Our Escalating Border War

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Gun Battle Breaks Out In Juarez Near Border

Daniel Novick-KFOX News Weekend Anchor/Reporter

Video:

Posted: 7:07 pm MDT August 21, 2010Updated: 9:55 pm MDT August 21, 2010

EL PASO, Texas -- Border Patrol officials said there was major gun fire in Juarez near the Old Fort Bliss around 6 p.m. on Saturday.Customs and Border Protection officers, Border Patrol agents and El Paso police officers all responded to the scene, near Paisano Drive in West El Paso.

Border Patrol spokesman Ramiro Cordero said Paisano Drive was closed off, and agents were prepared to handle any spillover violence.

Residents told KFOX crews on the scene they heard a lot of gunfire, including semi-automatic rifles.

One resident said Border Patrol agents came by and told him to stay inside."I saw a bunch of [Mexican police] just running around.

I saw a lot of troops walking around and running with rifles and I could see gun shots coming from up in the hills," said Ray Campos, a nearby resident.There were unconfirmed reports of between 15 and 20 shots that did land on the U.S. side of the border.

There have been no reports so far of any injuries to anyone in the U.S.KFOX media partner CNN.com was reporting that three police officers in Juarez were injured and one armed suspect was killed, according to federal police spokesman Ramon Salinas."I've never experienced anything like this.

It's kind of shocking," Camos said. "No one can do anything about it."KFOX has a crew on the scene, and will have the very latest on KFOX News after the preseason football game.

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A Border Manifesto



I believe story telling to be an art form, certainly verbal record is the oldest form of recording history and recognized by historians worldwide.

There is an old adage among those who love to tell a good tale, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” And yet there are times when the truth is even more fantastic than exaggeration. What I write here is the truth, plain and simple.

I reside on, and manage a large cattle ranch in the far southeastern corner of Arizona. I’ve been here for 13 years and in that time frame have become far too familiar with the illegal trafficking in human beings, marijuana and other illicit drugs. Some have called it “the wetback culture” or “America’s border problem”. Lately it’s been taking steroids.

The recent murder of Robert Krentz by an illegal alien has received massive amounts of publicity worldwide. I live on the ranch bordering the Krentz ranch to the east and north. I can see the Krentz home looking out of my front door approximately 10 miles away. The day after Rob’s death I was involved in tracking the outlaw into Mexico. I saw the outlaw’s footprints where he crossed the border fence. I mention this to say I feel that I’m qualified to speak about current border issues.

My home has been broken into twice. My son’s home has been broken into also and between us we have had between twenty and thirty thousand dollars worth of stuff stolen from us including two ranch pick-ups, a four wheeler, 9 firearms (including a loaded AK 47) cash, jewelry all of our credit cards, driver’s license, etc.

A guest house here on the ranch has been broken into so many times we quit counting… many times we haven’t even called the Sheriff’s dept.

The Cochise County Sheriff’s dept. has no less than fifteen reports on file where I’ve called for assistance dealing with an outlaw illegal alien.



Several months ago, not long after Rob Krentz’s death, Fox news (channel 10 in Phoenix AZ) contacted me and expressed interest in coming down and doing a news story about me and the problems myself and other ranchers in this area have had in recent months with illegal outlaws.

To prepare for my interview with Fox, I asked for assistance from six other neighboring ranchers and businessmen. All of these men are prominent men in the community, tax payers, business owners and individuals who have the best of reputations.

Together we made a map of the area which covered from the southeastern corner of AZ going west about 20 miles to the silver creek area, and going north about 30 miles to the area around the towns of Portal, AZ and Rodeo, N.M. On this map we made marks recording violations to United States law committed by illegal aliens.

We did not use government statistics (we wouldn’t know how to get them) but recorded incidents that we knew had happened first hand, many of which we had witnessed. We tried to record only the incidents that have happened in the last several years.

• The sum total of what we recorded is this:

• The arrest or capture of 40 illegal in one bunch – 40

(we didn’t bother with the countless smaller groups)

• Loads of Marijuana found and captured – 213

• Dangerous encounters with illegal aliens – 132

(assault, burglaries, forced entries, etc.)

• Dead illegal aliens found by civilians – 16

• High speed vehicle chases between dope haulers and law enforcement – 14

• Illegal aliens spotted with firearms – 12

• Fires started by illegal aliens – 9

Over 100,000 acres burned with the cost to taxpayers of $ 40,000,000. One fire near Portal AZ in June of 2010 cost $10,000,000. to fight (forest Service estimate)

• Outlandish incidents – 4

Example: One bachelor in the Portal area was burglarized around 100 times. He finally took all his valuables and put them in a steel vault and welded the door shut. He then moved out of his house into a shed hoping the illegal aliens would leave him alone.

They did not and he finally abandoned his property. Another outlandish event was when outlaws stole a brand new Caterpillar motor grader on the Geronimo Trail east of Douglas, AZ and drove south through the border fence never to be seen again. The grader belonged to Cochise County Hwy Dept.

• Financial losses to private sector - $100,000,000.00

(losses in real estate value, personal property, etc., losses in wildlife habitat – immeasurable)

Last but certainly not least, the murder of Rob Krentz, which is right in the center of our map.

Let me put this in perspective. The area I’m talking about is an area that covers approximately 17 or 18 townships with only 20 miles being adjacent to the US – Mexico Boundary. Within this area, there is a population of perhaps 600 people, 90% of which reside in Rodeo, N.M. or Portal, AZ, 30 miles or so north of Mexico.

