Thread: Clinton: Mexico drug wars starting to look like insurgency

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Clinton says Mexico drug wars starting to look like insurgency.
Her comments reflect a striking shift in public comment by the Obama administration about the violence and come as U.S. officials weigh a large increase in aid to Mexico to help fight the cartels.

Reporting from Washington — Mexico's violent drug cartels increasingly resemble an insurgency with the power to challenge the government's control of wide swaths of its own soil, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.

Clinton's comments reflected a striking shift in the public comments of the Obama administration about the bloodshed that has cost 28,000 lives in Mexico since December 2006. They come as U.S. officials weigh a large increase in aid to the southern neighbor to help fight the cartels.

Clinton compared the conflict in Mexico to Colombia's recent struggle against a drug-financed leftist insurgency that, at its peak, controlled up to 40% of that country. She said the United States, Mexico and Central American countries need to cooperate on an "equivalent" of Plan Colombia — the multibillion-dollar military and aid program that helped turn back Colombia's insurgents.

"We face an increasing threat from a well-organized network, drug-trafficking threat that is, in some cases, morphing into, or making common cause with, what we would consider an insurgency," Clinton said in response to a question after a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

As recently as last week, a senior State Department official staunchly denied that the drug war could be accurately described as an insurgency.

And although the administration has regularly praised the cooperation of Mexican authorities, some U.S. officials are beginning to show uneasiness about the partnership.

Top American officials have noted that the Mexican government does not always act on intelligence shared by the U.S., and some suspect corruption is sometimes the cause of the inaction.

"There is some frustration," Alonzo R. Pena, deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an interview. U.S. officials may pinpoint a particular house where a cartel figure is believed to be, and no operation ensues to capture him, he said.

Pena said that the Mexicans, who have lost an "astronomical" number of police officers and soldiers, may be simply cautious when they decide not to use U.S. information to attack the gangs. But at other times "it is completely corruption," he said.

He said that he believed Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his close aides were trustworthy and committed to taking on the cartels. But U.S. officials are wary about cooperating with other elements of the Mexican government, fearing they can't be trusted, Pena said.

The Calderon government quickly disputed Clinton's assessment. Unlike Colombia, Mexico is acting "in time" to save its political system from being penetrated by the cartels, and to reform important institutions such as the police, the government's spokesman on security matters, Alejandro Poire, said at a news conference.

"There is a very important difference between what Colombia faced and what Mexico is facing now," Poire said. "Perhaps the most important similarity … is the extent to which organized crime and narcotics-trafficking organizations in both countries are fed by the enormous and gigantic U.S. demand for drugs."

Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said in a radio interview that leftist rebels in Colombia had a political agenda, and established ties with organized crime to obtain resources. In Mexico, the cartels have no political agenda, she said.

Still, senior U.S. officials have grown increasingly alarmed in recent months at the expanding power and influence of the cartels, which now dominate swaths of the country. They battle one another and seek to cow Mexican citizens with violence that includes assassinations, beheadings and car bombings.

Authorities said Wednesday that Mexican marines had arrested seven gunmen suspected in the August massacre of 72 migrants from Central and South America, whose bodies were found on a small ranch near the town of San Fernando in Tamaulipas state. An additional suspect was captured earlier, and six have been killed in shootouts with authorities.

The seven are suspected of belonging to the Zetas cartel. They are thought to have kidnapped the migrants to force them to work as mules or fulfill other menial roles, and then allegedly shot them when they refused.

The two lead investigators in the case, who went missing a day after the bodies were discovered, have been found dead, officials said.

Also Wednesday, the mayor of a town in the relatively tranquil state of San Luis Potosi was gunned down in his office, the third Mexican mayor to be executed gangland-style in three and a half weeks. Alexander Lopez, 35, was shot to death midday by a man who burst into City Hall in the town of Naranjo, where Lopez had served as mayor for 11 months, local officials said. He was sitting at his desk when shot to death.

Although San Luis Potosi has not been engulfed in the same bloodshed as other states, Naranjo is located on the northeastern edge of the state bordering violent Tamaulipas. Intelligence sources say the Zeta cartel has been steadily moving into that part of the region.

There has been a growing outcry from officials in U.S. border states such as California, Arizona and Texas as the carnage has edged ever closer.

Some U.S. officials are questioning whether their Mexican counterparts are willing to stand up to the cartels as strongly as Colombian authorities. Clinton praised Calderon for his "courage and his commitment" but also called on Mexico to increase its "political will" to fight the cartels.

She said defeating the gangs will require stronger civil, police and military institutions, "married to political will, to be able to prevent this from spreading and beat it back."

