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Buttigieg, O'Rourke: No More Troops to the Middle East; Get Out of Afghanistan
(CNSNews.com) - Two of the two dozen liberal Democrats now running for president made appearances on different Sunday news-maker shows, both of them agreeing that it's time for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan; and both saying it's wrong to send 1,500 more U.S. troops to the Middle East to deter Iranian aggression.
Martha Raddatz, host of ABC's "This Week," asked South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg if he would have approved the Pentagon's request to send 1,500 more U.S. troops to the Middle East. President Trump has said those troops would have a "mostly protective" mission.
"I think our national security policy has to be to avoid escalation in the Persian Gulf," Buttigieg said.
"Escalation is the last thing we need in the Middle East right now. And when you see what's been happening, it appears that the administration, driven, by the way, by John Bolton, one of the architects of the Iraq War, is continuing to try to prosecute a case to lead to higher tensions, escalation and perhaps conflict with Iran as though we learned nothing from the last 15 years of armed conflict -- conflict in the Middle East."
Buttigieg suggested that the troop deployment may be an attempt by the president to distract from other issues:
"I think that we have the means to protect our assets in the Middle East. And the way this is being talked about makes me wonder whether this -- this is driven as much by domestic politics as it is by national security imperatives."
On Afghanistan, Buttigieg said, "We need to leave."
"When I left Afghanistan five years ago, I thought I was one of the very last troops turning out the lights as I went. We need to leave. And the reality is, we are leaving. This is pretty much the only thing that the American left and right, and the Afghan government and the Taliban and the international community all agree on is that it's time for us to go."
Buttigieg spent seven months in Afghanistan in 2014 as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve.
Buttigieg said as president, he would focus on threats to the homeland emanating from Afghanistan, "establish whatever intelligence and special operations capability is needed to head off those threats, and remove any ground presence that goes beyond that."
"Our responsibility is not to establish peace, security, democracy and prosperity in Afghanistan. Our responsibility is to make sure that Americans cannot be attacked, and anything that is not directly related to that is not a good enough justification for us to have troops on the ground in what is amounting to a forever war," Buttigieg added.
Former Rep. Robert "Beto" O'Rourke expressed similar views on CBS's "Face the Nation."
"Do you think President Trump was right to send these 1,500 troops to the Middle East to counter the Iran threat?" host Margaret Brennan asked O'Rourke.
"No," he said. "President Trump is escalating tensions, is provoking yet another war in the Middle East, where we find ourselves already engaged in war in so many countries, in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen, not too far from there in Libya and in Afghanistan.
"So, we don't need another war. We need to find a way to work with allies and partners and in some cases with our enemies."
Asked if he doubts U.S. intelligence warnings that Iran is threatening U.S. troops in Iraq, O'Rourke said, "I have a really hard time believing this administration and believing a -- a president who has so wantonly lied and misconstrued the facts at every single turn to his own gain.
I'm suspicious of a national security team that has so often called for war. You have someone, in Bolton, who has publicly said that he wants regime change in Iran. The body count in that kind of war on both sides will not be measured in the hundreds or the thousands, but the tens or hundreds of thousands.If there is a peaceful alternative to this -- and I know that there is -- then we must do everything within our power to pursue it. And that's what I would do in my administration. I would stick up for our values, make sure that we defend our allies, protect the lives of our fellow Americans, but do that peacefully where we can.Otherwise, we will produce more wars, more veterans coming back to this country seeking the care that they are being effectively and functionally denied today. I think we need to do far better going forward, and I know that we can.
On Afghanistan, O'Rourke, like Buttigieg, said he would bring U.S. troops home.
"We've got to end our war in Afghanistan," he said.
"We've got to make sure that we satisfy the conditions that first led us to go to war in the first place, that those who perpetrated 9/11 are brought to justice, that Afghanistan is never again used to stage attacks on the United States of America or Americans.
"We have satisfied those conditions. Now it is time for us to work with the partners in the region to produce a lasting peace and stability and bring our U.S. service members back home."
