The slaughter on the southern border
My column this morning looks at the continuing chaos on our southern border. Displaying her fabulous sense of timing, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano chose to announce amid all the bloodshed that she’s scrapping the doomed Fence to Nowhere project.
The system is not working.
***
The slaughter on the southern border
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
At a joint press conference with Mexican president Felipe Calderon last year, President Obama vowed to make ending border violence a “top priority.” How’s that hope and change working out? Drug-related crime is out of control, the State Department is warning spring-break vacationers to avoid the Mexican states of Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua, and the bloodshed has now reached the U.S. consulate’s office.
A young American consulate worker and her unborn baby were slain this weekend in Mexico, along with her U.S. detention officer husband and the Mexican husband of another consulate worker. The wanton murders appear to have been a coordinated drug cartel hit; the victims had all just left a children’s birthday party in Juarez and were headed across the border back into Texas. The pregnant American official, Lesley Enriquez, is reportedly the first consulate employee to die in drug-related violence since 1985. Her 7-month-old daughter, terrorized by the gunfire while strapped in her car seat, was the lone survivor of the attack.
The State Department has now authorized the evacuation of dependents of U.S. personnel in six Mexican cities along its northern border with the U.S. And the resort town of Acapulco saw at least 13 murdered over the past week – including four beheadings. The total death toll over the last three years is nearing 20,000.
Mexican government officials have been quite content to blame their neighbors for the outbreaks; play the race card; demand blanket amnesty for illegal aliens from their country trying to flee the violence and misery; and collect massive infusions of U.S. aid that have fallen into the wrong hands. The question for this White House is: How many more Americans will be targeted for execution before we stop rewarding such fatally arrogant behavior?
Reminder: With bipartisan support, the Bush administration handed over $1.6 billion to help Mexico control its border chaos in 2008. The crime-fighting package known as the “Merida Initiative” funded helicopters, surveillance equipment, computer infrastructure, expansion of intelligence databases, anti-corruption initiatives, human rights education and training, and anti-money laundering program to our southern neighbors. President Obama accelerated the release of Merida Initiative cash to Mexico and tossed even more taxpayer funding into the mix. All of this while our own measly border enforcement initiatives have been short-changed, demagogued, or completely abandoned.
Critics of the Merida Initiative (including yours truly) warned that lax oversight would lead to inevitable plundering of the money by corrupt Mexican government officials and more unabated bloodshed. Calderon cried “racist!” and demanded that the aid be forked over with no strings attached: “”Give it to me. And give it to me without conditions,” he told Congress.
Well, who’s watching over the program now? Who’s measuring its success or failure? Judging from the endless pile of corpses and horrific headlines, the Merida Initiative has turned out to be a boon and a boondoggle for the Mexican thugocracy. The civilian police force is notoriously under the thumb of the drug networks across the country. Infiltrators have penetrated at all levels.
The Brookings Institute warned two years ago: “Multiple Federal agencies have earned a reputation for ineffectiveness and corruption; among them, the Attorney General’s Federal Investigative Agency, the Ministry of Public Security’s Federal Preventive Police Force, the Ministry of Government’s Center for Investigation and National Security and the Ministry of Finance’s Customs Administration…State security agencies and the courts have not protected the citizenry effectively. According to surveys carried out by Transparencia Mexicana, the police and justice system are perceived as having worse problems of corruption and inefficiency than other public agencies.”
Yet, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the lesson of this weekend’s killing spree is that the U.S. needs to work even closer with the Calderon administration — and at least one House Democrat in Texas, Henry Cuellar, is calling for a second Merida Initiative package.
This is a recipe for an even bloodier Mexican Drug Cartel Stimulus Package. If you subsidize it, you’ll get more of it. Loco.
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DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is a useful idiot
God Bless those poor people caught in the cross fire in this gang war. Even Mexico’s Special Forces are often used by the cartels-bringing their American supplied M-4s and M-16s and such with them.
As the Mexican citizen is left unarmed by Mexico’s gun laws they are helpless. Mexico is no good place for Spring Break or vacation, not at the moment.
