent conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people in Mexico since the...

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The body of a U.S. marshal has been discovered in Juarez, Mexico, according to the U.S. Marshals Service -- the latest discovery in a wave of violence that has gripped towns along the U.S.-Mexican border in recent months. The body of Deputy Marshal Vincent Bustamante -- who was the subject of an arrest warrant accusing him of criminal theft of government property -- was found in Juarez on Wednesday, said Marshals Service spokesman Jeff Carter. Chihuahua state police said the body had multiple wounds to the head -- apparently consistent with an execution-style shooting, according to Edgar Roman, a reporter...

(CNN) -- The United States shares the blame for Mexican drug trafficking and the attendant violence that has killed thousands in the past year alone, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday. "Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," she said en route to Mexico City, according to pool reports. "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians. So, yes, I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility." Clinton arrived in the Mexican capital a day after the United States...

WASHINGTON – The Mexican government is not on the verge of collapse, the top U.S. intelligence official said Thursday, seeking to tamp down increasing alarm over the powerful and violent drug cartels operating in the country that is the United States' southern neighbor. "Mexico is in no danger of becoming a failed state," said National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair at his first news conference Thursday. Echoing the assessment of Mexico's leaders, Blair said the dramatic increase in killings in Mexico is a result of that government's crackdown on drug cartels.

The head of the Department of Homeland Security turned down an offer for more money to fight crime along the U.S.’s southern border, saying she’ll pay for it with the funds she has. “These actions so far are designed to be budget-neutral,” she said. “What I have done is identify other activities that are less urgent ... to be able to move these resources where I think they are needed most.”

Border Patrol agents are arresting an increased number of dangerous criminals at the border, officials say. "We're talking about major things. Homicides, sex offenders, big robberies, armed robberies--things to that degree," says agent Mike Scioli. Scioli says more dangerous criminals are trying to enter the U.S. -- a disturbing yet growing trend along the southern border. This past weekend, a group of 34 illegals were apprehended by agents near Ajo. Two of them were members of a notorious and ruthless gang known as MS-13. How did agents find out? Finger prints and tattoos were a dead-giveaway. "These two individuals, not...

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here Wednesday with the clearest acknowledgment yet from a senior Obama administration official of the role the United States plays in the violent drug trade racking Mexico.“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” she said, using unusually blunt language. “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians.”

The war against the Shining Path rebels, which took nearly 70,000 lives, supposedly ended in 2000. But here in one of the most remote corners of the Andes, the combination of a renewed military campaign, a resurgent rebel faction and a lucrative cocaine trade may be sparking it back to life. The drizzle-shrouded jungle of Vizcatán, a 250-square-mile region in the Apurímac and Ene River Valley, nine hours by four-wheel drive along switchbacks from the Maoist rebels' Andean cradle of Ayacucho, is Peru's largest producer of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine. The Shining Path controls a large part of...

Earlier this month, the United Kingdom announced that it is reopening dialogue with the political wing of Hezbollah. Unlike the United States, the United Kingdom has only banned Hezbollah's terrorist (External Security Organization) and military wings. The ban on the terrorist wing came in 2000, while the ban on the military wing only came in June 2008 in response to Hezbollah's "providing active support to militants in Iraq who are responsible for attacks both on coalition forces and on Iraqi civilians, including providing training in the use of deadly roadside bombs," for plots to kidnap British security workers in Iraq,...