Friday, February 20, 2009
Napolitano: Violence in Mexico Not Yet Spilling Across U.S. Border
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano acknowledges rising violence in Mexico, but says while U.S. officials are preparing for that violence to spill across the border it has not yet.

.....
Napolitano acknowledged Thursday that violence in Mexico "has risen to very high levels." But she said that although the U.S. is planning for the potential for violence to move north across the border, it hasn't happened yet. "Right now it has not (crossed the border). But it is a contingency we have in mind because it could," the former Arizona governor told reporters. "We have contingency plans should violence spread into the United States." The situation in Mexico is dire.

"What we have seen in Mexico is a very sobering trend. ... At the current pace, for 2009 we are looking at something in the area of 8,000 dead. It is a carnage that is alarming already," Ted Carpenter, a Cato Institute foreign policy expert, said at a forum Thursday. "Mexico has already displaced Colombia as the kidnapping capital of the world ... and the violence is spilling across the border into the United States. American citizens, including law enforcement personnel, have been targeted by the drug cartels for assassination." President Obama discussed the latest drug violence during a meeting last month with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, whose country already has deployed 45,000 troops to fight the cartels. The final stimulus plan Obama signed into law this week contained about $600 million to help bolster border security and curb gun flow to Mexico -- 95 percent of which come from the U.S. The situation is so unstable the Obama administration's new director of national intelligence warned Congress last week that the Mexican government is losing control. "The corruptive influence and increasing violence of Mexican drug cartels impedes Mexico City's ability to govern parts of its country," Dennis Bair told the Senate Intelligence Committee. Even more alarming, the U.S. Joint Forces Command said in recent report that Mexico rivals Pakistan as the country most at risk of collapse. The report said Mexico's "politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels. ... Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone." For their part, Texas authorities are preparing contingency plans for the worst-case scenario -- hundreds of thousands of Mexican refugees attempting to head north to escape the violence. The economic consequences of collapse are immense with trade between the two countries totaling $368 billion last year. Mexico also is the top supplier to the U.S. of crude oil. But Carpenter, a longtime observer of the region, said it is unlikely that the Mexican government will fall completely. "The fear of Mexico becoming a full-fledged failed state is somewhat exaggerated. It's unlikely the violence, as bad as it is, is going to reach that level," he said, arguing instead that the more likely scenario is Mexico will become "an informal narco-state model in which cartels become the power behind the throne."

Either way, the fact that his administration ignored this was proof to me that his war on terror was utter crap.

THE BUSH-CHENEY DRUG EMPIRE
FTW October 24, 2000 - The success of Bush Vice Presidential running mate Richard Cheney at leading Halliburton, Inc. to a five year $3.8 billion "pig-out" on federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans is only a partial indicator of what may happen if the Bush ticket wins in two weeks. A closer look at available research, including an August 2, 2000 report by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) at www.public-i.org, suggests that drug money has played a role in the successes achieved by Halliburton under Cheney's tenure as CEO from 1995 to 2000. This is especially true for Halliburton's most famous subsidiary, heavy construction and oil giant, Brown and Root. A deeper look into history reveals that Brown and Root's past as well as the past of Dick Cheney himself, connect to the international drug trade on more than one occasion and in more than one way.
This June the lead Washington, D.C. attorney for a major Russian oil company connected in law enforcement reports to heroin smuggling and also a beneficiary of US backed loans to pay for Brown and Root contracts in Russia, held a $2.2 million fund raiser to fill the already bulging coffers of presidential candidate George W. Bush. This is not the first time that Brown and Root has been connected to drugs and the fact is that this "poster child" of American industry may also be a key player in Wall Street's efforts to maintain domination of the half trillion dollar a year global drug trade and its profits. And Dick Cheney, who has also come closer to drugs than most suspect, and who is also Halliburton's largest individual shareholder ($45.5 million), has a vested interest in seeing to it that Brown and Root's successes continue.

Of all American companies dealing directly with the U.S. military and providing cover for CIA operations few firms can match the global presence of this giant construction powerhouse which employs 20,000 people in more than 100 countries. Through its sister companies or joint ventures, Brown and Root can build offshore oil rigs, drill wells, construct and operate everything from harbors to pipelines to highways to nuclear reactors. It can train and arm security forces and it can now also feed, supply and house armies. One key beacon of Brown and Root's overwhelming appeal to agencies like the CIA is that, from its own corporate web page, it proudly announces that it has received the contract to dismantle aging Russian nuclear tipped ICBMs in their silos.

Furthermore, the relationships between key institutions, players and the Bushes themselves suggest that under a George "W" administration the Bush family and its allies may well be able, using Brown and Root as the operational interface, to control the drug trade all the way from Medellin to Moscow.