No less than 80% of the people in this area have been burglarized or otherwise molested by illegal aliens. This area is about half as big as the Diamond A ranch or Babbitt ranch in northern AZ, both of which I’ve been employed on.

I’m sorry to report that this, in my opinion, is the small part of the story.

The Mexican-American border has taken a dramatic change for the worse in the last several years. Those of us who live here see it first hand. As early as February of 1999 Sheriff Larry Dever warned me and others at a town hall meeting at the Apache School that the Sinaloa Cartel was moving into the Douglas-Agua Prieta area (Rob Krentz was at this meeting).

The cities of Nuevo Laredo, Coahila, Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua, and other border towns south of Texas have been controlled by outlaws for years. There is virtually no law enforcement in those places. The law is the law of the jungle. Until the last two years it seemed that Agua Prieta and Nogales were safer places but that has dramatically changed in recent months.

I am personally acquainted with 2 Mexican men, that I know to be honest and trustworthy, who have been involved first hand with Mexican outlaw terrorist acts. One witnessed first hand an execution of several people in broad daylight in Juarez.

Several weeks later his daughter witnessed an assassination in Casas Grandes, Chihuahua no more than fifteen feet from where she stood. The other man is a legal Mexican green card holder (who was employed by the Krentz family for years) whose nephew was murdered by cartel members in Sonora. At night people in Douglas are hearing machine gun fire from Agua Prieta south of the border fence.

The Sinaloa Cartel is now putting a stranglehold on Agua Prieta. No more than 2 months ago 8 armed Mexicans were confronted by 2, U.S. Border Patrol agents north of the International Boundary in southeast Cochise County disguised as Federalizes.

They were in fact cartel employees armed with assault rifles and automatic pistols. Mexican people that know tell me the situation in Agua Prieta has deteriorated dramatically in recent months. The good people are told to look the other way “or else.” Volumes could be written about this subject alone, but I will move on.

You could ask, “So what does this have to do with us living north of the border fence?” Plenty! The situation on the border isn’t just about a few workers walking north. It has everything to do with big business. Billions of dollars are being made trafficking humans, drugs, and contraband across the International Boundary.

The Sinaloa Cartel, headed by Chapo Guzman and others, is reaping huge profits doing business along the border. The average coyote charges $1500 - $2500 to guide an illegal alien north to find work; usually abandoning them a short distance north of the line. A young man willing to pack dope north can make more than a construction worker or a teacher in the U.S. and only work a day or two a week.

This is not all south of the line.

I could take you and show you businesses where checks and credit cards are not accepted and where very few customers walk through the door, yet the owners live in the largest mansions in town and drive very expensive cars.

Could there be some money laundering going on?

There are only two industries of any significance in Douglas, AZ: law enforcement (Douglas has one of the largest Border Patrol stations in America), and the illegal trafficking of drugs, people, etc. across the border. These two industries feed on each other, and the powers that be seem happy with the situation.

Crooked politicians look good to the public when they clean up drunk driving and prostitution, until you find they own bars and whore houses south of the line. These things have happened!

But this, in my opinion, is only the beginning.

Chapo Guzman who heads up the Sinaloa Cartel is a multibillionaire.

This guy and others like him may be cruel and sinister people but they are also very smart businessmen. They are reaping profits off of the largest tax free unregulated business on the planet. They have so much cash they are befuddled what to do with it all. But they are going to figure it out.

There are rumors that Guzman is financing modern, state of the art feedlots and packing houses in Mexico with plans to overtake America as the Western hemisphere’s leading beef producer. This is probably only a small part of his plans.

Mexico is a nation rich in natural recourses.

Petroleum is abundant and the corrupt Mexican government is in control of all of it. Pemex is the only gas station in town. Pemex, because of the incompetent Mexican government, is broke.

Chapo Guzman is at war with the Mexican government and has dreams (not unrealistic) of controlling the entire nation. Think of all of Mexico’s natural resources in the control of Chapo Guzman! He already has the most profitable business in the world - selling Marijuana to your next door neighbor. Think what he could do with a tax free unregulated strangle hold on a nation of poor people begging to work for practically nothing.

Do you think that Chapo Guzman and others like him haven’t thought of all of this? Do you think that Guzman isn’t laughing all the way to the bank as he watches the evening news and hears how the American Government proclaims that the situation on the border is under control?

What is going on in northern Mexico is capitalism in its rawest form. They have an untaxed unregulated business making huge profits and they have no plans of closing up shop any time soon. We here in the U.S. are overtaxed, overregulated and being smothered by increasingly intrusive government that makes it hard to do business in a successful manner.

You don’t have to be rocket scientist to figure this one out.

This has nothing to do with being Republican or Democrat or Latino or White. It has everything to do with being right or wrong. I came from a long line of Democrats.

My great uncle was a U.S. Senator for several decades. My grandfather was an attorney, and a Superior Court Judge. I have a 1939 copy of a Time Magazine with his picture when he ran as a Democrat for Congress. The only time in history the U.S deficit was paid off was by a Democrat – Andrew Jackson. John Kennedy announced nearly 50 years ago that America could put a man on the moon and in less than a decade we did it.

I am now a registered Republican, but I’m not a Democrat hater.

But, how can the president of the “can do” nation of Andrew Jackson’s and JFK’s party say we can’t seal the border?

We conquered Adolph Hitler in World War II, but can’t seal the border?

We put a man on the moon but can’t seal a leaking oil well in less than 90 days? While this is going on we tax and regulate American business with a vengeance that stifles the free market system that has made our country great.