Mexican Cops Seize 460 Pounds of Meth, 60 Pounds of Heroin in Tijuana
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Two separate raids in the border city of Tijuana by federal and state investigative netted 460 pounds of methamphetamine and more than 60 pounds of heroin. The raids also resulted in the seizure of six vehicles and one arrest.
The first raid occurred in colonia Cerro Colorado on Wednesday morning when ministerial federal police executed a search warrant at a warehouse. The raid followed an investigation developing intelligence that the location was being used to conduct illegal drug activity.
Upon agents gaining entry, police discovered 406 packages containing a white substance later determined to be methamphetamine. The drugs weighed approximately 442.6 pounds (200.7 kilograms). Police also seized 28 packages containing heroin with a total weight of 27.9 pounds. Police discovered the packages in multiple locations within the building, according to a press release from the Federal Attorney General’s Office (Fiscalía General de República -FGR). Agents did not discover anyone within the building. Investigators turned the evidence over to personnel from the federal attorney general’s office pending further follow-up investigation as reported by local media.
The second raid occurred Thursday when state preventive police were conducting surveillance at the corner of José Vasconcelos in colonia Alemán. Police observed a 2017 white Nissan Vera without license plates and dark tinted windows parked in the opposite direction from the normal flow of traffic. Officers observed a lone male next to the vehicle holding a large clear plastic bag. Upon noticing that he was being watched by the police officers, the suspect threw the bag into the trunk of the car and immediately drove away. Officers followed behind the individual and completed a traffic stop of a male later identified as Jorge Orlando “N”, 21. Officers conducted a search of the interior of the vehicle and found a black suitcase containing 19 clear plastic baggies containing a white colored granular substance. The substance was later determined to be approximately 19.8 pounds of methamphetamine. Police placed Jorge Orlando under arrest and the drugs turned over to investigative personnel from the state attorney general’s office.
The ongoing cartel violence in Tijuana has been attributed to a bitter turf war tied to the street-level distribution of affordable but potent methamphetamine by street-level gangs being supplied by Mexican drug cartels. The methamphetamine is being manufactured in large meth labs throughout Mexico. The drugs are supplied to street level dealers for sale purposes for the Tijuana street market and to traffickers to be smuggled in large shipments across our southern border for the U.S. drug market. This type of activity is also being blamed for the spike for drug-related cartel violence in the border city of Ciudad Juarez which sits next to El Paso Texas. The city of Tijuana has experienced over 800 homicides this year and registered a record-breaking 2518 murders in 2018.
Robert Arce is a retired Phoenix Police detective with extensive experience working Mexican organized crime and street gangs. Arce has worked in the Balkans, Iraq, Haiti, and recently completed a three-year assignment in Monterrey, Mexico, working out of the Consulate for the United States Department of State, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Program, where he was the Regional Program Manager for Northeast Mexico (Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas.)
GRAPHIC: Mexican Government Claims 10 Cartel Men Died in Firefight — Photos Show More
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MORELIA, Michoacán – A fierce shootout between rival cartels killed at least 22 in the coastal state of Michoacán, however, officials are claiming only 10 died. The casualties come at a time when officials are trying to claim the region is safe.
The shootout took place on Wednesday afternoon near Uruapan where gunmen from La Familia Michoacana/Viagras clashed with rivals from Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG). Law enforcement and military personnel did not take part in the gun battle, but arrived later to collect bodies and document the crime scene. Initial information points to an ambush by CJNG with Los Viagras taking the brunt of the casualties.
An official statement from the Michoacán government claims only 10 gunmen died and three others were injured, however unofficial accounts point to a much higher toll. Law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart News that the true figures place the count at 22 dead and six injured.
The government’s claim of only 10 fatalities is apparently in conflict with photographic evidence captured at the scene. One image shows 14 bodies inside the frame–four more than the official version of events.
In recent days, CJNG has carried out a series of violent attacks in the state capital of Morelia, where Governor Silvano Aureoles Conejo claims that the region is making significant strides in public safety. Silvano Aureoles is the same politician who a cartel boss claimed took money in exchange for votes.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart News traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and other areas to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. Breitbart News / Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Jose Luis Lara, a former leading member who helped start the Self-Defense Movement in Michoacán.
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