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Links between illegal immigration, terrorism, drug trade worry U.S officials
Inland Daily Bulletin ^ | 29 DEC 2006 | Sara A. Carter

Posted on 12/29/2006 5:34:24 AM PST by radar101

COLUMBUS, N.M. - On Sept. 5, a man calling himself Miguel Alfonso Salinas was apprehended off a deserted highway near the U.S.-Mexico border. The tinted windows on Alfonso Salinas' vehicle aroused the suspicion of Border Patrol agents patrolling a dark and desolate stretch of Highway 9, which runs parallel to the border and is the site of large numbers of illegal crossings.

The agents discovered three Mexican migrants in the vehicle with Alfonso Salinas. But what they discovered several days later made a far greater impression.

Alfonso Salinas was not who he seemed, according to U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security documents. He lied to the agents about who he was, where he came from and what he was doing.

It would take nearly a week of interviews with federal agents before Alfonso Salinas would give his real name: Ayman Sulmane Kamal, a Muslim born in Egypt - a country designated as "special-interest" by the United States for sponsoring terrorism.

Kamal's case is not an isolated one.

Evidence of "special-interest aliens" using the Mexican border to gain entry to the United States has been kept secret from the American public, according to federal law enforcement agents, terrorism experts and critics of U.S. foreign policy with Mexico.

In 2005, the Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. illegally. Of those, 165,000 were from countries other than Mexico, and roughly 650 were, like Kamal, from special-interest countries, according to the Border Patrol.

Those interviewed by the Daily Bulletin say agencies including the FBI and CIA are not using information from Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration agents to make connections between the drug trade, illegal immigration and terrorist organizations.

"For us to believe that Mexican smugglers will not assist, knowingly or unknowingly, foreign terrorists trying to enter the United States is incomprehensible," said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, who, along with other congressional representatives, has pushed for stricter border security policies.

Whether Kamal had ties to a terrorist group is not known. No information about him, including his current whereabouts, is available aside from what is in Justice Department and Homeland Security documents.

But the links between illegal immigration, expanded trade, Mexican narcotics organizations and terrorist groups has already been assessed by U.S. federal law enforcement agencies, according to DEA documents obtained by the Daily Bulletin.

According to an intelligence report written by the DEA, "La Entrada al Pac fico (Gateway to the Pacific)" - also the name of a Texas-Mexico plan to expand border trade - Asian narcotics traffickers, in collusion with Mexican drug trafficking organizations and terrorist groups, could use expanded trade routes to bring contraband into the United States.

"The DEA has made a conscious effort to generate predictive intelligence so policy makers can be aware and plan ahead for significant changes in narcotics and smuggling operations," said a DEA official who asked to remain anonymous. "Any time you send in a predictive piece of intelligence that has merit and it's ignored, then the consequences of that can be devastating to national security."

According to DEA intelligence reports, the link between terrorism and narcotics has been well known since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

But federal agents say getting bureaucrats to understand the growing danger is difficult when most lawmakers won't even acknowledge many of the problems already happening along the U.S. border.

BORDER BATTLES

One of those problems was on full display in Texas earlier this year.

Sheriff Arvin West of Hudspeth County - a border area 50 miles east of El Paso - and other Texas border sheriffs had complained for more than a year that Mexican military personnel were helping cartels smuggle humans and contraband across the Rio Grande and into the U.S.

The Daily Bulletin first published Department of Homeland Security documents and maps from the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy in January, showing 226 Mexican military incursions into the United States since 1996. That information led to a call for congressional investigations and hearings to determine the extent of the intrusions.

Shortly afterward, West was confronted with another incursion. This time, local law enforcement officials videotaped the event and went public with it.

"We had video and photographs," West said. "We went to Congress and testified before them with the evidence in hand. And we were told by Congressman (Silvestre) Reyes (D-El Paso) that we were either lying or mistaken."

Reyes, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and U.S. and Mexican government officials tried to play down the documents and the incident in Hudspeth County. They stated publicly that the cartels were dressing like Mexican military to damage relations between the U.S. and Mexico.

Reyes, who recently was appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

"The bureaucrats don't understand what a dangerous game they are playing with American lives if they don't do something to fix the situation at the border," said Michael Cutler, a former special agent with Immigration and Naturalization Services, who testified before the 9-11 Commission.

According to Border Patrol agents in Texas and Arizona, the Department of Homeland Security has stopped agents from filing full-disclosure incident reports if they see Mexican military involved in an alleged smuggling operation.

In some parts of Texas, if Mexican military personnel are suspected of assisting narcotics traffickers or smuggling humans, they are not processed, but instead are taken to a port of entry and released into Mexico.