In Colombia, billions of dollars in U.S. aid and the policies of hard-line President Alvaro Uribe beat back the FARC rebels. Expanded police ranks have sharply reduced violent crime in the cities. Foreign investment has tripled, fueling a growing economy.

But Plan Colombia has drawn criticism for its heavy use of military force, the presence of hundreds of U.S military advisors and for human rights abuses. The program brought not only the military advisors, but also U.S. special forces personnel and a large numbers of defense contractors.

Clinton acknowledged that Plan Colombia was "controversial … there were problems and there were mistakes. But it worked."

George Grayson, a specialist on Mexico at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, said Clinton's remarks were a sign of U.S. officials' growing alarm at the effects of the drug war.

He said that while President Obama didn't even mention Mexico in his State of the Union message in January, more and more law enforcement and military officials see the situation as a top priority national security threat.

"It's not like Afghanistan or Iran, but it's suddenly on the national security radar," he said.

Even so, he said he was skeptical that Mexico, with its nationalist sensitivities, would consent to a far more active U.S. role, even should Congress be willing to appropriate the funds.

Eric Olson of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Mexico Institute said he senses from conversations with administration officials that "the administration still seems handcuffed by the lack of reliable partners at the operational level."

Olson said that although he was reluctant to be alarmist, "I don't think anybody thinks this has gotten to the bottom."

Administration officials have said in recent days that despite the financial burdens of two other wars, they are considering a sizable increase in spending on the anti-drug war, as well as other improvements to the U.S. counter-narcotics security program.

A White House official who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the subject said last week that the joint effort with the Mexican government "remains a top administration priority.... We are constantly evaluating our efforts to make sure we are doing all we can on this issue."

U.S. officials have been deliberating for some time how to follow up the Merida Initiative, a three-year, $1.6-billion program started in 2008 by President George W. Bush to provide equipment and training to the Mexican, Central American and Caribbean governments.

paul.richter@latimes.com

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

Staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
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Completely close the border - we can do it in N Korea.

well Completely close the Border that it well did Gov Jan said secure the Border well do it

Send the millions of illegal aliens home to try and save the nation that they love, instead of having them demonstrate in our streets complaining about our laws, carrying Mexican flags and insulting us. After drug cartels kill off the remaining people who will not "play" along, there may be few left with a conscience or with the will to save their country.

Matthew 11:28 , it is written, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

I suspect the refugee card is about to be played.

September 10, 2010

U.S. Sees Heightened Threat in Mexico
To Combat 'Narcoinsurgency,' Obama Administration Considers New Military and Intelligence Aid Against Drug Gangs

By ADAM ENTOUS And NATHAN HODGE

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration sees the drug-related violence sweeping Mexico as a growing threat to U.S. national security and has launched a broad review of steps the military and intelligence community could take to help combat what some U.S. officials describe as a narcoinsurgency.

U.S. and Mexican officials say the Pentagon's Northern Command, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies are discussing what aviation, surveillance and intelligence assets could be used—both inside Mexico and along the border—to help counter the drug cartels.

Officials say it is unclear how much of an expanded American role the Mexicans will accept. The scope of the U.S. effort is expected to grow but it is unclear how much. There is no consideration of sending U.S. troops other than in a training or liaison capacity, people familiar with the matter say.

Interagency talks about ramping up assistance have been discreet to avoid a public backlash in Mexico.

But the review is tacit acknowledgment that the Merida Initiative launched in 2008, in which Congress allocated $1.3 billion over three years to help Mexican drug-interdiction efforts, has been insufficient to stem the violence.

Adm. James Winnefeld, head of NorthCom, recently ordered a broad assessment of potential military assistance beyond existing training and information-sharing programs. "The whole interagency [complex] has been asked to look at what more can we do to help our partners in Mexico," he said.

As part of the review, Homeland Security is working with the Air Force to identify the most useful military surveillance technology for monitoring land, sea and air traffic along the border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Juan A. Muñoz-Torres said the technologies under consideration include "sensored manned aircraft and ground-based sensors" in addition to unmanned aerial drones.

Other officials said ground-based radar used by the military, the most sophisticated of which can be used to identify and track movement over a large area, is also being evaluated.

Officials say the U.S. has been working to boost Mexican capabilities to monitor cartel leaders' communications and pinpoint their locations. But U.S. agencies remain wary of sharing their most sensitive intelligence because of concerns that some of their Mexican counterparts may be on the payroll of the cartels, despite U.S. efforts to boost "internal integrity," they say.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is "growing increasingly concerned about the security situation" and has asked his staff to work with NorthCom to explore increased engagement with the Mexican military, a U.S. military official said. "The question is what will the Mexican military accept from us."