While Janet Napolitano announces the border is safer than ever, Chapo Guzman and others pack billions of American dollars south to invest in a tax free market with one of the largest cheap labor force on the planet at his disposal!



I challenge you to come to Douglas, AZ and drive east on the Geronimo Trail, or northeast on US Hwy 80 to places on the map like Chiracahua and Apache. Or go to Rodeo and Hatchita, NM.

Go and search out the 5 biggest cattle ranches in the Apache, AZ area and ask them what they think. Go to Hidalgo County, N.M. and ask the ranchers and cowboys there what they are seeing and hearing.

Ask the people who we do business with what they think of our opinions.

I challenge you to ask the prominent people in this area, who work hard and pay taxes if they agree with Barack Obama or Ed Ashurst when it comes to what is really going on near the U.S.-Mexican border.

Unlike Obama and others I don’t have to be surrounded by sycophants to make a statement. I purposefully left out the names of those who helped me with my map and the data I collected when preparing for the Fox interview.

In closing I challenge you to look around to see if what I say is the truth. This isn’t about a few Mexicans wandering around looking for a job.

This is about American civilization going into a time of tremendous change – a building has foundations and walls, maybe the foundation of our country is still strong, I don’t know, but the walls have certainly fallen down and the keepers of the house are out to lunch.

July 25, 2010

Ed Ashurst, Apache Arizona

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Drug cartel suspected in massacre of 72 migrants

72 bodies found at a ranch 160 kilometres from U.S. border

Eduardo Castillo and Mark Stevenson

Mexico City — The Associated Press Published on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010 5:59AM EDT Last updated on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010 11:33AM EDT

A Mexican drug cartel massacred 72 Central and South American migrants within 160 kilometres of the U.S. border that they were trying to reach, according to an Ecuadorean survivor who escaped and stumbled, wounded, to a highway checkpoint where he alerted marines, official said Wednesday.

The marines fought the cartel gunmen at a ranch in the northern state of Tamaulipas, a battle that left one marine and three suspects dead. They found the bodies of 58 men and 14 women in a room, some piled on top of each other.

The Ecuadorean migrant told investigators that his captors identified themselves as members of the Zetas drug gang, said Vice-Admiral Jose Luis Vergara, a spokesman for the Mexican navy. Authorities believe the migrants were from Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil and Ecuador.

It is the biggest massacre to date in Mexico’s drug war and the most horrifying example yet of the dangers faced by immigrants trying to get to the United States.

“It's absolutely terrible and it demands the condemnation of all of our society,” said Alejandro Poire, the government's security spokesman.

Authorities did not say why the gang killed the migrants. Mexico’s drug cartels frequently kidnap migrants and threaten to kill them unless they pay fees for crossing their territory. Sometimes, gangs contact relatives of the migrants in the United States and demand they pay a ransom.

The bodies were discovered Tuesday when marines operating a checkpoint were approached by a wounded man who said he had been attacked by gang gunmen at a nearby ranch. Officials said the man, Luis Fredy Lala Pomavilla, identified himself as an illegal migrant from Ecuador and said he and other migrants had been kidnapped by an armed group and taken to the ranch in San Fernando, a town about 160 kilometres south of Brownsville, Tex.

The scale of the massacre of migrants appeared to be unprecedented even by the gruesome standards of Mexican drug cartels.

It was unclear if all 72 were killed at the same time – or why. A federal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said investigators believe the victims were killed within recent days.

The navy said it dispatched aircraft to check out the man’s report and when the gunmen saw the marines, they opened fire and tried to flee in a convoy of vehicles. One marine and three of the suspects were killed in the shootout.

Navy personnel seized 21 assault rifles, shotguns and rifles, and detained a minor.

The youth, who was apparently part of the gang, was handed over to civilian prosecutors.

It was the third time this year that Mexican authorities have discovered large masses of corpses. In the other two cases, investigators believe the bodies were dumped at the sites over a long time.

In May, authorities discovered 55 bodies in an abandoned mine near Taxco, a colonial-era city south of Mexico City that is popular with tourists.

In July, investigators found 51 corpses in two days of digging in a field near a trash dump outside the northern metropolis of Monterrey. Many of those found were believed to have been rival traffickers. But cartels often dispose of the bodies of kidnap victims in such dumping grounds.

The region has been besieged by a turf battle between the Zetas and their former ally, the Gulf cartel.

Mexico’s drug violence has surged since President Felipe Calderon dispatched soldiers and federal police to root out drug traffickers from their strongholds in northern Mexico and along the Pacific coast.

More than 28,000 people have been killed in drug-gang violence since the offensive began.

[American Patriot]

Alright... So Mexico is under CIVIL WAR at this time and it is spilling into our area...

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Is Mexico disintegrating?

Posted at 10:31 pm by Glenn Reynolds

A FRIEND EMAILS FROM MEXICO: “Shit’s about to collapse in MX and points south. It is frightening. I am seeing first hand, am traveling. Total anarchy and terror unfolding.” Well, that’s encouraging. All those counter-insurgency and nation-building skills we’ve honed in Iraq might come in handy closer to home.

Or, you know, we could just legalize drugs and pull the rug out from under the cartels.
UPDATE: A followup email:

It’s so complex. The USA unilaterally legalizing weed, as many have proposed, wouldn’t stop the violence — there are any number of possible outcomes to that. The causes are complex and brewed over time… all I know is that all signs are pointing to a far worsening situation down there, and increasing impact here.

Militarizing the border isn’t a solution, but having seen what I’ve seen, I’d be terrified if we weren’t hardening that border right now.

