Thread: Border incident raising tensions in U.S., Mexico

BY HUGH DELLIOS AND MICHAEL MARTINEZ
Chicago Tribune

MEXICO CITY - A confrontation between sheriff's deputies and uniformed drug traffickers along the Texas border has intensified concerns about forays into the United States by Mexican soldiers while heightening bilateral tensions over border violence.

U.S. officials are demanding that Mexico fully investigate an incident Monday in which several men wearing military-style uniforms and carrying military-style weapons helped suspected marijuana traffickers escape into Mexico.

Mexican officials deny that real Mexican soldiers were involved. But the incident has refocused attention on reports that Mexican military and police personnel have crossed onto U.S. territory at least 216 times in the past 10 years, along with concerns about how drug dealers may be obtaining Mexican army uniforms.

"It was no doubt that it was Mexican military, because I've seen them and I've dealt with them all my life down here," said Arvin West, sheriff of Texas' Hudspeth County, whose officers filmed Monday's incident using cameras he bought to back up his allegations.

West said his deputies have caught Mexican soldiers crossing the border "to buy Snickers (candy bars)." But he said Monday's clash was among the more serious incidents, in which soldiers helping drug smugglers "are sitting there waiting with their machine guns to make sure (the drugs) get back OK."

The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Antonio Garza, sent a diplomatic protest to the Mexican government Wednesday, demanding an explanation and questioning Mexico's commitment to combating violence along the border.

Local authorities in Texas and U.S. Border Patrol officials have been even more strident in their criticism, saying the incursions by Mexican soldiers are common and worrisome. They also have condemned federal officials for not taking the matter seriously enough.

In turn, Mexican officials have questioned the motives and timing behind the U.S. complaints. Some believe the incursion reports are being overblown by proponents of a bill in the U.S. Congress to build more border fences to keep out Mexican laborers. The U.S. Senate is scheduled to debate the measure as early as next month.

Michael Chertoff, U.S. Homeland Security secretary, also characterized the reports as "overblown" and "scare tactics" last week. He said a number of incursions were "innocent" mistakes by Mexican soldiers who did not know they crossed the border, which is barely marked in more remote places.

While Mexico's Defense Ministry is investigating Monday's incident, a spokesman for President Vicente Fox asserted that the suspected soldiers were actually traffickers wearing fake uniforms. Foreign Ministry officials said the traffickers' equipment did not match that of local army units.
Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez sent his own diplomatic complaint to Washington on Thursday, rejecting the U.S. ambassador's questioning of Mexico's anti-drug efforts. At a news conference, he suggested that the uniformed smugglers could have been Americans.

Yet for some Mexican analysts, the fact that drug traffickers can operate along the border in Mexican army uniforms, even if fake, raises disturbing questions by itself.

"This is very serious, whether they were military or not, because someone should have detected them," said Jorge Chabat, an expert in border security issues and U.S.-Mexico relations.

Chabat and others noted that the military has been Mexico's primary instrument in combating drug trafficking and that the army has made most of the high-profile arrests of drug kingpins in recent years.

The army is seen as less corrupt and less corruptible than Mexico's civilian law enforcement agencies. But the army's role in the drug war inevitably has made it more vulnerable to being corrupted, and there have been several cases of soldiers being arrested for colluding with drug runners.

Monday's border incident began when Texas authorities tried to stop three SUVs on an interstate highway near El Paso. The vehicles fled toward the border, where people in Mexican army-style uniforms with army-style weapons in an army-style Humvee appeared to be waiting for them on the other side of the Rio Grande.

The state officers and sheriff's deputies had their guns drawn, as did the smugglers, but no shots were fired. More than 1,400 pounds of marijuana was found in one of the vehicles, which blew a tire and was abandoned on the Texas side, while the armed, uniformed men flanked a second vehicle stuck in the river while it was unloaded.

West, the county sheriff, said such incursions occur several times a month, and that he and others have been trying to get federal officials to focus on the problem.

"I'm sick and tired of the federal government calling us liars," said West, a Democrat re-elected last year. "Just about every time we catch a big load (of marijuana), every time we chase them back, (Mexican soldiers) are there.

"They're sitting there with Humvees and state-of-the-art military equipment. We're sitting there with (patrol cars). We're sitting there with limited high-powered rifles and sidearms versus machine guns," West said.

West said at other times his deputies have encountered Mexican soldiers who have crossed into Texas to eat at restaurants, although they usually have left their weapons behind.

Proponents of tighter border measures in the United States have been complaining for several years about Mexican army and police incursions. Only a few of the incidents have resulted in confrontations, but officials say they take the incursions seriously.

The number of incursions peaked at 40 in 2002, according to a U.S. Homeland Security report distributed to news organizations by U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who is lobbying for more controls on illegal immigration. Since then the number has dropped sharply; nine incidents were reported last year.