The Mexican government appears increasingly open to greater cooperation in part because the security situation "is getting worse," the official added.

"We have certainly encouraged the U.S. to enhance and deepen cooperation with Mexico," said Mexico's ambassador to Washington, Arturo Sarukhan. "Whether it's guns and cash moving south and drugs moving north; breaking the command, control, communications and intelligence capabilities of transnational organized crime operating on both sides of our common border; or providing for human security, these challenges will all require that we move to a new stage of cooperation."

Any further U.S. military assistance to Mexico faces hurdles on both sides of the border. Mexico has been reluctant to accept direct U.S. military help and, with the Pentagon focused on Afghanistan and its expanding campaign against al Qaeda and its affiliates, it is unclear what the appetite will be inside the Department of Defense for a greater U.S. role, even if Mexico agreed to one.

But U.S. officials are ratcheting up the rhetoric, going so far as using the term insurgency to describe how Mexican cartels are challenging the government.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday described the drug violence in Mexico as an "insurgency," saying "It's looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, when the narcotraffickers controlled certain parts of the country."

Mexicans leaders chafe at that characterization—terminology used to describe a politically motivated war against an incumbent government, such as the Taliban's fight in Afghanistan.

The language used by Mrs. Clinton was reminiscent of a controversial November 2008 U.S. military assessment that lumped Mexico together with Pakistan as running the risk of "rapid and sudden collapse" in a worst-case scenario.

"To frame the problem as an insurgency almost necessarily invites a military response," said Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army officer and professor of international relations and history at Boston University. "I would be skeptical that a response that puts a primary emphasis on military power would be appropriate."

"The military that once claimed to have war figured out with 'shock and awe' as a model now claims to have war figured out as counterinsurgency," he added. "Rather than treating different cases as distinctive, I think there is a tendency to apply the template, and today the template is counterinsurgency."

Henry Crumpton, a former top counterterrorism official at the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department, said labeling the cartels an "insurgency" is the right way to frame the problem but is politically sensitive because of concern that the U.S. military will aim to take the lead in the U.S. effort to combat the Mexican drug problem. "That's particularly inflammatory to the Mexicans," Mr. Crumpton said.

Though Mexico is intertwined with the U.S. economically, many Mexicans would see greater American military involvement in the conflict as a breach of sovereignty.

Mexico's battle with organized crime has recently engulfed Monterrey, the nation's business capital, as two drug cartels battle for control of the city, once known as Latin America's wealthiest and safest. Murders, kidnappings and extortion have grown fast, with the complicity of local police forces believed to have been infiltrated by drug gangs. The violence is leading to an exodus of wealthy Mexicans and American expatriates.

Republicans have seized on border-security issues ahead of congressional elections in November, accusing President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party of not doing enough to prevent spillover of the violence to the U.S. side of the border.

In August, Mr. Obama signed a law that provides $600 million for new border technology—including two new Predator unmanned aerial vehicles—and additional Border Patrol, customs and law-enforcement agents. By the end of September, around 1,200 members of the National Guard are expected to be deployed to the southwestern border region to support the Border Patrol and other law-enforcement agencies.

Former officials say U.S. assistance to the effort has lagged in part because of the U.S. preoccupation with Islamist-led insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mexico's resistance to more U.S. military help—compared to other countries like Colombia where the U.S. has played a far more hands-on role—has been another inhibiting factor and a source of U.S. frustration.

One problem with increased intelligence collaboration: U.S. agencies have been wary of sharing some intelligence because of concerns that some of their Mexican counterparts may be on the payroll of the cartels. "This is, to put it mildly, an extremely complex situation. We are assisting the Mexicans and stand ready to do more," a U.S. counternarcotics official said of intelligence sharing.

A former senior U.S. counternarcotics official said intelligence from the few Predator drones flying along the border is being shared with Mexican authorities. Far more surveillance is needed, officials say.

"We need to give credit to what President [Felipe] Calderón's doing taking on this issue," the official said. "But someone's going to have to come to the realization that there is a war going on down there and they're going to need help in combating that war."

—Siobhan Gorman and David Luhnow contributed to this article.

http://online.wsj.com

Another Mexican mayor slain; Clinton angers Mexico by comparing it to Colombia decades agoBy: MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press
09/09/10 2:20 AM EDT MEXICO CITY — The third Mexican mayor in a month was slain by suspected drug gang hitmen on the same day the U.S. secretary of state raised hackles in Mexico by saying the country is "looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago."

