Perry suggests US military role in Mexico drug war

MANCHESTER, N.H., (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said on Saturday he would get the U.S. military involved in Mexico’s war with drug cartels, in comments likely to upset the Mexican government.

Link to full story
he goes on to say The U.S. military has advisers in Colombia who are involved mainly in training, logistical support and intelligence backup for the Colombian armed forces as they fight coc aine traffickers and leftist guerrillas.

However he seems to have a bit late with forward thinking as we already have US forces down there...

U.S. Spy Hive in Mexico City
Through the Office of Bi-National Intelligence (OBI), U.S. intelligence agents are operating in Mexico with the authority of the Mexican government, spying on organizations, drug cartels, even government agencies and diplomatic missions. Authors of the Proceso story Jorge Carrasco and Jesus Esquivel indicate that the cooperative effort was initiated because of the drug war, and it allows agents to operate without having to disguise themselves as diplomats.

The OBI was originally proposed by the then-head of U.S. National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair. It was authorized by Mexican President Felipe Calderon after former President Vicente Fox negotiated with Washington, D.C. for such an organization. The formal agreement calls for U.S. personnel to interact with Mexican counterparts; i.e., coordination of the State Department and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to the March 25, 2009 White House document establishing the OBI, the office is also responsible for overseeing the use of resources provided by Washington to Calderon to battle narcotics trafficking, especially through the Merida Initiative of 2008 — a cooperative effort of Mexico, Central America, and the United States to combat drug trafficking, organized crime, and money laundering.



The OBI intelligence center was announced August 21.

link to Spy Hive Story here

in other words the U.S. military has advisers in Mexico going back to 2009.... So Perry your a bit late on that one.... but I bet you take a lot of heat for making the suggestion public...

reply to post by GrandpaDave


GrampaDave,

If the Mexican Government would ask for active military assistance, it would not go well. Though they would be crapping their proverbial pants.

Like terrorists, these guys do not play by the rules. And Spy games only help...a little.

My take is to send in the Spec-Ops bubbas and let them selectively do their thing.

reply to post by GrandpaDave
Well, putting the military on the BORDER to secure it since we effectively have a running war with paramilitary cartels down there would be a valid use as well as aid national security in a tangible fashion, but I can't agree with using military advisors like in Columbia...which, although somewhat improved recently for various reasons, seems to still be suffering from drug and some guerilla violence.

My suggestion would be using the military to secure the border, as well as recognizing the drug war for the losing proposition that it is. As long as the drug trade remains highly profitable (an effect of black market due to being driven underground) and unregulated, criminal syndicates will always have plenty of motive to get involved and brutally maintain their power and expand their influence.

Let's take the more liberal policies of Portugal and the Netherlands into account for comparison - much more relaxed on certain substances - resulted in much lower per-capita rates of use as well as related crime. Is someone just not paying attention, or what exactly?

reply to post by TDawgRex


Who's to say their not already doing just that...
remember a while back all those threads on black helicopters flying back and forth from Mexico into Texas... well those "black helicopters" were OH-6 Cayuse scouts attached to the 101st Airborne... add to that the US is already flying daily Predator flights into Mexican Air space and I say full military intervention is only one press conference away

On topic: I don't think the U.S. should put any more of our troops into a foreign country. If they want to protect the U.S. from Mexico, they should simply recall the soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc, and put them on the southern border with orders to shoot to kill anything that crosses. Place the Navy and coast guard on orders to sink anything trying to cross illegally as well.

Off Topic: Did you steal DaddyBare's Avatar?

reply to post by navy_vet_stg3


On topic I agree 100 %
as to stealing Daddybares Avatar... yeah I knocked him down ripped it out of his hands and ran off laughing..
had to run that mean old cuss would have shot me in the back
Read this to find out what happened to DaddyBare

Mybe not daddy,
The time is about right for this to be brought forward as far as problem/reaction/solution management of the situation goes.(IMHO of course)
The move to put "boots on the ground" in Mexico has been gaining momentum i think.
With the deliberate stirring of illegal immigration problems in Arizona,The Fast and Furious arming of the Sinaloa cartel,thus antagonising the war with their Zeta rivals,
This has produced scads of bodyless heads as well as other attrocities as the massacre of 172 innocent illegal aliens
who refusewd to work for the cartel.
Other massacres like the Monterrey Casino and many smaller actions with lesser but no less serious caualty lists.
We already have drone over flights of the US/Mex border do we not?
It looks to me like there is a definate rampming up of this "crisis"in measured steps.

taken from many different angles it would seem there is a lot of hypocracy involved in the actions of many of the players to date...CIA, DEA,Feds,FBI and BATF.
The war on drugs has resulted in an endless round of casualty lists, of tortured, dead, wounded, and dismembered bodies.
I cant help but wonder how many of the dead and wounded would have been spared if there was a more enlightened policy towards even cannabis at higher goverment and legislative levels.
It makes sense that the decriminalisation fo that alone would give the LEOs the added resources to effectively deal with more destructive drugs which have far higher social costs.
Not only would this empty needed prison space for real criminals,(allowing society to get tough on criminals that are real enemies of society.)It would forgo branding otherwise law abiding people with felony records that will hamper them for life.
This is part of the social outcasting of those who use it and thus limiting their ability to alter goverment policy yet another sneaky way.(Ive seen calls to not allow felons to vote, by extemists)
At any rate, not wanting to be attacked as a NORML shill, i merely suggest an alternative to negotiating amnesty with hardened murderers as some maxican politicians have advocated.
This would be a fatal mistake i think for all of us.As would interfering in Mexicos soveriegnty to combat a problem that is partly aggravated by our own goverment agencies.As well as our appetites for the illicit drugs.