Time to come back to the States, I think.

[American Patriot]

ummm "Yes" would be the correct answer. LOL

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Sheriff: Mexican Cartels Control Parts of Arizona

Wednesday, 01 Sep 2010 08:18 AM
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By: Jerry Seper and Matthew Cella

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.

The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

They warn travelers that they are entering an "active drug and human smuggling area" and they may encounter "armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed." Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to "use public lands north of Interstate 8" and to call 911 if they "see suspicious activity."

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, whose county lies at the center of major drug and alien smuggling routes to Phoenix and cities east and west, attests to the violence. He said his deputies are outmanned and outgunned by drug traffickers in the rough-hewn desert stretches of his own county.

"Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona," he said. "They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has.

"This is going on here in Arizona," he said. "This is 70 to 80 miles from the border - 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States."

He said he asked the Obama administration for 3,000 National Guard soldiers to patrol the border, but what he got were 15 signs.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer condemned what she called the federal government's "continued failure to secure our international border," saying the lack of security has resulted in important natural recreational areas in her state being declared too dangerous to visit.

In a recent campaign video posted to YouTube, Mrs. Brewer - standing in front of one of the BLM signs - attacked the administration over the signs, calling them "an outrage" and telling President Obama to "Do your job. Secure our borders."

BLM spokesman Dennis Godfrey in Arizona said agency officials were surprised by the reaction the signs generated when they were put up this summer.

"We were perhaps naive in setting the signs up," he said. "The intention of the signs was to make the public aware that there is potential illegal activity here. But it was interpreted in a different light, and that was not the intent at all."

He said there should be "no sense that we have ceded the land," adding that no BLM lands in Arizona are closed to the public.

"I kind of liken it to if I were visiting a city I were not familiar with and asked a policeman if it were safe to go in a particular area," Mr. Godfrey said.

Rising violence along the border has coincided with a crackdown in Mexico on warring drug gangs, who are seeking control of smuggling routes into the United States.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has waged a bloody campaign against powerful cartels, yesterday announcing the arrest of Texas-born Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez - a powerful cartel leader captured outside of Mexico City on Monday evening.

More than 28,000 people have died since Mr. Calderon launched his crackdown in late 2006, and the bloodshed shows no sign of ending. Law enforcement authorities have been warning for more than two years that the dramatic rise in border violence eventually would spread into the U.S.

T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 17,500 of the Border Patrol's front-line agents, said areas well north of the border are so overrun by armed criminals that U.S. citizens are being warned to keep out of those locations.

"The federal government's lack of will to secure our borders is painfully evident when signs are posted well north of the border warning citizens that armed and dangerous criminals are roaming through those areas with impunity," he said. "Instead of taking the steps necessary to secure our borders, politicians are attempting to convince the public that our borders are more secure now than ever before.

"Fortunately, some responsible civil servants are candidly warning the public about the dangers that exist not just along the border but, in some cases, well beyond," he said. "This situation should alarm all sensible people, and should spur endless demands that our legislators take whatever actions are necessary to restore law and order to these areas."

Rep. Ted Poe, Texas Republican and a member of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, said the federal government's new border security plan apparently is to "erect some signs telling you it's not safe to travel in our own country."

"If you are planning on loading up the station wagon and taking the kids to Disneyland, the federal government doesn't advise going through Arizona - it's too dangerous and they can't protect you," said Mr. Poe. "These signs say to American citizens, the federal government has ceded this area to the drug cartels. Don't come here; we can't protect you."

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called the signs "an insult to the citizens of border states."

"American citizens should not have to be fearful for their lives on U.S. soil," he said. "If the federal government would do its job of enforcing immigration laws, we could better secure the border and better protect the citizens of border states."

Michael W. Cutler, a retired 31-year U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) senior criminal investigator and intelligence specialist, said the BLM warning signs suggest the U.S. government is "ceding American territory to armed criminals and smugglers."

Meanwhile, he said, politicians in Washington, D.C., including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, continue to claim the border is now more secure than ever and, as a result, it is time for comprehensive immigration reform.

"How much more land will our nation cede to drug dealers and terrorists? At what point will the administration understand its obligations to really secure our nation's borders and create an immigration system that has real integrity?" Mr. Cutler said.

"At the rate we are going, the 'Red, White and Blue' of the American flag will be replaced with a flag that is simply white - the flag of surrender."

Ms. Napolitano said this week that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would begin flying a Predator B drone out of Corpus Christi, Texas, on Wednesday, extending the reach of the agency's unmanned surveillance aircraft across the length of the 1,956-mile border with Mexico.

Last month, Mr. Obama signed a $600 million bill to beef up security along the southwestern border. The bill funds 1,000 more Border Patrol agents, as well as 250 CBP officers and two more unmanned aerial vehicles.

Two years ago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the investigative arm of Homeland Security, said in a report that border gangs were becoming increasingly ruthless and had begun targeting not only rivals, but federal, state and local police. ICE said the violence had risen dramatically as part of "an unprecedented surge."

The Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center, in its 2010 drug threat assessment report, called the cartels "the single greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States." It said Mexican gangs had established operations in every area of the United States and were expanding into rural and suburban areas. It said assaults against U.S. law enforcement officers along the southwestern border were on the increase - up 46 percent against Border Patrol agents alone.

At the same time, the Justice Department brought a lawsuit to stop a new immigration enforcement law in Arizona, saying it violated the Constitution by trying to supersede federal law and by impairing illegal immigrants' right to travel and conduct interstate commerce.