Apparently, our government believes the “virtual” border fence is part of the problem and is taking it down. Kind of like killing Harry the invisible six-foot rabbit. Taking down a wall that never existed.
Armed drones, troops on the ground with orders to protect the border, jail anyone who employs an illegal alien for 3-5 years no parole, and lastly heavily fine them at about $500k per illegal. If they get caught a 2nd time they lose all the company assets and the jail time is up’d to 10 years hard labor on the border building the fence to the dual-layer style fence we were promised!
What I can’t understand is why Obama doesn’t just tell the Mexicans to reign them in or we’ll clean up the mess for them, with whatever force deemed necessary. Oh wait, I know why, because everyone would laugh at the thought of Obama sending in troops any time soon. How long did it take him to decide to approve some form of the McCrystal Surge?
I’m surprised Hilary hasn’t blamed the 2nd amendment for the violence like she did earlier last year.
There is one big solution to this problem that people don’t want to hear. . .
legalization of ALL drugs takes the profit and incentive away from the drug cartels. If you remove the incentive, they’ll have to find some other occupation.
It’s a simple solution, and effective solution, but it will never happen because of ‘conservatives’ who want the government to dictate what people can and can’t do with their body.
These brazen mexican’s are even flying helicopters over our border near Brownsville in S TX. It seems our dear sis isn’t doing a flit about it. We use to go to mexico just over the southern towns several times a year. Now, we would not go on a bet! The spring brakers are urged not to go either.
L
Why are we NOT treating Mexico as a hostile nation? Wake up America.
ThackerAgency: You need to think this through. Legalizing drugs will allow people to come to work stoned and dazed and then an emplyer can’t fire them, because they are legally entitled (there’s that “e” word again) to do what they wish when not at work. It’s a slippery slope, so I would advise you to tread carefully re. your call for legalizing drugs.
Would you want a surgeon who had a few tokes the night before operating on your child or have your family show up for a flight not knowing if the crew had done legal drugs the night before and will now be flying from LA (very busy air-hub) to NY (just as busy)?
Sure, that doctor or flight crew can have a couple of beers the night before, but the effects of alcohol are known and the old adage “12 hours bottle to throttle*” still works. Drugs, on the other hand, can have longer-lasting or even delayed effects and are not so easily quantified.
* An old fighter-pilot joke changes the admonition “12 hours bottle to throttle and don’t smoke within 50 feet of the airplane” to “don’t smoke within 12 hours of flying and don’t drink within 50 feet of the airplane.”
Incidentally, smoking can also have deleterious effects on aircrew because of decreased oxygen in the blood which may not show up until an emergency situation such as cabin pressure being lost.
nail, your concern is misguided. These people could be all wacked out on prescription drugs that the government controls now and you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
Your opposition to it is what needs to be reconsidered. I don’t want people breaking the law or violating MY rights. . . but it isn’t the drugs that rob or kill me. . . it’s the people.
Just because you legalize drugs doesn’t mean you will be in more danger than you are now. You were listening to Rush all those years when he was on painkillers. . . did that damage the nation?
Clearly the war on drugs is only accomplishing getting people killed. . . usually Americans. It enriches bad people. The money prohibition gives them allows them to terrorize the population. I’d rather have a drugged out American doing his own thing than a drug cartel shooting up people to defend ‘territory’ that wouldn’t exist without prohibition.
And I assure you, if Meth or Crack were legal, I still wouldn’t do them. You wouldn’t either. Smoking is legal and most people don’t do that.
There needs to be more studies on the impact of these drugs on the body. Some drugs that are outlawed could have medicinal effects. Prohibition stops any research into potential uses that could save lives.
Legalize, tax, educate. If we spent as much money on education of the effects of these drugs rather than prohibition, we’d be a freer nation, a wealthier nation, and we’d be able to make better decisions about what to do with our body.
As it stands now, the argument against is ‘drugs are bad’. Sorry, as an intellectual, I need a little more data than that.
As I said, it will never happen. As such, we will have cartel violence even if we put the national guard on it.
You can kill all the rats and cockroaches that might be in your house, but if you don’t take their food supply away, they’ll keep coming back until you do.