An unnamed Border Patrol agent in Arizona said he witnessed a Mexican military helicopter shooting at a fellow agent in pursuit of a vehicle along the Arizona border with Mexico.

The supervisors would not let the agent put the Mexican military's involvement in the incident report, the agent said.

Michael Friel, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, said he had no knowledge of such an incident.

It's not just the cartels' connections to Mexican government officials and military that have U.S. intelligence officials and law enforcement worried. It's also the growing evidence that terrorist organizations have become increasingly dependent on narcotics and weapons sales to support their activities, and that they see the Southwest border as an incubator for their activities.

"Intelligence indicates that terrorist organizations are increasingly probing the U.S.-Mexico border," El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego told the House Judiciary Committee in August, during hearings about border security.

"The large international border creates tremendous smuggling opportunities for terrorists and is fertile ground for recruitment and development of support networks for terrorist organizations," Samaniego said. "The Mexican drug trafficking and human smuggling organizations use their knowledge of the border to assist terrorist cell members in their attempts to exploit the United States.

"The multicultural aspect of the border area also appeals to the terrorists. There are many nationalities, many of them transients, who live and interact in the border setting. This provides the terrorists the opportunity to blend into the community.

"The Southwest border may not be a priority target for a terrorist attack, but it is prime territory for the cultivation, recruitment, transportation and stashing of terrorist cell members," Samaniego concluded.

Samaniego and his colleagues aren't the only ones with such beliefs.

A DEA official said terrorist incidents such as the Madrid train bombings in March 2004 would be easy to duplicate in the United States, with the Southwest border as the best place to smuggle in those who would carry out such a plot.

In the train bombings, 10 synchronized explosions killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,700. An Islamic extremist group that funded the operation with narcotics sales was pinpointed as the perpetrator of the bombings.

"A former DEA director explained the problem best. During the cold war the threat was ABC: atomic, biological and chemical," said an intelligence official with the DEA, speaking on condition of anonymity. "If you apply that formula now to post 9/11 ... it becomes ABCD: atomic, biological, chemical and drugs. The drugs provide the funding for terrorism."

TERRORIST CULTURE

Additionally troubling to U.S. authorities are the growing cultural similarities between Mexican drug cartels and established terrorist groups.

Like Islamic extremists and other terrorist organizations that use suicide bombings or decapitations to strike fear into their enemies, drug-trafficking organizations have developed cultural associations with death over the past several years.

The Sinaloa Cartel, headed by Joaqu n "El Chapo" Guzm n, is now known by federal law enforcement officials as the "Federation" or "Golden Triangle." The long-running war between the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels for control of the Nuevo Laredo border forced Sinaloa to build alliances with numerous other drug trafficking organizations throughout Mexico, making the Sinaloa Cartel one of the most powerful in the country.

The Sinaloa Cartel, along with the help of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, head of the Juarez Cartel, moves the majority of its narcotics through Ciudad Ju rez, which borders El Paso, Texas.

Along the streets of Ciudad Ju rez, Mexico, statues of La Santa Muerte - the saint of death - can be found at almost any local shop. The robed skeleton with a sickle clutched in its bony fingers is worshiped by many drug runners in Mexico and the United States.

The empty-eyed deity is particularly haunting in a city known for the brutal murders of nearly 500 women since 1995. Many Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials have attributed the murders to drug traffickers, some of whom have been arrested. But the murders continue, and women still live in fear.

"Women shouldn't be on the street after dark," said Lalo, 81, who sat with his wife at their empty shop in downtown Ciudad Ju rez.

Danger signs are everywhere. Billboards follow passers-by like shadows, warning women to be vigilant. Every man begins to look like a predator.

"There is so much death," Lalo sighed. "I'm beginning to think the saint is real."

The attitudes and actions represented by worship of La Santa Muerte culturally connect Mexico's drug cartels to terrorist groups, according to DEA officials.

Like Hezbollah and al-Qaida, which promise martyrs that their family members will be provided for after suicide bombings, Mexican drug trafficking organizations promise high-level members that if they die in the name of the cartel, their families will be provided for. Other similarities include the growing number of beheadings of Mexican police officials by the cartels to instill terror.

In cities all along the U.S.-Mexico border, the popularity of the death deity is growing. From Tijuana to Laredo's violent sister city Nuevo Laredo, La Santa Muerte is found in statues, stickers and trinkets.