Mr. Cutler said it was "outrageous" for the BLM to direct travelers to dial 911 to report suspicious activities since the calls do not go to the federal government but to state and local police. He said the signs are telling Americans to call state and local law enforcement authorities to deal with border lawlessness while at the same time telling Arizona that only the federal government can write and enforce immigration laws.

"You can't make this stuff up," he said.

Mr. Godfrey said that just because the signs direct travelers who witness illegal activity to call 911, "that does not mean that only a local agency will respond."

"The idea is that people will get help as quickly as they can," he said.

Sheriff Babeu has dealt firsthand with the rising violence in his county since his 2008 election. One of his deputies, Louie Puroll, was shot and critically wounded in April after he spotted five men he suspected of transporting drugs along a remote span of desert near Interstate 8 and Arizona 84.

He said his experience makes him see the issue differently from the administration in Washington.

"The president is only looking at this from a political perspective," he said. "Everything is not fine. Everything is not OK."

© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC

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Illegal Outrage: Why Machete [movie] May Be Booed In Border States

By Josh Tyler: 2010-09-02 15:38:33
www.cinemablend.com


In less than 24-hours writer/director Robert Rodriguez's Machete will stick a sharp object in audiences across the country and when it does, some of you will like it, and some of you will be offended. Machete isn't just the ultra-violent action movie people seem to be expecting, it's a movie intent on making a series of pretty outrageous political statements, while it blows things up. Particularly in border states, where the debate over illegal immigration burns hottest, its message will be less likely to be well received. In fact, some are already organizing protest groups claiming the movie promotes violence against whites.

The thing is, they're not exactly wrong, or they wouldn't be if Machete weren't such a completely silly movie. But Machete is an exploitation movie and as an exploitation movie it's supposed to be excessive. That means extreme violence and insane, sexed up action sequences; but it also means extreme social and political positions on issues which it probably has no business tackling. Like any good exploitation movie it's just going as far over the top as possible and if it's done right, the intention here isn't really for anyone on either side to take anything it does or has to say seriously.

The question is, was it done right? It's so over the top the film practically begs not to be taken seriously, yet at the same time, because he's chosen to approach a sensitive social issue with the equivalent of a nuclear missile, it's hard not to argue that Rodriguez is asking for some sort of outraged response. Whether it means to make people angry or not, it will. Whether people should be angry or not, some will be. My goal here is to try and head at least some of that off at the pass by talking about a few of the things in Machete which are sure to drive a lot of people, even reasonable people, nuts. I'm a Texan. I'm not some northerner arm-chair quarterbacking on a problem I can't possibly comprehend. At the same time, I'm going to do my best not to take sides here except to admit that, overall, I actually really like Machete. So let's talk. Here are 3 reasons Machete is sure to piss my fellow border staters off.

Warning: What follows may contain minor Machete spoilers.

Machete Glamorizes The Assassination Of Elected Officials

This is the one that's probably going to bother people the most and in the context of the film it's a fairly complex question. At one point in the movie Machete is hired to murder a Senator (played by Robert De Niro) who opposes illegal immigration. He accepts this job, almost without question. When he completes it, he's lauded as a hero in the illegal immigrant community and, to put it simply, the movie treats it as if doing this is a good thing. There's an attempt to counterbalance this by making it seem as though this Senator had it coming. And he does. But neither Machete nor the Mexican immigrant community which worships him for his attempted assassination of a duly elected American official knew that when he tried to kill him. They praise him because he tried to kill someone they disagreed with, not because he killed someone who had it coming. Worse, the movie simply takes it for granted that every Mexican in Texas would be happy if one of their own simply started murdering anyone who didn't say what they want them to say.

Obviously this isn't true, but it's not like Rodriguez is doing the southern immigrant community any favors by throwing out the idea that they'd be delighted if all of Texas's duly elected officials were murdered just so they could get green cards. Will it piss those immigrants off to be portrayed that way? The movie seems to be hoping they'll be in the audience, gleefully living out some sort of revenge fantasy. I can't predict how the undocumented community will react, but it speaks to Machete's entire attitude toward people on the opposite side of the illegal immigration issue. The film's answer to their concerns is, in short, to quite literally chop off their head.



Machete Is Kind Of Racist

If you look at it in a bubble, Machete is a racist film. Every white man in the movie, and there are many, is a cartoonishly evil villain who murders pregnant women and children for fun and profit. Every white woman in the movie is an incestuous, drug-addled slut.

The only evil Mexican character in the movie is played by a Russian-Irish American who in real life goes by the name of Steven Seagal. That's probably not a coincidence. All Mexicans are portrayed as honest and hardworking people who can be trusted and know how to handle themselves in a fight.

The movie's big finale involves a huge group of Mexicans banding together in what can only be described as a heavily armed stereotype on wheels, to slaughter a large group of stereotypical, white people for no discernable reason.

We as an audience know that some of these people are evil, but the attacking army doesn't. Worse they're not all exactly evil, most of them are just hillbilly rednecks who happened to hang out with the wrong crowd. The main thing here is that Machete's Mexican army doesn't even have a good reason for attacking except the vague notion that by killing these white people in some non-specific way they'll solve the immigration problem (they don't).

