Posted on 05/05/2010 7:25:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
It was just one skirmish, but it plainly exposed Congress' and President Obama's dereliction of duty in failing to seal our southern border against a direct threat to the peace and security of our nation: drug smugglers.
Last Friday afternoon, Pinal County, Ariz., Deputy Sheriff Louie Puroll was patrolling a patch of desert when he picked up the trail of five smugglers bringing marijuana north from Mexico.
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Brabeu later explained what happened to Greta Van Susteren of Fox News.
"This is a known corridor for smuggling not only drugs but illegals," Brabeu said. "And so he radioed back to dispatch to call for support, and he continued to track the direction because he's highly skilled in this as a search-and-rescue deputy."
The smugglers figured out what Puroll was doing.
"And so they left a rear guard behind and took cover and concealment as our deputy approached," Brabeu told Van Susteren. "This last suspect, who was armed with an AK-47, popped up and started shooting at our deputy, who was in uniform. They clearly knew he was a law officer." The gun battle lasted 10 minutes.
Puroll emptied his pistol, then started shooting his rifle. He was hit, receiving a minor wound to his side. The sheriff's department dispatched a helicopter to the scene, and 200 law enforcement officers were eventually deployed to surround and search the area. Local authorities caught 17 illegal aliens in the vicinity, Brabeu said, and the Border Patrol caught another 100. So far, none has been charged with shooting Deputy Puroll.
You might suspect Pinal County is smack on the southern border. It is not. It is about 140 miles by interstate freeway north of Mexico. It is deep into the sovereign territory of the United States. Yet it is on the front lines of America's drug war, because it sits astride a wide-open corridor through which our derelict federal government allows smugglers to routinely bring massive amounts of illegal drugs into the interior of our country.
It is no exaggeration to call this war a war. It is a conflict in which many people have been killed or wounded -- even though our government is hardly fighting back.
Consider these facts from the recently released U.S. Justice Department National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010:
-- Almost one in five U.S. teenagers used illegal drugs in the past year.
-- Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) were the main wholesale suppliers. "Law enforcement reporting and case initiation data show that Mexican DTOs control most of the wholesale cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine distribution in the United States, as well as much of the marijuana distribution."
-- A massive network of street gangs distributed the drugs smuggled from Mexico in communities all across America. "In 2009, midlevel and retail drug distribution in the United States was dominated by more than 900,000 criminally active gang members representing approximately 20,000 street gangs in more than 2,500 cities."
-- Because our government did not secure our border, Mexican smugglers enjoyed a booming business last year. "Mexican DTOs increased the flow of several drugs (heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana) into the United States, primarily because they increased production of those drugs in Mexico."
-- Consumers of these smugglers' products clogged our health care system. "In 2007, there were approximately 1.8 million admissions to state-licensed treatment facilities for illicit drug dependence or abuse."
-- Emergency rooms were flooded with drug abusers. "In 2006, the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) reported that of 113 million hospital ED visits -- 1,743,887 (1.5 percent) -- were related to drug misuse or abuse."
Deputy Puroll was hardly the only U.S. law enforcement officer attacked by smugglers on U.S. territory. "Assaults against U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) agents increased 46 percent from 752 incidents in FY 2006 to 1,097 incidents in FY 2008," said the National Drug Threat Assessment. In other words, three Border Patrol agents were assaulted on the average day.
President Obama has largely left it to the Pinal County Sheriff's Department and other local law enforcement agencies in Arizona and other border states to do what little they can to protect the rest of America from the drugs and smugglers flowing in from Mexico.
It is no excuse for the administration's defenders to say President Bush did it, too. Of course he did. And it was a disgrace and dereliction for him, too.
Our Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution to create a federal government that would primarily carry out functions state governments could not. Paramount among them: 1) defending the country against foreign enemies, 2) regulating commerce with foreign nations, 3) regulating commerce among the states and 4) regulating immigration.
Today we have illegal immigrants hauling massive quantities of illegal drugs across our international border, engaging in firefights with U.S. law enforcement officers on our sovereign territory, and distributing their deadly contraband and destroying the lives of American teenagers in communities in every state of the union.
President Obama and Congress are failing in their most fundamental duties.
In AZ, everything south of I-8 and I-10 should be declared a warzone and troops sent in to help the border patrol and local law enforcement. Anybody who travels in this area at night..or day..in areas off the main roads is at risk for contact with armed coyotes and drug caravans.
We should be putting our boot on the neck of the smuggler’s.
We need more liberal drug and immigration policies and tougher gun laws to disarm the obviously dangerous, law-abiding citizens who should have no say in how their country is run.
Doing the jobs Americans won’t do.
Yeah it was called NAFTA!