I do prefer driving!
Well the 1st package worked out so well why not use the liberal thinking and flush more money down the bottomless pit of corruption.
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I’ve been against legalized drugs for years, I’m not a burned out hippie from the ’60′s, I’m a non drugger from the ’60′s. I’ve come to the same conclusion as Mr. TA, make the drugs legal, get the criminal aspect of these drugs out the process. People are going to use whether we, you, us, like it or not, same with alcohol…did we not learn our lessen with that drug?
This already happens with alcohol, professional commercial pilots have been caught flying while drunk. What’s to say you local M.D. specialist isn’t hooked on prescription or illegal drugs for that matter. We have no way of telling until after the fact.
My change of heart on illegal drugs came about mainly due to the fact “the war on drugs” is a loser…costing in lives and money. Not doing a lot of good for our on going battle over open boarders and illegal aliens either.
Beannachtaí na Féile Páraic oraibh!
Yep..the dems believe in Bunny Power now (Last week they put their faith in Smart Power).
Let’s get some adults in the White House, please.
Ai ai ai! Chihuahua! Muy caliente! Viva Villa! Viva Bolivar! Viva Che and Chavez! Si si puedo!
Deploy strike drones now and build The Fence. If Calderon doesn’t like it let him go talk to his boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera.
Phil: That would be Harvey, not Harry.
Who’s Harvey? A white
rabbit, six feet tall.
- Six feet?
- Six feet, three and a half inches. Let’s stick to facts.
The things I’ve been reading/hearing from “boots on the ground” in the Rio Grande Valley are hair raising. There is an all out war going on for some time now between several cartels who operate right out in plain sight, even going so far as to emblazon their logos on their vehicles. There have been running gun battles and incidents nearly every day (using an awful lot of fully automatic weapons that makes Obama’s claim of American gun flow far overstated, I might add).
It’s sad that it is never mentioned at all in the MSM until something tragic happens to our consulate employees. The amount of money being thrown around is staggering and is corrupting people on both sides of the river, although my impression that the extent and the levels of corruption on the Mexican side is literally unbounded.
The unfortunate truth is this country lacks the attitude and the stomach to do what needs to be done because there is no easy sugar pill solution. Not even a wall would handle this.
Not only do you need to squash these groups with extreme force, you have to remove the money from the picture to keep it from recurring. To eliminate the lure of drug money, you either have to eradicate demand or make it legal and neither choice is a particularly feasible one.
Who cares if a few Americans are killed. Don’t you know the Jews are building apartments in Jerusalem! That’s where we need to take a hard line!
History, it seems, is winding up to repeat itself: at some point the Mexican government is going to become so enfeebled that the drug lords / warlords along the border will completely supplant government authority along the border.
Then, a la Pancho Villa, sooner or later the same thugs will take their violence into the USA, just like what happened in Columbus, New Mexico.
Where history won’t repeat itself, however, is that there’ll be no Pershing-style expedition in response this time around.
This is the exact reason I’ll never be a libertarian. Believing the toll on society of illegal drugs will be stemmed by making them legal is like believing that adding millions of people to health care rolls without increasing the number of doctors or clinics will reduce costs.
Ridiculous.
You want more military aid for Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California? It is turning into a quagmire!! It’s another Vietnam!!!!
Indeed. It really IS that simple.
…But will Americans wake up in time? That is the question.
Texas Governor Perry is implementing a secret heightened security plan.
Probably because, from what I heard, an El Paso based street gang, Los Aztecas, which has performed murders and executions in Juarez before for the cartels, probably carried out the hit.
If Texas based street gang will carry out contract killings on Americans in Mexico, they might carry out contract killings on Americans in Texas.
Of course, Texas has the death penalty, and Mexico doesn’t.
Cuellar has to satisfy his base in South San. His district was built specifically by the SCOTUS for a pro-illegal Hispanic.
…And speaking of border security and illegal immigration… remember – the Open Borders Lobby is taking to the streets of DC (and elsewhere) on 21 March to DEMAND amnesty for foreign lawbreakers.