Hillary Rodham Clinton and other U.S. officials pointed to Mexican drug cartels' use of three car bombs, a tool once favored by cartel-allied rebels in Colombia, as evidence that the gangs "are now showing more and more indices of insurgency."

While the Mexican government quickly condemned the killing of the mayor of the northern town of El Naranjo, it rejected the comparison with Colombia, where the Medellin drug cartel waged a full frontal assault on the state, endangering its very integrity with attacks on police, politicians and judges and terror attacks against civilians.

More worrisome to Mexican legislators, Clinton suggested the United States was looking to implement some type of Plan Colombia for Mexico and Central America, referring to a U.S. anti-drug program in which American special forces teams trained Colombian troops and U.S. advisers are attached to Colombian military units.

The reaction was swift.

Mexico — which has suffered at least three U.S. invasions — has always rejected allowing American troops on its soil, except for a single symbolic presence: Mexico's Senate has authorized a U.S. detachment to march in next week's Bicentennial parade.

"Starting right now, we have to say this clearly. We are not going to permit any version of a Plan Colombia," said Sen. Santiago Creel, a member of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party. "We cannot permit a Plan Colombia in Mexico."

Sen. Ricardo Monreal of the leftist Labor Party said U.S. aid to Colombia hadn't stopped drug trafficking there. "Whoever thinks Colombia is a cure-all, and if the United States thinks it is necessary to apply the same model to us they applied to Colombia, they are mistaken," he said.

Plan Colombia has been widely credited for helping Colombia diminish the rebel threat, but critics say it has not put a significant dent in the drug trade.

Clinton made her statements Wednesday in Washington at the Council on Foreign Relations, where she said drug cartels are "morphing into, or making common cause with, what we would consider an insurgency in Mexico and in Central America."

Clinton also suggested that "we need to figure out what are the equivalents" for Mexico and Central America of Plan Colombia, acknowledging "there were problems and there were mistakes, but it worked."

Mexican cartels are becoming increasingly violent — federal police reported Wednesday they had found four bodies in a clandestine grave linked to arrested U.S.-born drug hitman Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "La Barbie" — and are carrying out more attacks on government officials in Mexico.

Hooded gunmen burst into Mayor Alexander Lopez Garcia's office in the northern Mexico state of San Luis Potosi on Wednesday and shot him to death.

President Felipe Calderon's office issued a statement condemning the killing — the third mayor slain in less than a month — calling it a "cowardly and criminal" act.

There was no immediate information on the motive in the attack, but the style of the slaying resembles methods used by Mexico's drug cartels.

On Aug. 29, the mayor of a town just across the state line in Tamaulipas was shot to death and his daughter wounded. The mayor of Santiago, a town in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon, was found murdered Aug. 18, a crime for local police officers allied with a drug gang are suspected.

The San Luis Potosi state prosecutors' office said Lopez Garcia was killed by a squad of four hitmen. The rural township of about 20,000 people borders the violent-wracked state of Tamaulipas, where 72 migrants were massacred by drug gunmen in August.

On Wednesday, the Mexican government announced that marines had arrested seven gunmen suspected of killing 72 Central and South American migrants last month in the worst drug cartel massacre to date.

Four of the suspects were arrested after a Sept. 3 gunbattle with marines, and the other three were captured days later, spokesman Alejandro Poire said at a news conference.

Poire alleged the seven belong to the Zetas drug gang, but he gave no further details on their identities or what led to their arrests.

Investigators believe the migrants were kidnapped by the Zetas and killed after refusing to work for the cartel.

The arrests "will help determine exactly what happened in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, and it's a significant step toward ending the impunity surrounding assaults on migrants by organized crime," Poire said.

An eighth suspect already was in custody. Marines arrested a teenager after a shootout with gunmen at the ranch the day they discovered the bodies. Three gunmen were killed during that battle.

A Twitter account linked to Calderon's website said two youths aged 14 and 17 had also been detained for allegedly participating in the massacre, but offered no details. The president's office was not immediately available to clarify the report.

In addition, marines last week found the bodies of three other men suspected of participating in the massacre after an anonymous caller told authorities where to find them. Officials say they have no information on who made the call, but in the past drug gangs have handed over suspects in especially brutal killings that draw too much attention.

A Honduran man who also survived the slaughter and is under police protection in Mexico later identified the three dead men as having been among the killers.

The latest arrests were announced one day after authorities found the bodies of two men believed to be those of a state detective and a local police chief who participated in the initial investigation of the massacre.

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