Here's why maybe this isn't as bad as it sounds. Let's call it the balancing the scales defense. Some believe that in the past Hollywood has made movies in which the bad guys were far too frequently someone with brown skin, and they got away with it. So if you share that point of view it'll seem fair that Robert Rodriguez, himself an American of Mexican descent, would be able to turn the tables once in awhile. Do two wrongs make a right? I'm not sure, but in another movie, in a movie that wasn't already steeped in such potentially controversial content, maybe nobody would have even noticed or cared. And I don't believe for even a second that overt racism was in any way Robert Rodriguez's intent. Yet not everyone who watches this movie will see it that way and, like it or not, that's what's actually on film.

Machete's Stance On Immigration Is Loud And Dumb

There are good arguments on both sides of the illegal immigration issue. None of them are made in this movie. Don't get me wrong, Machete makes a lot of arguments in favor of allowing illegals to basically run across the border any time they choose, they're all just based on generally ludicrous, incredibly faulty logic. Machete takes an empty speeches approach to ending border control and sends characters around shouting utterly meaningless but catchy slogans like “we didn't cross the border, the border crossed us!” as a way to rally the troops, treating such nonsense as if it's something profound.

The proper response as an audience member is probably to just sit there, roll your eyes, and wait for Machete to cut another arm off, but elections have been won or lost on far dumber slogans. Machete doesn't debate the illegal immigration issue, it sends Mexicans running into the streets with shotguns to send any white person who doesn't want them crossing the border willy nilly, for whatever reason, to their grave. Then it celebrates as if it's accomplished something meaningful and profound.

Robert Rodriguez is a smart guy and I'd like to think that if he really wanted to make a case in favor of illegal immigration he'd be able to do a better job of it than this. Because of that, it would be easy to assume the movie doesn't mean any of it, and that, no matter how ridiculous its political stance gets, it's just kidding. But if that's true, then you have to wonder why Machete goes so far out of its way to shoehorn in politically motivated scenes which serve no purpose in the story, involving characters which aren't otherwise even part of the movie. Why does everything grind to a halt so often for so many empty—headed speeches, if it's all just a joke? Far too often Machete stops to deliver a message at the expense of its story, and that's not the hallmark of a movie which, even though none of those messages make any sense, isn't taking its politics seriously Machete says a lot, I'm just not sure whether it really believes it actually has something to say.

I want to believe Machete doesn't mean any of it. Not everyone who sees it will feel the same. Rodriguez has the right to make whatever the hell kind of movie he wants. The question is, how will audiences on either side of the immigration debate respond to it?

Will those opposed to border control wrongfully see it as a rallying cry or will they simply laugh about how ridiculous it is? Will those in favor of border control see it as some sort of legitimate threat against their life, or will they assume that their opposite number is in on the joke and move on with their lives? I don't know. Machete seems utterly tone deaf to the sensitivity of the issue it's tackling.

It's as if Robert Rodriguez heard Rush Limbaugh warning of a Mexican immigrant invasion and decided to respond by making a movie that said: “that's right, we're coming, and all you fuckers are dead.” I just hope that insensitivity doesn't blow up in all our faces. What do you think? Let me know in the comments section below.

[Segestan]

Whites can free themselves from their racist past only by becoming liberals. Open borders is a good start. Gotta love globalization.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/07...try-heres-how/

[Ryan Ruck]

I think a big reason for this movie being made is because the producers knew with the current environment how much controversy, and thus free advertising, and thus big $$$ this movie would stir up. The message is just the icing on the cake.

I will watch it just to see what it is all about and, more importantly, Jessica Alba! Though I do question her taste in jobs... Last 2 movies I saw her in were The Killer Inside Me (Talk about a real movie. I wanted my hour and a half back at the end) and Valentine's Day (A snooze fest ).

All I can say is thank God for


Not only keeps me from giving money to libtards as in the case of Machete but also from throwing my hard earned money away on crap like The Killer Inside Me!

[Backstop]

Hey Seg. Good article. Thanks for posting that.

[vector7]

ICE Proposes New Policy That Would Let Illegal Immigrants Go Free

By Jana Winter

Published September 09, 2010 | FoxNews.com



Illegal immigrants who get pulled over by police for traffic-related offenses will be set free if a proposed change in Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy is approved.

The proposal has come under by fire by county sheriffs near the Arizona-Mexico border — including some who spoke out against SB 1070, the controversial Arizona law that directs law enforcement officials to question people they suspect are in the country illegally. A federal judge has effectively put that law on hold, pending resolution in federal court of the Department of Justice's claim that it is unconstitutional.

The proposed changes in ICE policy state:

“Immigration officers should not issue detainers against an alien charged only with a traffic-related misdemeanor unless or until the alien is convicted."

The ICE proposal would prevent law enforcement officers from reporting illegal immigrants identified during the course of a traffic-related stop or arrest to federal authorities unless:

-- they are a convicted felon;

-- they are wanted for a felony;

-- they are part of an existing investigation;

-- they were involved in an accident involving drugs or alcohol, or they fled the scene.

The draft proposal was posted on ICE's website last month with a request for public comment. They will consider comments on the proposal from anyone who submits them and agency officials will reconvene at a future time to discuss the suggestions.

Click here to read the policy proposal.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada, who opposed Arizona’s new immigration law, told KGUN9-TV, "It is surprising they would make that decision. I would suspect once an individual is identified as being here illegally, some process would kick in ... that would deport that person."

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, a staunch supporter of the Arizona law, also spoke out against ICE's proposal, telling KGUN, "Now it appears what they have in some draft policies and their proposal is to water down any strength in the federal law whatsoever, and this is clearly in direct opposition of what the people really want."

Neither Estrada nor Babeu returned requests for comment from FoxNews.com.

Senators John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., have written to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressing concern over the proposed change.

