Posted on 09/26/2010 2:06:53 PM PDT by AuntB
The Senate's top Republican on foreign policy said this weekend that drug traffickers operating on the Mexican border pose a more immediate national security threat than domestic terrorists.
Sen. Richard Lugar (Ind.), senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is calling on the White House to intensify efforts to help Mexico fight drug lords at the border, where escalating violence has killed tens of thousands of people in the past few years.
"Transnational drug trafficking organizations operating from Mexico represent the most immediate national security threat faced by the United States in the Western Hemisphere," Lugar said in remarks prepared for an Indiana-based training for Mexican prosecutors Sunday, Reuters reports.
"The United States should undertake a broad review of further steps the U.S. military and the intelligence community could take to help combat the Mexican cartels in association with the Mexican government."
The Indiana Republican is suggesting the U.S. military and intelligence communities provide Mexico with more surveillance help, to combat the flow of drugs, money and weapons across the 1,969 mile border....
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Mexican drug cartels: Can journalists escape their violence?
Mexican drug cartels are assaulting the press, and so journalists are banding together to ask the Mexican government for protection.
Mexico City
The Mexican press has been subject to assault and attack at the hands of suspected drug traffickers – including grenades launched into high-tech broadcast stations and dingy newspaper offices – for years.
Even as media watchdogs have declared Mexico one of the world's most dangerous places to report from, each outlet has had to act individually to protect its staff. Mostly they omit writer bylines and leave out crucial details of shootouts and kidnappings – if they cover the mayhem at all.
But now the Mexican media is demanding more protection, working together to draw attention to the threats the job is generating.
. Mexico's National Commission on Human Rights says that 65 media workers have been killed in the past decade. The Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 30 reporters have been killed or have disappeared since December 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderón took office and dispatched the military to tackle organized crime. In that time, more than 28,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence.
Four journalists were briefly kidnapped in July, when they were inquiring about a mass murder in Torreon. In January 2009, gunmen launched a grenade at a popular television station during its nightly broadcast.
Some of them have been showing up in the US asking for help. Jorge Luis Aguirre, the editor of an online news site in Ciudad Juárez, was granted asylum just days ago, after fleeing to the US in the face of a death threat. He is the first journalist believed to be granted asylum by the US in the past four years, and it could have repercussions for other journalists seeking haven on American soil.
Since the majority of the cases against journalists are unsolved – as is crime in general in Mexico – it is sometimes hard to distinguish between cases in which journalists are killed for personal reasons, including for being on the payroll a certain group and killed off by a rival, and when it is their reporting that puts them in danger.[snip]
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0924/Mexican-drug-cartels-Can-journalists-escape-their-violence
Damn!! It must be an election year.
Not a problem... We will just close the border. /s
How was your nap, Dick? I hope Gov. Brewer’s shouting didn’t wake you up!
I thought we tea partiers and Viet Nam vets were the biggest threats. s/
More of the same:
Napolitano to McCain: Yes, Mexican Cartels Pose Terror Threat to U.S.
(McLiar is pushing Nappy to say the violence is only a problem in the last couple years...he’s looking to cover his pandering butt again)
[snip]In 2009, the U.S. Justice Department declared in its annual National Drug Threat Assessment that the Mexican drug cartels were “the greatest organized crime threat to the United States,” but the U.S. State Department has not listed those cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
The 2010 National Drug Threat Assessment said that “900,000 criminally active gang members representing approximately 20,000 street gangs” distribute drugs for the Mexican cartels in more than 2,500 American cities.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75789
If McCain had lost the primary, the whole nation would have been better off.
“How was your nap, Dick? “
Exactly! When an old rino like Lugar sees it, it’s pretty damn plain, isn’t it?
It's for the children.
Gosh, where's he been the last 10 20 30 40 years?
I still think the domestic terrorists in Congress are a greater threat.
The November elections may change my attitude.
.. but their value to the Democratic Party is up by 500%.
THAT is what matters.
.. but their value to the Democratic Party is up by 500%.
THAT is what matters.
(Somewhat like what happened to Rome - before it fell.)
Lugar is a Republican?
I forgot. Sorry.
Every Mexican living is a threat to this nations security. As the situation in Mexico worsens at some point every Mexican in the place will be running north.
It is said in Portland's free routes being the choice of transportation for dealers/users.
That being typed above I thought about the Cartels running the pot farms in our mountain ranges when I read an article in the local paper.
Seems a 15yr long dream to make a hiking trail from Ona Beach (Seal Rock/Waldport area) over the coast range to Corvallis is going to come true.
I thought wow what an adventure for those able bodied, then I thought about it being a possible corridor for nefarious uses.
Not good. Possibly making forest access easier for the Cartel Pot Farms or other evil intentions.
Heh, would not go that far! Every Mexican drug runner, gang member, and illegal alien smuggler is certainly a threat to this country.
The rest of your statement seems a bit off in the weeds though...
We should condition Mexico’s on letting Delta Force move in MX to deal with this scum.
So it doesn’t seem as bad, we can agree on xxx soldier limit.
I feel so safe knowing that our elected morons are awake and up to date with what’s going on in America.
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