Originally formed as a heavy construction company to build dams, Brown and Root grew its operations via shrewd political contributions to Senate candidate Lyndon Johnson in 1948. Expanding into the building of oil platforms, military bases, ports, nuclear facilities, harbors and tunnels, Brown and Root virtually underwrote LBJ's political career. It prospered as a result, making billions on U.S. Government contracts during the Vietnam War. The "Austin Chronicle" in an August 28 Op-ed piece entitled "The Candidate From Brown and Root" labels Republican Cheney as the political dispenser of Brown and Root's largesse. According to political campaign records, during Cheney's five year tenure at Halliburton the company's political contributions more than doubled to $1.2 million. Not surprisingly, most of that money went to Republican candidates.

Independent news service "newsmakingnews.com," also describes how in 1998, with Cheney as Chairman, Halliburton spent $8.1 billion to purchase oil industry equipment and drilling supplier Dresser Industries. This made Halliburton a corporation that will have a presence in almost any future oil drilling operation anywhere in the world. And it also brought back into the family fold the company that had once sent a plane - also in 1948 - to fetch the new Yale Graduate George H.W. Bush, to begin his career in the Texas oil business. Bush the elder's father, Prescott, served as a Managing Director for the firm that once owned Dresser, Brown Bothers Harriman.

It is clear that everywhere there is oil there is Brown and Root. But increasingly, everywhere there is war or insurrection there is Brown and Root also. From Bosnia and Kosovo, to Chechnya, to Rwanda, to Burma, to Pakistan, to Laos, to Vietnam, to Indonesia, to Iran to Libya to Mexico to Colombia, Brown and Root's traditional operations have expanded from heavy construction to include the provision of logistical support for the U.S. military. Now, instead of U.S. Army quartermasters, the world is likely to see Brown and Root warehouses storing and managing everything from uniforms to rations to vehicles.

Dramatic expansion of Brown and Root's operations in Colombia also suggest Bush preparations for a war inspired feeding frenzy as a part of "Plan Colombia." This is consistent with moves by former Bush Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady to open a joint Colombian-American investment partnership called Corfinsura for the financing of major construction projects with the Colombian Antioquia Syndicate, headquartered in Medellin. (See FTW June, 00). And expectations of a ground war in Colombia may explain why, in a 2000 SEC filing, Brown and Root reported that in addition to owning more than 800,000 square feet of warehouse space in Colombia, they also lease another 122,000 square feet. According to the filing of the Brown and Root Energy Services Group, the only other places where the company maintains warehouse space are in Mexico (525,000 sq. feet), and the U.S. (38,000) square feet.

According to the web site of Colombia's Foreign Investment Promotion Agency Brown and Root had no presence in the country until 1997. What does Brown and Root, which, according to the AP has made more than $2 billion supporting and supplying U.S. troops, know about Colombia that the U.S. public does not? Why the need for almost a million square feet of warehouse space that can be transferred from one Brown and Root operation (energy) to another (military support) with the stroke of a pen?

DRUGS

As described by the Associated Press, during "Iran-Contra" Congressman Dick Cheney of the House Intelligence Committee was a rabid supporter of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North. This was in spite of the fact that North had lied to Cheney in a private 1986 White House briefing. Oliver North's own diaries and subsequent investigations by the CIA Inspector General have irrevocably tied him directly to coc aine smuggling during the 1980s and the opening of bank accounts for one firm moving four tons of coc aine a month. This, however, did not stop Cheney from actively supporting North's 1994 unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate from Virginia just a year before he took over the reins at Brown and Root's parent company, Dallas based Halliburton Inc. in 1995.

Mexico Ready to Collapse. FEMA Camps to Detain Mexicans and Americans. The news that Texas officials are working on contingency plans to deal with a sudden influx of illegal aliens following a collapse of the Mexican government has sparked fears that FEMA detention camps, the expansion of which is the subject of current legislation in Congress, are being readied to detain thousands of illegals as well as American citizens

Originally posted by Jay-in-AR
reply to post by asmeone2

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I understand that this is the real deal. I said as much in my last post.

Like I said, the regular Joe troops (that someone spoke of earlier in the thread not knowing anything about it) will know soon enough.
Once your unit is put on alert, all that goes through your mind as a soldier, is the job you are about to do. The only thing that can stop that is a change in orders, for whatever reason.
But for now, this is a go.

Originally posted by Jay-in-AR
reply to post by asmeone2

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If things move forward from here you had better bet it will be picked up by the MSM. It will be one of the biggest stories of this decade.

The state National Guard is divided up into units stationed in each of the 50 states and U.S. territories and operates under their respective state governor or territorial adjutant general [4]. The National Guard may be called up for active duty by state governors or territorial adjutant general to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.[4] With the consent of state governors, members or units of state National Guard may be appointed or deployed as federally recognized armed force members in active or inactive service [5][6][7]. If so recognized, they become part of the National Guard of the United States