In a statement to FoxNews.com, Cornyn said:

“This situation is just another side effect of President Obama’s failure to deliver on his campaign promise to make immigration reform a priority in his first year. Until he does, state and local authorities are left with no choice but to pick up the slack for prosecuting and detaining criminal aliens.”

ICE spokesman Brian Hale provided this statement:

"Some recent news reporting grossly mischaracterizes ICE’s draft detainer policy for which the agency presents seeks public comment. ICE has removed record numbers of criminal and non criminal aliens under this administration. The draft policy is designed to solicit public input on how to best set priorities for the use of our limited detention resources to protect safety."
Print Close

URL

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/09...policy-change/

[vector7]

Hitmen kill 25 in bloodiest day on Mexico-U.S. border

By Julian Cardona Julian Cardona – 1 hr 41 mins ago

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – The murders of 25 people by suspected drug hitmen on the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday was the bloodiest day in almost three years in an area gripped by an escalating drug war, officials said on Friday.

Gunmen burst into several houses in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, and shot people accused of working for rival drug gangs, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general's office said on Friday morning.

Four bystanders were also killed on Thursday as a convoy of hitmen shot its way out of traffic in Ciudad Juarez, local newspaper El Diario said. Police declined to confirm that report, but said 25 people had died in drug violence, in the worst single day of killings in Ciudad Juarez since January 2008, when recent drug murders began.

Mexican police do not typically release information on death tolls from violence until the day after an incident.

The rampant bloodshed in Ciudad Juarez, where hitmen detonated a car bomb in July, and other parts of Mexico is helping fuel fears in the United States that the nation may be losing control of drug violence.

Earlier this week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised concerns about drug cartels in the region and said Mexico was starting to resemble Colombia 20 years ago, when narco-traffickers controlled certain parts of that nation.

President Barack Obama rejected those comments, as did Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who has defended his efforts to curb drug violence, which has killed more than 28,000 people since the conservative leader took office in late 2006.

Thousands of troops and elite federal police have been unable to quell a brutal offensive in Ciudad Juarez by Mexico's most wanted narcotics trafficker, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, for control of the border city.

Since January 2008 more than 6,400 people have died in drug violence in Ciudad Juarez, which produces goods exported to the United States, as rivals fight over smuggling routes and a pool of local addicts.

Guzman wants to wrest control of the city from Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, long-time head of the Juarez drug cartel, who drug experts say handles about a fifth of a drug business believed to earn up to $40 billion a year for the cartels.

Mounting insecurity in Mexico could eventually pose a threat to efforts to pull Latin America's second largest economy out of its worst recession since 1932. Export-driven cities like Ciudad Juarez, which lost 75,000 manufacturing jobs last year, have suffered particularly during the downturn.

(Writing by Robin Emmott; Editing by Missy Ryan and Paul Simao)

[vector7]

Report: Scores of inmates escape Mexican jail

According to reports, scores of inmates have escaped from a prison in Reynosa, Mexico.

Mexico's El Universal.mx, 85 inmates have escaped. Another report from channel6newsonline.com puts the total at 71:

At least 71 prisoners escaped after a morning jailbreak on Friday in the Mexican city of Reynosa across the border from McAllen, Texas, local media reported. Local authorities are currently at the spot investigating the facts. So far, there is no indication regarding the whereabouts of the inmates.

State-run Notimex newswire service said that Tamaulipas state officials scheduled a press conference for Friday afternoon to provide a detailed report on the mass jailbreak.

[vector7]

Shots fired into Mexico by U.S. Border Patrol agents

By Nick Valencia, CNN
September 14, 2010 12:43 a.m. EDT


STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• "Our agents were being fired upon and they did respond," official says
• 1,000 pounds of marijuana were seized in the incident, she says
• Assaults against board agents have decreased in recent months, she says

RELATED TOPICS

• Mexico
• Texas
• Border Control and Customs

(CNN) -- U.S. Border Patrol agents fired gunshots into Mexico over the weekend after being attacked during a marijuana seizure in Mission, Texas, the agency told CNN on Monday.

The incident between border patrol agents and alleged drug traffickers took place around 7:40 a.m. Saturday, Border Patrol spokeswoman Rosalinda Huey said.

"Our agents were being fired upon and they did respond with fire back into Mexico," she said. "I don't have the number of how many people were involved. But none of our agents were injured."

Agents seized over 1,000 pounds of marijuana during the incident, according to Huey. The incident is under investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and the Mexican government, Huey said.

"At this point we don't know what cartel it's tied to or if it's just an unaffiliated source. We're not attributing it to anybody right now," she said.

Although attacks against border patrol agents are not uncommon, assaults against agents have decreased in the last fiscal year, she said.

Mission is a small border town in the Rio Grande Valley near McAllen, Texas.
Border patrol agents this year have seized more than 800,000 pounds of marijuana in this area, Huey said.

In June, a border patrol agent in El Paso, Texas, fired into Mexico killing a 15-year-old from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Surveillance video of the incident showed the teen throwing rocks at the agent before being shot.

[Ryan Ruck]

Shots fired into Mexico by U.S. Border Patrol agents

It was with these I hope...

[vector7]

The Border Badlands
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Organized Crime: Combating street gangs that carry out the dirty work of Mexican drug cartels

Source: FBI - Mexican drug cartels run the billion-dollar trafficking operations that bring so much crime and violence to both sides of the Southwest border. But it’s street gangs that carry out the cartels’ dirty work of smuggling, extortion, and murder. Understanding the gangs—their structure, culture, and tactics—is the job of agents who specialize in collecting human intelligence, or HUMINT.