OOOOOOPs my bad yer not daddy are you?

reply to post by stirling


Just a few weeks ago I had a news story pulled off the ATS boards..
it was on an FBI report on how here in America there is a drug arrest every 19 seconds...
More than 1.6 million people That's a drug arrest every 19 seconds, 24 hours a day, every day last year...
pure madness... it needs to stop... we need to close the damn border

Or he could suggest repeal of prohibition and watch the cartels disappear virtually overnight.

I guess it's better to appear tough rather than intelligent when you're a right-wing politician.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


That wouldn't stop the cartels... Drugs are only a part of what they do...
they make far more money in human trafficking... charging $2,500 a head to sneak immigrants into this country... remember all the mass grave stories... hundreds of bodies found... those were the ones who couldn't pay...

how about this unique way to make money...

MALTRATA, MEXICO -- Drug traffickers employing high-tech drills, miles of rubber hose and a fleet of stolen tanker trucks have siphoned more than $1 billion worth of oil from Mexico's pipelines over the past two years, in a vast and audacious conspiracy that is bleeding the national treasury, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials and the state-run oil company.

Using sophisticated smuggling networks, the traffickers have transported a portion of the pilfered petroleum across the border to sell to U.S. companies, some of which knew that it was stolen, according to court documents and interviews with American officials involved in an expanding investigation of oil services firms in Texas.

no drugs is only a small part...

Wait...i thought they WERE involved. Does he mean to try to prevent, rather than support the drug ops? LOL, yeah, right.

I know of several ops in which a person I know was a medic while running ops to prevent losing control of drug areas in Costa Rica. Black ops type stuff. I only believe him because of the severity of his PTSD.

reply to post by GrandpaDave


What an idiot, I've got an idea of how to help fight the drug war: END IT! If the US ended the drug war, the Cartels would lose so much of their income.

Rick Perry sucks.

I'm am not the most familiar with covert OPS and the like, but hasn't our military been involved for years, DEA and the like? And our government will not do the easiest things such as securing the border and ID'ing all immigrants?
keeps our government funded by not fixing the situation. Many FBI/DEA/NARC's would be unemployeed, along with our prison system if it was stopped at our doorstep.

This is actually our longest and costliest war.And ironically our biggest failure buy spending billions over the decades with nothing accomplised.Throw in Afghan/Iraq and more billions in the #ter.God save us from these knucle draggers in DC and stop the wars!

A failure, this Drug War? A roaring success. There is a global network of drug traffic control in place that keeps billions, if not trillions, of dollars (and other currencies) changing hands, being laundered, and going into the unidentified coffers that keep this world turning.

The Taliban puts an end to poppy production in Afghanistan, US troops go in to restore the trade. A well-known family with ties in South America and to the black underground establish coc aine as the drug-in-trade after the end of war in Southeast Asia and the opium trade dies out for US interests there. Later improved methods of making methamphetamine help make that drug the drug of choice for the party and club scene, that same family is there to boost that drug of choice and move the production center closer to the world's biggest consumer, the US. How can anyone say it has not been successful and adapting itself to changing times and preferrences? After all, it is NOT about eliminating drug trade but controlling it, and with military might to back-up every move.

OK, I am sitting here in Mexico, have not even been to the US since the Drug War started here in earnest. There have been changes seen on the streets, in the media, and effecting the way the police and military agencies interact with the people here - no one is above suspicion, we all get shaken down if we travel and cross a checkpoint. I have never seen the cartel folks but I sure see the police getting interested in every aspect of our lives here.

It is no secret that the US government is already here, here with their special forces advisors calling the shots. The authorities go after the top heads so that multiple others grow back in their place each fighting for their own turf, each paying their cut to those that can let their goods get across the border. It is no secret that US agencies have been arming and training THE CARTEL CRIMINALS! And that is just what got out of the bag, the tip of the iceberg. Other US agencies cut deals with those factions to get their goods to market north of the border, taking their own cut of the black action. Sounds fantastic but this is how it is, it is on-record.

Political and governmental intervention into sovereign states, citizens' livingrooms, and many aspects of living life today is ushered cheerfully in by the people who have been touched by the finagalings of these traffic-controlling factions. The people trade their freedoms for a promise of "protection" mafia-style by those who bust into their livingrooms during sloppily-planned raids.

Watching the media and people's reactions to the events being contrived down here it is rather obvious the US intends to make a bigger presence here in Mexico when they can convince everyone the time is right. When, 2012? Sooner? TS will HTF soon, I'm afraid. That will not be good for Mexico - who did not have these kinds of problems before this Drug War was elevated here with Merida Initiative funding and US advisors. It will not b good for the folks in the US that will be welcoming in their new brothers down here in a new US territory.

Most all of you have convinced me that is what you want, to invade Mexico for our own good. I'm just waiting for it. You all should have made it a done deal by the end of our Mayan calendar. Not sure the exact date but soon, no?