Monday, December 30, 2019

NANCY PELOSI'S OPEN BORDERS - HERE IS WHAT THE LA RAZA MEX CARTELS WANT TO DO TO YOU

A Harsh Glimpse into What Cartel Rivals Say and Do to One Another and Corrupt Officials


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By Dan Cadman on December 19, 2019
The Breitbart news organization is universally reviled by the left, and even some on the right who find its views and its past associations with Steve Bannon and others distasteful.
But whatever your views of the website, one portion that is always worth looking at is the segment labeled "Border/Cartel Chronicles", under the "World" tab, because it provides a direct view into the belly of the beast.
The reporting is unlike anything usually found in American media sites because it goes direct to the source. It not only carefully monitors Mexico's own journalistic reporting on cartel crimes and violence from onsite locations, but, as its editor's note following each article never fails to mention,
Editor's Note: Breitbart Texas 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 Texas' Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish.
Fair warning to readers in advance, though: The site often publishes photos of the sort that either are not typically shown in American media outlets, or are soft-filtered to avoid shocking reader/viewer sensibilities.
One such recent article in the "Border/Cartel Chronicles" that caught my attention was "Potential Terrorist-Designated Mexican Cartel Kidnaps Judge, Three Policemen", detailing the latest atrocity by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (New Generation Jalisco Cartel, or CJNG by its Spanish acronym), in which three police officers were murdered and three more, and a judge, kidnapped right out of their criminal justice station in the town of Villagran in the state of Guanajuato. The article indicated that the atrocity was undertaken as a reciprocity attack on CJNG's cartel rivals, which puzzled me and left me thinking uncomfortable thoughts about the integrity of the police and judge. Why would they have incurred CJNG's wrath? This is such an uncharitable thought that I would hardly have allowed it to blossom in my mind, let alone give voice to it, if I had not looked closely at a photograph of the banner that CJNG left at the site (the last photo in the article) outlining the reason for the attack.
It's a profanity-laced screed, in Spanish of course, that is nonetheless revealing. CJNG calls its rivals for dominance in the area "terrorist whores" and goes on to say that, unlike its rivals, it does not attack or kill innocents. It only goes after those who are players involved in kidnapping, extortion, and other crimes, and is clearly suggesting that the officers and judge who were murdered and/or kidnapped had been suborned by CJNG's cartel rivals.
Pondering this, I found it interesting that CJNG chooses to call its rivals "terrorists" at a time when it is obviously a politically charged word, given that the United States is considering invoking terrorist designation laws against all the major cartels, including of course CJNG.
We are left with this question: Were these government police and judicial officials in fact on the take, as so many are in Mexico, and as suggested by CJNG? If so, it is once again evidence that Mexico totters on the edge of failed state status — something that should be completely unacceptable to the Mexican people as well as its neighbors both to the north and the south, given the cross-border implications.
If not, and the officers and judge have been defamed in a callous attempt at self-justification for the murderous attack, then what must we infer about the Mexico's capacity to effectively govern its territories in the face of so many such brazen attacks scattered throughout the nation directed at police and military forces? The answer to that is equally unpalatable.
We are led inexorably to the question: When is terrorism "terrorism"? Do we accept at face value the assertions of each cartel about itself that it isn't interested in governing or overthrowing governance, even as they point the fingers of terrorism and subornation at one another? Or do we accept that it isn't their public statements that count — after all, virtually every group, criminal or revolutionary, is prone toward self-justification and grandiose assertions — but rather the ground realities, in which case what we see is that Mexico's government has been corrupted at all levels, up to and including the office of the president (more than once); that effective governance is minimal and headed in the wrong direction; and that the country is turning into a left-leaning narco-state that occupies nearly 2,000 miles of shared border with the United States.

Bill Would Designate Mexican Cartels as Something Other Than Terrorists

Offers the same weapons (deportation, freezing assets, etc.) without overwhelming counter-terrorism apparatus