Phone, fax, or even better, go to your Representative’s local office this Friday and tell them DO NOT support amnesty — ever!
Much good info on the topic at Numbers USA: http://www.NumbersUSA.com
That little sentence kind of kills your argument, doesn’t it? In fact, the government has done everything to ban smoking but take the final step of making it illegal. If you’re saying that drugs should be legal only if you do them at home as long as you own a free-standing house, you might have an argument. That’s not how it works, though. And, despite the claims of the whiner left, neither cigarettes nor alcohol are addictive – hard drugs are.
BTW, I think the cartels are now targetting Americans because the center-left PAN party (the closest thing they have to conservatives) is at war with the narcos, and they want the PRI (the Daley style corrupt party that used to be Marxist, but isn’t) or the PRD (the splinter party that still has the old time Marxist religion).
Probably the PRI. They are more notoriously corrupt. Ruled the country for eight decades until the PRD split off, and started complaining to a sympathetic leftist press about election fraud.
In the good old days, the PRI outlawed the Catholic faith (in Mexico, mind you), put dozens of priests who continued to celebrate the Mass before firing squads, and nationalized US oil companies. But now they are like the Daley Dems or late John Murtha Dems. No longer dead set against capitalism, as long as they get their share.
If you really want to see an American enemy in Mexico, let the people surrender to the violence ala the Spanish after the Madrid train bombings, and put the appeasers back in power.
I beg to differ. Have you ever known an alcoholic? I mean a raging alcoholic? Ever know anyone who tried to give up cigarettes?
People may die after decades of smoking tobacco.
Ask Len Bias (just kidding) about what one cocaine party can do.
Cigarette junkies rarely have paranoid episodes and lead police on 100 mph car chases, either. Meth heads, well, that is different.
WOW!!! You are really SHOCKED??? NOT!!! After having JA-NO as our GUV for six years, we in AZ are not surprised… She was PRO-ILLEGAL going back to when she was AZ ATTORNEY GENERAL, and prior when working for JUSTICE as US ATTORNEY for AZ… As for the “DRUG WAR” in MEXICO, about 30 years too late… The MEXICAN GOVERNMENT has been ignoring the growth of the DRUG CARTELS for 30 plus tears, going back to the 70s… Now the BRAZEN CARTELS have so much money and power, that they can virtually buy off anyone… If not, anybody that cannot be bought they are free to MURDER… That’s what BILLIONS of DOLLARS and years of burying your heads up your BUTTS can bring… The MEXICANS have to fight this battle, and we in the US had better hope they WIN!!!
The primary responsibility of the U.S. government is to protect the territorial integrity and people of this country. They have completely abdicated this responsibility. Both parties have been complicit in this. We are being told it is not possible to control our borders, enforce our laws, and thereby control our destiny as a nation. Hogwash. We are being sold out by corporations intent on importing workers for jobs that can’t be exported with the taxpayers paying the true costs, financial and human. If we act like sheep and don’t stop the inundation across our borders, we will lose our country without a bleat.
We the People of the United States of America have the right to have our borders and our laws respected and enforced.
Citizens of other countries illegally in our country have no right to demand anything from our government. They most certainly have the right to petition the governments of their home countries for change if they are unhappy with their home country. If they want to be Americans, we have a path to citizenship, more generous than any other nation, and it starts in their home country.
We need to insist on the equal protection, application and enforcement of the law or devolve into anarchy. Our Republic only functions if everyone follows the same rules. We should not change the laws to accomodate those breaking them.
If America annouces to the world “We can’t stop you, so come on in” with another amnesty, the deluge will be overwhelming. If 3,000 a day didn’t get your attention, then wait until it’s 10,000 a day. We cannot sustain this influx and survive as a nation. We must speak up and speak to each other about this and not let false claims of racism or bigotry be used to intimidate us into silent assent. America is not Congress’ to give away. America belongs to We the People. Speak to your neighbors, speak to your coworkers, but please speak up to your Congressmen and Senators. It’s O.K. for us to enforce our laws, no really, it is.
Someone please tell Sens. McCain and Graham.
