Politics from the Nation's Capital
'Plata o Plomo?' Losing the war on our southern border
Comments (0) Share Print By: Barbara Hollingsworth 05/11/11 5:16 PM
Local Opinion Editor
Violent Mexican drug cartels offer their victims a Faustian choice: "Plata
or plomo? Silver or lead? The bribe or the bullet?" said Rep. Michael
McCaul, R-Tex., in his opening remarks during a congressional hearing on the
status of our southern border held on Capitol Hill Wednesday.
In response to criticism that the Obama administration is not protecting the
nation from an unprecedented invasion, Department of Homeland Secretary
Janet Napolitano insisted last year that "the [southern] border is better
now than it has ever been."
But that's only true if you happen to be an illegal immigrant or a member of
one of Mexico's violent drug cartels. For Americans living in border states
- or in one of the 276 U.S. cities that Napolitano's own department
acknowledges has been infiltrated by drug-funded narco cartels - this is
hardly the best of times.
"Mexico is losing this war, and so are we," said a somber Rep. McCaul,
R-Tex., chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security's Subcommittee on
Oversight, Investigations and Management, as he introduced witnesses.
Arizona Attorney General Thomas Horne testified that the crime wave that has
convulsed Mexico has spilled into the U.S. In October, he said, the Phoenix
area experienced its first beheading. But there are only 500 National Guard
troops in the Tuscon sector, compared to 6,000 in 2006.
And as many as 400,000 -plus foreigners still stream across the U.S. border
annually, Horne added. "That is equivalent to an invasion, from various
countries, of 20 divisions."
Warning about the potential for complete economic collapse in Mexico, Horne
compared these criminal enterprises to "a pack of wolves which may decimate
a deer population without a thought about what that may mean to future
wolves years hence. They act like wolves because that is their nature."
Which is why McCaul and Homeland Security Committee chairman Peter King are
co-sponsoring HR 1270, which would designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign
terrorist organizations.
The designation would give law enforcement more tools to combat them,
including seizure of assets.
"We are outmanned, overpowered, and in danger of losing control of our own
communities to narco-terrorists," McCaul warned, adding that spillover
violence on the U.S. side of the border is seriously underreported. Since
January 2010, 22 murders, 24 assaults and 15 kidnappings were directly
related to drug cartel activity, including the murder of a Colorado man
while he was jet-skiing with his wife on Falcon Lake, which straddles the
U.S.-Mexico border.
However, these crimes are not counted in the FBI's Uniform Crime Statistics,
which McCaul pointed out excludes "home invasions, kidnappings, extortion,
and trafficker on trafficker violence - all the things the cartels do best."
Assistant Attorney General Amy Pope admitted during the hearing that the
"executive branch has no definition of spillover violence," undercutting
Napolitano's assurances that the border is more secure than it's ever been.
Spillover crimes are still happening - even if Napolitano refuses to count
them.
Read more at the Washington Examiner:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/05/plata-o-plo
mo-losing-war-our-southern-border#ixzz1M8bWvs00
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