"Widespread and unchecked violence creates a palpable sense of fear and tears at the social, cultural, and economic fabric of Nuevo Laredo," stated a June 2006 report, "State of Siege: Drug-Related Violence and Corruption in Mexico," written by the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit organization promoting human rights.

"As the war between cartels rages, no one - not police, not journalists, not ordinary citizens - knows whom they can trust, so they trust no one."

In Nuevo Laredo, the saint haunts cemeteries where worshippers have left offerings of food. The deity also is seen on the back of bulletproof SUVs driven by narco-traffickers who cruise through the city, and even in graffiti along the city's walls.

Now the saint is gaining popularity in Laredo. Eerie evidence of ritualistic ceremonies performed by illegal immigrants in stash houses was discovered by Webb County sheriff's deputies after one raid. Pictures of members of a Mexican military unit lay in a bowl of blood, sprinkled with herbs and roots.

"This really spooked us," said Webb County sheriff's spokesman Tom Sanchez as he sifted through the photographs taken by the deputies who conducted the raid. "I mean, there was an altar filled with everything you can imagine to this Santisima Muerte. It's a culture of death."

And it's something U.S lawmakers should pay attention to, DEA and Border Patrol field agents said: Drug traffickers accepting death as a glorious end to their violent lives.

"We pray for a good death," said Jose, 21, a young worshiper of La Santa Muerte in Tijuana. He stood stoic by his white-boned statue of the death saint, and pointed to his charm necklace, where a smaller version of the saint hung.

"I pray that I will die in a hail of bullets or fighting for my last breath against my enemy. I'm not afraid to die. I welcome death."

Staff writer Sara A. Carter can be reached by e-mail at sara.carter@dailybulletin.com, or by phone at (909) 483-8552.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: aliens; arab; bushamnesty; bushsfault; crimaliens; denial; homelandsecurity; illegalimmigration; immigrantlist; immigration; invasion; mexico; otm; otms; selloutgop; terrorism; thankscongress; wot
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1 posted on 12/29/2006 5:34:27 AM PST by radar101
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To: radar101


Seal the Mexican border.


2 posted on 12/29/2006 5:37:30 AM PST by onyx (Phillip Rivers, LT and the San Diego Chargers! WOO-HOO!)
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To: radar101

Just now getting worried????


3 posted on 12/29/2006 5:38:39 AM PST by HuntsvilleTxVeteran ("Remember the Alamo, Goliad and WACO, It is Time for a new San Jacinto")
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To: onyx

The largest business owners in Columbus...are the biggest Drug dealers...its a family that owns 3-4 businesses there...they are pro illegal and they transport drugs...they OWN the town...


4 posted on 12/29/2006 5:41:33 AM PST by Youngman442002
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To: Youngman442002

Have they bought off the police and DEA? Report them.


5 posted on 12/29/2006 5:42:56 AM PST by onyx (Phillip Rivers, LT and the San Diego Chargers! WOO-HOO!)
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To: radar101
"In 2005, the Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. illegally"

Were these 1.2 million immediately deported? Or, were they allowed to go their merry way?

This porous border, which allows low-wage workforce illegals to keep coming into this country to suck the life and taxdollars out of it, for companies that donate to politicians so they'll look the other way will not stop until Americans stand up and object.

With the indoctrination through the political-correctness/sensitivity-training/diversity-training/etc., too many moonbat lefties are out there thinking the allowance of illegals to stay here, given amnesty, and yet they hate "big business", makes NO SENSE.

Our population is being spoon-fed B.S. continuously by the MSM, and are too lacking in common sense to see through the ruse.

6 posted on 12/29/2006 5:44:43 AM PST by traditional1
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To: radar101
Links between illegal immigration, terrorism, drug trade worry U.S officials

Well..........DUH!
7 posted on 12/29/2006 5:45:17 AM PST by YellowRoseofTx
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To: radar101

"Alfonso Salinas would give his real name: Ayman Sulmane Kamal, a Muslim born in Egypt"

Nah, serious crime and/or terrorism couldn't possible happen from Hispanic criminals or ragheads slipping across the border. After all, Presidente Arbusto has assured us that Hispanics are invading our country only to seek a better way of life and that Islam is a religion of peace. Not to worry; be happy. Just keep those tax dollars pouring into D.C.


8 posted on 12/29/2006 5:46:04 AM PST by reelfoot
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To: radar101

>>>Links between illegal immigration, terrorism, drug trade worry U.S officials>>>

Apparently not enough to DO anything about it. Or at least the elected folks.


9 posted on 12/29/2006 5:49:41 AM PST by Southerngl
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To: radar101

"Links between illegal immigration, terrorism, drug trade worry U.S officials"

Well George Bush AIN'T one those officials !!!