When I was younger I did plenty of drugs, then pretty much… stopped. As you get older they’re too “expensive” in terms of recovery. I don’t really miss them. I do, however, know pretty much all there is to know about that “scene.” The crowd I ran with was in their late 20′s to early 30′s, mostly highly-paid professionals. Doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and even one or two military officers (no idea how they got away with it). The short story – 95% of these people went through their phase (like I did) and came through more or less OK. 5% pretty much destroyed their lives (I’ve seen people go from six-figure executive to completely brain-fried), but these people had pretty serious psychological problems to begin with – they were using drugs as an escape rather than a form of entertainment. I’ve known people in similar situations that used booze instead of drugs – pretty much the same result.
The War on Drugs is a joke, and not a funny one. After all of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent and millions of people imprisoned you can walk into just about any high-end nightclub today and get some cocaine or ecstasy faster and cheaper than you can buy a round of drinks. That’s the law of Supply and Demand telling you the policy is an epic, spectacular failure. You’d have to be on drugs to think that prohibition is keeping *anybody* off of drugs. People that want to escape reality are going to do so by whatever means – drugs, alcohol, sniffing gasoline, cough syrup, whatever.
You think the War on Drugs is keeping doctors from showing up high as a kite? Ummm… it’s not. I’ve personally seen doctors doing enough coke to scare me. Government regulations don’t buy you a land of perfect safety – they only give you the illusion of it. People break laws all of the time. You don’t want a doctor that’s a cokehead? Me neither. But all of the laws in the world aren’t going to eliminate that possibility. I’d rather have a contract between me and my doctor saying he doesn’t do drugs and that he provide some sort of reasonable proof for it. I would trust that far more than some indifferent and incompetent government bureaucracy. If people demand it, it will happen; if they don’t then it won’t (the whole supply and demand thing). Same thing with teachers, airline pilots, etc.
Look at how well the FAA rules against pilots drinking have worked. Wouldn’t you rather fly with an airline that has as their policy that they breathalyze their pilots before flights?
The government can’t fix people’s bad behavior and can’t be everybody’s nanny. The vast majority of people will behave well the vast majority of the time. You’re much better off defending yourself against the other 5%.
I don’t care how much you differ. As the man said, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.
Yes.
You are saying that tobacco and alcohol are NOT addictive, aren’t you? Just making sure I understand your position.
I’ve seen an alcoholic with the shakes.
In fact, long time alcoholics who try to quit cold turkey can die from it.
But alcohol isn’t addicitve. For most people, in moderation, it isn’t.
But if someone dies from stopping alcohol, or suffers seizures and physical pain, I call that an addiction.
Complications of Alcohol Withdrawal
You are correct. Neither alcohol nor cigarettes are addictive. That doesn’t mean you can’t develop a dependency on them, but that’s primarily psychological rather than physical. It would appear that the “privacy first” left agrees with me, given their attempts to ban both (without making them illegal – they love those excise taxes). For the record, I’ve been a heavy user of both, just as you were of your drugs of choice, which I would guess did not include heroin or other opiates, which are what I generally mean when I refer to as “hard” drugs. I realize that other drugs like coca and cannabis derivatives have different effects depending on the particular recipe and concentration.
Let’s be clear here. I don’t care at all what you do in your own home. I simply dispute his contention that alcohol and nicotine are addictive in the same way that opiates are. That doesn’t mean I support drunk pilots or lighting up cheap cigars in my car.
Okay, there it is. I wanted to know where we differed because I generally agree with you. I call a dependency an addiction as there are physical addictions and psychological addictions. Some substances develop into both types (which cigarettes do). But I don’t care to split hairs with you.
I disagree with Thacker, arriving at work drunk for example could already be grounds for dismisal, and Alcohol is technically a drug right? So businesses can add other items to the fireable offenses, and let their employees know. No big deal.
http://www.drugabuse.gov/researchreports/nicotine/nicotine.html
http://www.narconon.ca/Alcohol.htm
The infiltration in this country has gone all the way to the top…POTUS!!!
You can die from alcohol withdrawl, and that is strictly psychological?