“”It is no exaggeration to call this war a war. It is a conflict in which many people have been killed or wounded — even though our government is hardly fighting back. “
The quality of life for Americans has been deeply hurt by these illegal trespassers. In a few more years, it won’t be just border states that are dangerous. These cretins will be everywhere. The south is now getting hit hard.
“In a few more years, it won’t be just border states that are dangerous. These cretins will be everywhere. The south is now getting hit hard.”
You have probably heard me talk about the Mexican Cartels in my area (800 miles from the border).
Last summer, rural residents of Siskiyou County, California.....800 miles from the border, heard groups of ‘spanish speaking’ people walking up and down the roads in the middle of the night, patrolling. The various cartels are here fighting each other over LAND...our national forests, to grow their weed. We are told not to go into the forests for our own safety.
One fire in California last summer, LaBrea, was set by these cartels, consumed 88,000 acres.
Mexico, illegal aliens - TERRORISM, time to call it what it is
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2010/05/mexico-illegal-aliens-terrorism-time-to.html
Little noted in the media is the fact that the confrontation was not in the border region, but about fifty miles inside the United States.
You might suspect Pinal County is smack on the southern border. It is not. It is about 140 miles by interstate freeway north of Mexico.
Correcting myself by 90 miles.
Follow the money!
Puroll emptied his pistol, then started shooting his rifle. He was hit, receiving a minor wound to his side. The sheriff's department dispatched a helicopter to the scene, and 200 law enforcement officers were eventually deployed to surround and search the area. Local authorities caught 17 illegal aliens in the vicinity, Brabeu said, and the Border Patrol caught another 100. So far, none has been charged with shooting Deputy Puroll. Y'know, this is kinda like cockroaches - you may see one or two scurrying around in the kitchen; but when you turn on the light you see hundreds!
The number of tunnels being used to smuggle illegal drugs across the Southwestern border grew by more than half from 2008 to 2009, according to a March 25 report from the National Drug Intelligence Center.
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2009, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents stationed along U.S.-Mexico border discovered 26 illegal tunnels – a 60 percent increase over the 16 tunnels that authorities discovered in 2008. Most of the subterranean routes were discovered in Arizona, with 20 found in the “Tucson Sector” – a 262-mile long section of the border from the New Mexico state line to Yuma County, Ariz., the NDIC reported in its 2010 annual drug assessment.
“The proliferation of the underground tunnels is an indication that smugglers see them as an effective venue to bring in contraband into the U.S.,” the report said.
According to the Justice Department, most of the illegal tunnels are being used by drug smugglers to bring in illegal substances. “DTOs (drug trafficking organizations) consider these tunnels as useful investments to smuggle drugs into the United States,” the NDIC assessment said. But the report also noted the potential for the tunnels to be used for terrorist activity.
“Of some concern to law enforcement officials is the potential for using drug smuggling routes to move terrorists or transport weapons of mass destruction into the United States,” it revealed. The Justice Department, however, concluded that it is “very unlikely” that Mexican smugglers would bring in terrorists and weapons of mass destruction into the U.S.
“(T)here have been no incidents of this type documented, and according to federal law enforcement officials, the involvement of Mexican DTOs in this type of activity is ‘very unlikely,’ ” the report noted.
The NDIC assessment highlighted steps that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency has taken to combat the proliferation of underground tunnels along the southwest border, which include interfering with groups or individuals attempting to build tunnels in the sewer system beneath Nogales, Ariz.
“In February 2009, CBP initiated a program designed to impede the construction of tunnels in Nogales's extensive drainage system. The initiative involved the construction of a 12-foot-deep steel and concrete underground wall that extends 100 yards along the border near the DeConcini POE (port of entry) in Nogales,” the NDIC.
Tunnel passageways found under the California and Arizona border with Mexico undermine the “virtual fence,” which are cameras and sensors being placed along the southwest border in an effort to deter illegal immigration and drug smuggling.
In June 2009, U.S. Border Patrol agents uncovered a massive elaborate tunnel through the southwest border, measuring 48 feet in the U.S. and 35 feet in the Mexico. The tunnel had wooden framed walls and ceiling construction, as well as electrical wire, ventilation, and lighting. There were five underground tunnels found in California in FY 2009, four of which were discovered in San Diego.
Besides underground tunnels and other on land operations, Mexican drug traffickers also rely on moving contraband by using “low-flying small or ultra light” aircrafts. According to the NDIC assessment, drug abuse, including the toll on the environment from the production of drugs, comes at a $215 billion annual cost for the U.S. “Most illicit drugs available in the United States and thousands of illegal immigrants are smuggled into the United States across the nearly 2,000-mile Southwest Border,” the report noted.
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