Thread: BORDER WARS Obama abandons Arizona counties

BORDER WARS
Obama abandons Arizona counties
Signs warn U.S. citizens against travel due to illegal trafficking


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Without fanfare, the Obama administration has essentially abandoned a major portion of three southern Arizona counties.

"Quite frankly, I'm telling you as a sheriff that we don't control that part of the county," Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu told Fox News. "My county is larger than the state of Connecticut, and we need support from the federal government. It's their job to secure the border and they haven't done it."

A Fox News video shows a sign the federal government has posted in Pinal County warning the American public that travel in the south of I-8 is not recommended because of heavily armed Mexican drug smugglers and human traffickers.

"It's out of control, and violence has increased in the last four months," Babeu said. "President Obama suspended the construction of the fence, and it's absolutely outrageous."

Mexican drug cartels win drug war

U.S. intelligence has concluded that Mexico's most powerful gang cartel now controls the drug trafficking routes through Ciudad Juarez, effectively winning a two-year war in which more that 5,000 Mexicans were killed, the Washington Times reported.

The Sinaloa Cartel is Mexico's largest, and the nexus between Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and El Paso in Texas are one of the key entry points for drugs into the United States.

In April, U.S.-Mexican border sources admitted the Mexican drug cartels have placed a $250,000 bounty for the kidnapping or killing U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to U.S. law enforcement officers in West Texas that officers should wear body armor while on duty because Mexican gang members have given a "green light" to murder law enforcement officers in the West Texas border area.

Merida Initiative failed

WND has reported on the "Merida Initiative" under which the U.S. Congress at the urging of the Bush administration allocated in December 2009 some $197 million of the $500 million authorized under a planned $1.6 billion program.

The Merida Initiative aims to provide U.S. military assistance in the form of training and equipment to the Mexican military to help it combat the drug cartels.

Earlier in 2008, Congress funded $99 million under the Merida Initiative to Mexico through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

The Department of Justice National Drug Intelligence Center, or NDIC, reported in the National Drug Threat Assessment 2009 that Mexican drug cartels are "the greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States," reporting that Mexican drug cartels now distribute drugs in 230 U.S. cities.

"Mexico and U.S.-based Mexican drug traffickers employ advanced communication technology and techniques to coordinate their illicit drug trafficking activities," the NDIC reported. "Law enforcement reporting indicates that several Mexican drug trafficking organizations maintain cross-border communication centers in Mexico near the U.S.-Mexico border to facilitate coordinated cross-border smuggling operations."

Mexico close to legalizing marijuana

Remarkably, Mexico, in the middle of a drug war that has begun to spill over into the United States, lacks only the signature of President Felipe Calderon to sign into law a bill that would legalize a variety of drugs in Mexico for recreational use, Fox News in Houston reported.

The bill, which was slipped through the Mexican Congress at the height of the swine-flu scare, would legalize possession of 5 grams of marijuana, 500 milligrams of cocaine, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine and up to 50 milligrams of heroin – more than enough for most users to get high.

The bill does not require that those who get caught within these limits enter treatment to avoid jail time.

Instead, the bill waives jail time altogether, as long as those caught stay within the drug limits. It recommends, rather than mandates, treatment options.

Fox News has been reporting since 2006 that Mexico's Congress has been attempting to pass legislation that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use.

Evidently, the thinking in Mexico is that since the nation shows no sign of being able to beat the drug cartels, why not just join them?

06/21/10

SOURCE: RED ALERT

Heroin and cocaine now legal in Mexico – in small doses

By David Usborne


Tuesday, 25 August 2009



A controversial new law decriminalising the possession of small amounts of heroin, marijuana, cocaine and other illicit substances was quietly slipped on to the statute books in Mexico yesterday.


The move provoked little fuss either in Mexico itself or across the border in the US, which in the past has resisted anything that might be seen as going soft on drugs.

"This is not legalisation. This is regulating the issue," insisted Bernardo Espino del Castillo, the Attorney General, in an attempt to play down the significance of the new measure. The government made sure there was no fanfare or grand announcement after the law was finally passed at the end of last week.

Mexico is enmeshed in a violent war with drugs cartels and traffickers that has claimed more than 11,000 lives in the past two-and-a-half years, and it is keen to explore any new approach that might ease the situation. Officials believe that the law will ease pressure on the country's overcrowded prisons and allow police to concentrate on dealers and smugglers.

The reform will also help by taking away from ordinary police officers the discretion on whether to arrest and possibly prosecute drug users – a prerogative that has encouraged shakedowns of citizens and corruption.

However, it is also with at least half an eye towards America that the law has been signed. Many in Mexico believe that their northern neighbour would do well to reassess its own ultra-prohibitionist approach to drug use, particularly concerning marijuana, sales of which provide roughly two-thirds of the cartels' profits.

Some US states have indeed moved to decriminalise the possession of small quantities of marijuana but not other drugs. At the same time, arrests for marijuana possession set a new record of about 800,000 last year.

With Barack Obama in the White House, the atmospherics, at least, have been changing. Earlier this year, the US acknowledged for the first time that it shared some of the blame for Mexico's drug problems because it was the main point of consumption. Certainly, it is anxious to see the Mexican President, Felipe Calderon, make headway in his anti-drugs campaign.

Observers also note that when the Mexican Congress approved a similar law several years ago, the then president, Vicente Fox, declined to sign it because of stiff pressure from the Bush administration in Washington. This time around, there was no such intervention from the US, which so far has had little to say about it officially.

Under the new rules there will be no action taken against those carrying up to a half-gramme of cocaine, 40 grammes of marijuana or 50 milligrammes of heroin.

Limits are set for other drugs, including LSD and methamphetamine. People found in possession of these small amounts will be encouraged to attend a drug treatment programme


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 76792.html

Brewer to Obama: Warning Signs Are Not Enough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzDlN7VL ... r_embedded