I’m missing something.
#45 RogersUmp- The drug gangs oppose the centrist (for Mexico) president who is taking them on. They want the corrupt pseudo-Marxists back in power.
aka the Mexican version of Barak Hussein Obama and Nancy Pelosi.
You and I are in agreement.
More like “Mierda” IMO.
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My ex Mexican (now U.S.) Citizen wife and I no longer visit her family members in Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico–12 miles Southwest of my El Paso, Tx. home. It’s too dangerous–her family there reports many more of them are unemployed and their businesses are going broke due to lack of customers, robberies by armed gangs, having to pay bribes to corrupt police and city / federal inspectors, etc. And they are afraid to go outside their homes to their jobs–if they have one.
***
One of her distant family members had a small neighborhood car lot–with 10 cars on hand. Her son was kidnapped and held for ransom–the family managed to sell enough of their property, houses, cars, etc. to raise the $15,000 ransom. They got their son back after 3 weeks–fortunately unhurt and unabused. The kidnappers were never found. It destroyed the family’s economy.
***
The Mexican people in Juarez should call a general strike and completely shut down the border bridges and the roads into Juarez–when El Presidente is there. Their government is corrupt and is working with the drug lords. Half a million in the streets can prevail.
***
I hope the Mexican People will arm themselves like the people in Israel did. Every time a drug lord shooting starts–the perps should take fire from six different directions and should die there a few seconds later. This happens a lot in Israel–even little old ladies have big guns in their purses. The Mexican government has disarmed their people–they fear another Pancho Villa revolution against a corrupt government.
***
John Bibb
***
My daughter just returned from Cancun two weeks ago. Thank God she is back home! We have a full-blown drug war right on our border. Are our Border Patrol Guards allowed to carry guns yet? Or are they still prohibited?
You’re kidding, right? I was addicted to cigarettes for over 25 years. There is no question that quitting smoking is extremely hard and downright painful. Yes, addictive. And alochol? Ever deal with an alcoholic? What exactly are YOU smoking?
FACTS:
1. The “virtual” fence has always been good marketing. It will NEVER be a panacea, but rather an asset to assist law enforcement. It is subject to breakdowns, holes and operational weaknesses like any other tool. A real fence will always be a better, though more expensive part of the solution.
2. Border enforcement will always be critical (we’ll always have to stop drug smuggling), but interior enforcement is the soft underbelly here. Unless we remove the magnet for jobs and the incentive for remaining here home free once they’ve gotten by the border, all of this is moot. Border Patrol has doubled in the last several years (there are growing pains with a young, inexperienced force), but interior enforcement is largely a dog and pony show and otherwise completely overwhelmed.
3. The Mexican government should be considered a de facto enemy. They’re not helpful at all, and mostly hurtful to border security. Do not go to Mexico right now, not anywhere, the drug war there is out of control.
4. Hardly ever considered with immigration are welfare and taxation. High taxes on companies encourages them to hire illegals to remain competitive. Welfare that subsidizes behavior that other citizens here are “above” hard work and working at jobs illegals will do is at the heart of the problem. Unless we kick these people to the curb and shame them to work, we’ll never be over immigration as a problem. Welfare should remain for the truly incapable. The health care fiasco will only make things worse, despite the hollow “no illegals” pledge.
You can die from an excessive amount of either oxygen or water, but that doesn’t make you addicted.
A bad habit is not an addiction, no matter how hard it is to break. The physiological effects of quitting smoking last for a matter of days. After that, it’s all not knowing what to do with your hands. I started smoking at age 16, and smoked steadily for over 20 years. When I quit cold turkey in 1976 I was smoking around 2-2.5 packs a day. There was no pain or other serious adverse effects, just a craving for a few days that soon went away. I was also a heavy drinker and quit drinking with zero aftereffects. I don’t dispute that you may have found quitting difficult. Many people do, but more from a lack of self-discipline than from any addiction.
An addict can’t quit their “habit” without severe physiological (and mental) stress – and I know that some extremely heavy drinkers can show signs of addiction although I didn’t. Unfortunately, our society has gotten so weak that the term “addiction” has become a substitute for the lack of self-control. It’s easy to blame “addiction” rather than take responsibility for your own actions.