10 posted on 12/29/2006 5:55:29 AM PST by Obie Wan
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To: radar101
Just a little bit worrisome, but not so much that they'll actually do anything about it.
11 posted on 12/29/2006 5:56:57 AM PST by mtbopfuyn (I think the border is kind of an artificial barrier - San Antonio councilwoman Patti Radle)
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To: YellowRoseofTx
"Well..........DUH!"

Well DUH is right, natural allies as was shown in Kosovo (KLA) our government (Bush Adninistration/Rats in Congress) has either gone insane or treasonous.

12 posted on 12/29/2006 6:02:14 AM PST by jpsb
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To: radar101
There should be an interest in eliminating the causes for the reappearance of diseases thought eradicated in the United States until the vast increase in the number of illegal Mexicans and South Americans.

Solution: Seal our borders now.

Deport. Deport. Deport.

13 posted on 12/29/2006 6:12:49 AM PST by lewisclark
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To: radar101

Does it worry them enough to do anything about it? Apparently the only worry this administration has is that someone might actually try to enforce immigration laws. The Bush administration has shown a willingness to cooperate with smugglers and drug dealers in order to keep the southern border open.


14 posted on 12/29/2006 6:35:23 AM PST by FreePaul
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To: radar101

The Catholic church has been more and more backing amnesty, I believe since they are losing American Catholics daily, due to many of the "progressive" political stances that the church has taken.





A 'Hispanicized' Catholic Church?
(http://www.dailysouthtown.com/news/greeley/190392,291GRD1.article)

December 29, 2006

TUCSON -- The New York Times magazine Sunday suggested that American Catholicism is being "Hispanicized." As usual, when the subject is the Catholic Church, the "good, gray" Times is tone-deaf. The Irish Catholic model of Catholicism, which sometimes for weal and sometimes for woe has shaped the American church, is adjusting to a new and powerful model. Catholicism always tries to do that since it is a pluralistic church that believes, in principle any way, that Catholic means, as your man Jimmy Joyce put it, "here comes everyone." The outcome will be neither Mexican nor "Anglo" (which is what they call us Celts out here in the desert) but a combination of both, a blend of "Irish" rules and "Mexican" celebration. Catholicism means "both/and" not "either/or".

The popular religion of Mexico is a rich rain forest of devotions, saints, customs, celebrations and theological insights such as "God is part of our family, and when we celebrate as a family, God comes and celebrates with us."

At the center of it is the figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe, once perhaps a pagan goddess, but now unquestionably the patron of the Mexican peon with whom she identifies. I tell students that if they want to understand what Catholicism was like before the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, they should look at Mexican popular Catholicism and read the plays of Shakespeare. The "religion of the border" (as my colleague James "Big Jim" Griffith calls it) does not need, for example, the approval of the Congregation for the Making of Saints to proclaim their saints -- just as Catholics did for a thousand years.

Sometimes these saints disturb us Celts. I have in my possession (but never wear) a medallion of San Juan Malverde, the patron of the narcotrafficantes. In Perez-Reverte's great novel "The Queen of the South," the protagonist prays fervently to both Malverde and Guadalupe without any sense that there might be an inconsistency in such devotions.

Go figure.

The project as Latino Catholicism and North American Catholicism absorb one another is to retrieve some of the fervor and enthusiasm and energy and, yes, the freedom of Christians before the Council of Trent.

From the fall of Rome to the beginning of the 16th Century, outside of the monasteries and some of the cathedral cities and the occasional feudal court, Christianity was more of a religious culture than a formal church. It was a mix of stories, songs, art, deep faith, angels and saints, the Madonna, festivals, celebrations, and local devotions and customs, many of which might be thought today to be superstitious. In times of economic and social chaos, this was the best an illiterate population, often led by only semi-literate clergy, could do.

In the later Middle Ages, a demand emerged for "reform," which meant organizing, regularizing and purifying this religious "blooming, buzzing" culture. There was a Catholic "reform" in England, for example, well before Henry VIII. However, the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter Reformation both strove to impose discipline, order and orthodoxy on a recalcitrant peasant population. The Council of Trent at the end of the 16th Century made a vigorous and systematic attempt, not always successful, to transform popular religious culture into a church. Trent was an utterly necessary turning point in Catholic history.

However, the Conquistadors left Spain before the Council. Despite the efforts of the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries, Trent had little impact on Hispanic America. The church in the United States mostly is the post-Trent Church; the Church in Latino America is mostly a pre-Trent Church.