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By Todd Bensman on December 13, 2019
In precious few circumstances anywhere, ever, does it pay to openly dispute the top boss in an organization, especially so right now if you are a federal worker in Washington, D.C.
So when I penned an essay November 27 urging a pause in President Donald Trump's well-intentioned plan to designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), I was speaking on behalf of warriors in his war on Islamic terrorism who do not feel free to speak out. President Trump did hit the pause button for a little while longer, but this had more to do with appeasing Mexico's president rather than anything I had to say.
It shouldn't be lost, though, that quite a number of counterterrorism intelligence workers wrote me on the sly to agree with my thinking. Which was that designating Mexican criminal groups alongside groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda is a bad idea, without any planning or forethought as to how to avoid allowing this massive load to damage an American counterterrorism system already maxed out keeping the country safe from Islamic jihadists. Piling on a highly populous new class of regular violent criminals, who keep their darkest deeds on their side of the border anyway and never aspire to randomly murder Americans on U.S. soil, would divert precious resources and investigative attention from disrupting Islamic FTOs that do so all day every day.
"The danger is indeed opening the aperture of an already taxed CT (counterterrorism) community," one military intelligence officer who works on this threat wrote me. "The skill/knowledge sets for working counter-smuggling and counter-terrorism are not the same, so transitioning folks from one problem set to another will not yield immediate results."
Wrote another counterterrorism warrior in active service: "I am still working the problem set and agree with each point you raised. I have said for years that the drug problem is a 'wicked problem' in every sense of the word, but the terrorist designation would not make it any more manageable. ... Terrorist designation should not be an option. I wanted you to know you have support in the 'business.'"
Another said: "I'm a career intel officer. I understand the ramifications of such a designation, so I appreciate you writing about this topic with honesty."
Furtive messages like these also have now been heard through back channels by Republican U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas). They, along with seven other powerful Republican co-sponsors, agree with these critical homeland security guardians, staffers tell me, and also with the notion that Mexican cartels do not fit the legal definition of terrorist organizations.
The senators have introduced the Significant Transnational Criminal Organization Designation Act, which leaves America's counterterrorism enterprise alone, but still brings to bear the very same powerful government authorities for which proponents of FTO designation were hoping.
The proposed legislation would add significant transnational criminal organization (STCO) as a separate category to Section 219A of the Immigration and Nationality Act, right next to the FTO one. It includes new definitions of STCO that very snugly fit Mexican cartels and thus guard against delaying, and possibly losing, court challenges that anti-Trumpers would love to file against him for declaring Mexican cartels under the FTO designation, just for the pleasure of obstruction. (To statutorily qualify for FTO designation, groups need to be motivated primarily by a political ideology, and Mexican cartels clearly are not.)
The Cotton/Cruz bill would give federal agencies the same FTO sledge hammers with which to pound the STCOs as hard as terrorist organizations: the ability to freeze financial assets, throw associates out of the country and block them from entering, and prosecute business associates for providing material support.
An important difference is that, whereas responsibility for combating Islamic terrorism statutorily defaults to the FBI as the nation's lead agency and its many delegate agencies, they all would be left unhampered to do national security work the public still expects and demands.
A Senate aide involved in drafting the legislation told me the responsibility for whacking Mexican cartel STCOs would default to federal agencies that do counter-drug-trafficking work: the DEA and the nation's many multi-agency drug task forces that work directly and indirectly on cartel issues, as well as ICE and CBP to hunt down associates and deport them.
"[Cotton and Cruz] understand the intelligence community's concern on this," the aide told me, describing the prospect of a cartel FTO designation as a "messy encroachment on terrorism territory where cartels don't belong."
This legislation thoughtfully provides calls for the very first designation to cover the cartel that murdered nine U.S. Mormon citizens early last month 75 miles inside Sonora, Mexico, a horrific act that resurfaced a drive to have President Trump sic the FTO designation on them.
A few opponents of President Trump's FTO drive have worried aloud that it would prompt a wave of Mexican asylum seekers who would be able to claim victimization by U.S.-designated terrorism organizations. And there's a point to that. But not under this legislation. People running from STCOs don't get the same asylum consideration as people running from ISIS.
The elephant in the room is, of course, whether this legislation can be passed even after the impeachment show ends as expected sometime in January, and before President Trump decides to go ahead with the FTO designation anyway.
My colleague Dan Cadman, who wrote an essay favoring FTO designation alongside my own against, expressed strong doubt that the Cotton/Cruz bill will go anywhere even though he thinks it's a pretty good idea, too. Congress is too divided and past legislation like this has always inexplicably failed even without the partisan canyon running down the middle of the country, he thinks. Given all that, Cadman told me, it would be better if President Trump just declares FTO war on the cartels unilaterally because otherwise nothing will get done yet again.
Valid point.
Still, not to come off as a Pollyanna, but maybe there's a chance for good policy to happen here. To their credit, the drafters of this latest legislation very quickly signed on some powerful Republican supporters that President Trump listens to (such as Lindsey Graham), and they're going after Democratic leaders next, no doubt aware that President Trump could at any moment declare one or more cartels as FTOs.
The window of opportunity to protect the nation's counterterrorism enterprise from inundation is only narrowly open. In addition to Graham, supporters include Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). Even Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah has signed on, perhaps a beacon for a Democrat or two.
This legislation is one of those rare ones that is naturally and inherently bipartisan, and perhaps ripe for some Democrats to sign on once the impeachment hurricane has spun itself out. After all, who can't get behind legislation that pummels Mexican cartels?
Sometimes just the act of announcing legislation constitutes communication and messaging, whether or not it can actually pass. If President Trump hears this message to preserve his counterterrorism apparatus and avoid a legally challengeable FTO designation, perhaps he'll keep the pause button pushed a little longer to see what can come of this.

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