Just my opinion, of course. Others obviously disagree.
Well hell, if making illegal drugs will make the problem go away, why not apply it elsewhere? This is a total paradigm shift in thinking, but this could very well save our country! ThackerAgency is really onto something here!!
After legalization of drugs, I suggest we legalize the following in order to reduce or eliminate the crimes associated with them:
Child pornography
Rape
Incest
Spousal Abuse
Prostitution
Pedophilia
Murder.
and the list goes on. We could have that perfect utopian society if we’d just get rid of all laws!
It’s so clear to me now1
The Narco Wars on our southern border (on both sides of it) are another severe indictment of our “make believe world” as presented by our “journalists.”
Contrast the coverage of the Iraq war under Bush.
Thank God for real journalism (the new media)like MM!
On March 17th, 2010 at 10:27 am, TigerLady said:
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is a
usefuluseless idiot.There. Fixed it.
LOL John Deaux. Thank you! Finally! Someone else sees it my way.
Watch how much the media pays attention to this, and how much Congress listens.
…and compare to how they have ignored the people on the health care takeover.
I’m still curious.
Amnesty has been pushed hard in the face of overwhelming opposition.
Social Security has been going bankrupt. Just a day or two ago were news reports of SS cashing in IOU’s.
How many politicians are pushing amnesty to shore up the tax rolls so they don’t have to admit they were wrong for years when dipping into SS money?
How many don’t want to fix what they clearly have broken?
Right along with that lazer like focus on creating jobs…which is something Government cannot do unless it gets out of the way and allows the free market to do its thing. But those principles of a growning American economy and freedom to do so would interrupt his agenda of destroying the nation and leaving it in a pile of dust.
Reminder – 53% voted this a$$hole to be their president. Not me.
And these are the same people who were constantly griping about our “open-ended commitment” to Iraq during the Bush years.
Obama and the rest of his Stalinist administration do not give a rat’s ass about US: Forget about them doing anything to stop the violence. We, however, CAN do something: Boycott Mexico. Do not buy any of their products, especially that overpriced rotgut Tequila they dump on us, and do not vacation there. We hurt the French badly back in 2002 -2003 by boycotting their wines: let’s see if we can hurt our enemy south of the border in a similar way.
Michelle,
It never was, or envisioned to be, a fence of any kind, virtual or otherwise.
SBInet was designed to be a detection system. Period.
Kind of like an AWACS on the border, the sensors would detect illegals as they approach the border, track them and more efficiently dispatch Border Patrol Agents to where they make the interception/apprehension.
Technology is developed and has moved very far along and is fieldable. The Mobile Surveillance System (MSS) trucks they use are stop-gap, short range and break all the time. What is needed is a seamless system that can detect, track and help coordinate interceptions and apprehensions. More Agents would help, but that simply is not workable to cover the desert border.
Please, Michelle, talk to the Border Patrol Agents (specifically the younger Agents as they are not afraid of technology). My son is an Agent on the AZ border and they desperately need technology to cover those wide areas.
To terminate or delay the program, just when the technical challenges are mostly solved, is wrong-headed and silly, and exposes greater risk to the Agents on the border as they are now more likely to come upon with little or no notice, illegals and smugglers—not good.
Please do not champion efforts to place in greater danger my son and all the other Agents on the border.
I know this is well after the fact of when this happened and was discussed in this forum.
Over either the last weekend or the weekend prior, I was listening to NPR (I do, Saturday mornings “Car Talk” with the Tappet brothers are my favorite) and there was an interview with Janet Napolitano about US efforts along the border with Mexico, as well as US Military cooperation.
I’m sure if you are determined – you would be able to find audio or transcript on the NPR website. I’d do it myself but the kid’s needs tonight are more urgent.
Anyway – the point is this – The Toadstool, as a friend refers to her, made reference to the murdered people as, “…persons associated with the consulate…”
No mention that they were U.S. citizens.
Think about that.
Does that creep you out?