Despite what many church leaders try to persuade themselves, Vatican Council II was as dramatic a turning point in Catholic history as was Trent. Among its many achievements was the creation of a greater openness. Trent was not repealed but adjusted to be more tolerant of diversity. Hence efforts of many parish priests (Latino and Irish -- some of them even Irish-born!) to absorb the best of Mexican-American religion into American Catholicism are not attempts to return to the religious chaos of the Middle Ages. They, rather, are efforts to retrieve and integrate into American Catholicism all that is good and true and beautiful in Latino Catholicism, especially its joy, its love of celebration, its delight in festival.

As I tell Latino students, rules are necessary, but celebration and joy are more important -- even for us Celts. Our ancestors in the Middle Ages had one thing right: Jesus had preached good news, which demands celebration.

Andrew Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, author and sociologist. He teaches at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona. His column on political, church and social issues appears each Friday in the Daily Southtown. The Rev. Greeley's e-mail address is agreel@aol.com, and his home page, which includes homilies for every Sunday, is www.agreeley.com.





15 posted on 12/29/2006 6:48:33 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: FreePaul

U.S officials


The answer lies in the ballot box.

We get what we ask for.


16 posted on 12/29/2006 6:51:53 AM PST by THEUPMAN (####### comment deleted by moderator)
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To: THEUPMAN

"The answer lies in the ballot box.

We get what we ask for."

What if the choices we had to make agreed with each other on the issue?


17 posted on 12/29/2006 7:02:42 AM PST by EnochPowellWasRight
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To: EnochPowellWasRight
if the choices we had to make agreed

Become a choice.
Start locally ..... all politics are local.
18 posted on 12/29/2006 7:09:02 AM PST by THEUPMAN (####### comment deleted by moderator)
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To: radar101
Meth Labs Decreasing, But Ice Is Taking Over

By Dale DeWoody
Monday, April 10, 2006 8:49 AM CDT TIMES RECORD •
DDEWOODY@SWTIMES.COM

(ARKANSAS)

The number of methamphetamine labs in the area has decreased dramatically over the past few years, but the decline has little to do with legislation that went into effect last year, officials said.

In March 2005, Arkansas passed Act 256, which removed medications containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in meth, from store shelves. But the decline started earlier.

"Our lab numbers had already dropped over 50 percent a year before the law was passed," said Sgt. George Lawson, narcotics officer for the Fort Smith Police Department.

In 2003 there were 70 meth labs investigated by the Fort Smith police, according to records. The number dropped to 32 labs in 2004, and to just seven labs in 2005. Lawson said the reason for the decrease in meth labs is the increase in crystal meth, or "ice," that is being brought in from other areas. Investigator Lanny Reese of the 12th/21st Judicial Drug Task Force agrees.

"The meth labs are being shut down because of the import of ice from Mexico," he said.

The area is being flooded with the purer form of crystallized meth, made in super labs in Mexico and states like California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, said investigator Anthony Sacco with the drug task force.

Meth labs in the area usually make small amounts of meth in powder form for the makers' own use, said Sacco.

Buying large amounts of ice to sell is much safer and easier than trying to manufacture meth, and the penalty for selling is generally less than the sentence for manufacturing.

Lawson said those sentenced for manufacturing meth must serve a minimum of 50 percent of the sentence, but those convicted of selling meth may serve just one-sixth of the sentence.

This encourages meth dealers to buy imported meth instead of trying to manufacture their own, said Lawson.

Another problem is with illegal immigrants who bring the meth to the area, authorities said. "At least 75 percent of the meth dealers we arrest are illegal (immigrants)," Lawson said.

They get paid a lot of money to deliver the meth here, and when they get arrested they are often deported, he said. After they are deported, they sometimes come back again.

Lawson said that an illegal immigrant was arrested with meth in Fort Smith and was deported. Within one week, police arrested the same man in Fort Smith with meth again.

"Until we put a stop to the ice being imported, we'll continue to have a problem," said Reese. The demand for meth is great, which makes it more difficult to stop.

"It's a lucrative business," said Sacco.

A dealer can buy a pound of ice for around $10,000. It can then be cut up and sold in small quantities to make around $40,000, said Sacco. That is a $30,000 profit."....snip

sw

19 posted on 12/29/2006 7:30:07 AM PST by spectre (Spectre's wife)
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To: 1_Inch_Group; 2sheep; 2Trievers; 3AngelaD; 3pools; 3rdcanyon; 4Freedom; 4ourprogeny; 7.62 x 51mm; ..

ping


20 posted on 12/29/2006 7:33:01 AM PST by gubamyster
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