Five more incursions took place in the first quarter of this fiscal year, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. Citing confidential Homeland Security records, the newspaper said the incidents have included five Tijuana police officers pursuing and shooting at two suspects over the border in 2004 and two men in Mexican army uniforms and carrying rifles in a creek bed north of the border near San Diego in October.
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union that represents 10,500 border agents, responded angrily to federal officials' downplaying of the incidents.

He noted one case in 2002 when a Border Patrol agent reported a Mexican military vehicle inside Arizona. To avoid a problem, the agent tried to drive away but said the Mexican soldiers fired at him, shattering his back window.

In another case in 2000, Border Patrol agents confronted two Mexican army Humvees a mile inside New Mexico. One of the vehicles stopped, but the soldiers in the other fled and fired two shots at the border agents.
Mexican officials said later that the army units had been lost. In other cases, Mexican soldiers said they believed the U.S. agents were actually in Mexican territory, although Bonner still questioned why they would open fire.

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/world/13720561.htm

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I'm sick and tired of the federal government calling us liars," said West, a Democrat re-elected last year. "Just about every time we catch a big load (of marijuana), every time we chase them back, (Mexican soldiers) are there.
"They're sitting there with Humvees and state-of-the-art military equipment. We're sitting there with (patrol cars). We're sitting there with limited high-powered rifles and sidearms versus machine guns," West said.

This really burns me up! If these were any other country's soldiers, the feds would be all over this! It seems to me that our government just chooses to ignore anything that Mexico is doing, be it smuggling drugs, humans, or their soldiers coming freely onto US soil! It's time that someone in Washington tell Mexico, "Hey, you CAN'T DO these things anymore"! I know that if Tom Tancredo were our president right now, Vicinte Fox would be shutting that big mouth of his and minding his own business, and all of this mess would cease!

TOM TANCREDO FOR PRESIDENT, WOO HOO!!!!

A Tancredo and Sensenbrenner ticket?

Tancredo and Sensenbrenner ticket?

I would like to see a Tancredo-Dobbs ticket myself. We all know the incredible work Tom has done in the face of the outright war declared on him by the Bush administration and the Republican party leadership. Even supporting and funding the campaigns of other Republican candidates more pliant to their treasonous viewpoint on the illegal invasion they are fostering, to run against him in his Gongressional district.

Tom would be a fantastic candidate who could get masses of support of the majority of Americans disgusted by both parties but especially Bush and the Republicans betrayal of American ideals and traditions; their disdain for the Constitution; their blatant Hispandering to garner votes and further solidify their power; their total disregard and lack of enforcement of the laws of this nation simply to benefit their big corporate masters and special interest lobbies to get campaign donations, the list is endless, all the while claiming to be supporting the interests of the middle class. What a crock!

As far as the national media goes, Lou Dobbs has been the most vocal, most stand up, absolute no BS taking, most critical of Bush/Congress/Mexican government, most supportive of the middle class of any person with a rational, reasoned approach to countering this invasion, mainly from Mexico.

Bill O'Spineless, on the other hand, has been mostly silent for the most part, when it comes to the invasion, and has even defended the masses of third world invading moochers and free loaders, saying he would do the same thing as these illegals if he needed to provide a better life for his family, even going so far as saying he SUPPORTS a "Guest Invader" plan.

Well I say hogwash, you can't justify breaking laws, any laws, whether it be immigration law, employment and fasle identification laws, driving laws and regulations, welfare fraud laws (as many illegals do, having the husbands work under the table while sending their wives in to falsify applications in order to collect welfare/food stamps, Section 8 housing benefits, etc.) just because they want a better life for themsleves or the massive families they can't support on their own.

I can think of many laws I could break to make a better life for my family, mistating income of my small business ventures or doing work for cash under the table, etc.

If we can only get them to run, I say Tom and Lou could give both parties a real fierce run for their money as an independent NEW third or fourth party, like on Tom's website, the Team America Party would be a great name for this movement to take back our country from the masses of invading illegals, the corrupt politicians from both sides, the America hating one-world globalists, the corrupted, greedy interests of the giant multi-national corporations and the special interest lobbies twisted agendas.

We need to get the ball rolling now, to make this a reality, whomever we can get to run against the treasonous, betraying politicians who have been destroying America for their own personal gain and power. I never in my lifetime ever thought that the greatest threat to America, not just the welfare and safety of our nation, but the greatest threat to the very existence of our country would come from our own PRESIDENT!


TEAM AMERICA IN '08!!


and as always
_________________
VIVA LA MIGRA!

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http://www.alipac.us/article-1015-thread-1-0.html

Unfortunately, starting and succeeding with a third party has been made extremely difficult by the existing two parties, on purpose of course.

Also, Lou Dobbs is a journalist, not a politician, so would he even be interested? We know he's a good journalist, but how good a political leader would he be?