In our El Paso Field Office, the HUMINT squad pays particular attention to Barrio Azteca, the city’s predominant gang whose leaders regularly do business from prison—even authorizing contract killings.

“The focus of the HUMINT squad is not to worry about making individual cases,” said Special Agent Armando Ramos, a senior investigator on the team. “Our job is to see the big picture—whether it’s Barrio Azteca or any other gang—so we can effectively target these groups and the larger drug trafficking organizations they associate with.”

Intelligence gathering is critical to seeing that big picture. And Agent Ramos, working closely with officers from the El Paso Police Department and the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, collect intelligence in a variety of ways. They get tips from police officers on the street, recruit sources from the ranks of disgruntled gang members, and make contact with recently arrested gang members who may be looking for a more lenient sentence in exchange for their cooperation.

“Whatever intelligence we gain, we pass on to our Safe Streets Task Force and to other law enforcement agencies,” Agent Ramos said. “We get the information out quickly to where it can do the most good.”

The actionable intelligence collected by the HUMINT squad could lead to arrests, drug seizures, or the prevention of crimes such as kidnapping or murder. There are dozens of different gangs operating along the Southwest border—some of them cooperate and some are bitter rivals—but the one thing they all share in common is violence.

Barrio Azteca—known as BA—is an extremely violent gang, with as many as 3,500 members on the street and in jail, both in El Paso and across the Rio Grande in Juarez, Mexico. Even though the Bureau put together a major racketeering case against the gang several years ago that effectively dismantled its leadership, the group has reorganized, and younger members—dubbed the “Pepsi Generation”—have been promoted to top positions.

Agent Ramos has been on the HUMINT squad for about three years and has an intimate knowledge of BA culture and its leaders. “The players are always changing, and so are their tactics,” he said. “That’s why HUMINT is so valuable, because we are able to keep pace with gang activities and be proactive in our response.”

But the job requires constant vigilance, he explained, because of how integral crime and violence are to the gang’s culture. BA’s constitution—its “sacred bible”—lists dozens of rules members must follow. Rule Number Two is, “Always dominate your opponent.” Rule Number One: “Once you get in, you can’t get out.”

“After you become a member,” Agent Ramos said, “there are only two ways to get out of BA—get killed or get arrested. With that kind of mindset, you can see why the work of the HUMINT squad is so important.”

[vector7]

California fire started by illegal aliens is only the latest...press ignores

September 8th, 2010 6:12 pm ET


Latest fire started by illegal aliens
Photo: Cal Fire

According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the cost of fighting the so-called Cowboy fire, burning just south of San Diego County has so far, reached $2,325,537. The blaze was started last Thursday by two illegal aliens.

Roxanne Provaznik, a spokesperson for Cal Fire said the two were lost and “called C4, which is Mexico’s emergency dispatch system and advised them that they had been lost for two days, were stranded, dehydrated, and were going to light a signal fire to attempt to get some help.”

It has taken the efforts of 341 firefighters, along with 10 planes, and 22 fire trucks to contain the fire which has destroyed 830 acres.

Fortunately, no lives have been lost in the disaster.

Of course, this is only the latest in a string of fires started by illegal aliens and drug smugglers that are destroying our national parks and green spaces.

Read more about the destruction caused by illegal aliens here:
Mexican drug cartels setting fire to our national forests

[vector7]

Terrorists Take Over

September 27, 2010: The government is losing control of many areas in the north, as the drug cartels use their thousands of gunmen to terrorize local officials and media. The army and police have been unsuccessful in regaining control. At the same time, the government has rejected any notion that it would agree to a truce with a drug cartel. The government said categorically that it will not negotiate or agree to a truce with criminals. A newspaper in Ciudad Jurez (Chihuahua state) floated the idea after two of its photographers were murdered.

Negotiating with the cartels would suggest a political legitimacy of some sort. So far the Mexican cartels have avoided tying themselves to a political platform. They are about money, which is power enough.

September 25, 2010: Police revealed that they had captured Soto Reyes, a senior leader of the Sinola cartel, in Guadalajara, along with eight bodyguards.

September 24, 2010: The government now estimates that 29,000 people have been killed in Cartel War-related violence since December 2006. In Cancun, police arrested a senior leader of the Zetas cartel.

Jose Angel Fernandez was caught with three bodyguards, lots of cash and incriminating documents. Jose Angel Fernandez was the chief of operations for the Zetas and believed responsible for planning and directing terrorist operations.

September 16, 2010: Security forces killed 19 gunmen in a battle near the city of Monterrey (Nuevo Leon state). The battle lasted almost seven hours. The gunmen had erected a roadblock about 100 kilometers east of the city. The Mexican Army claimed the gunmen were wearing military uniforms. The soldiers took fire from the gunmen at the roadblock, and counter-attacked. The gunmen tried to break contact and escape in a vehicle. The soldiers pursued, killing several, and cornered the rest near a ranch.

Mexico celebrated the 200th anniversary of its revolt against Spain.
September 13, 2010: Mexican President Felipe Calderon gave a controversial speech about the Battle of Chapultepec (Mexican War, 1847) on its 163rd anniversary. Chapultepec is just outside Mexico City.

His speech called the war unjust and motivated by imperialistic interests. He also blamed deep divisions and personal jealousy among Mexican leaders as contributing to the U.S. victory.

September 12, 2010: Mexican marines struck once again at the Beltran Leyva cartel. The Mexican Navy announced that it had arrested a senior Beltran Leyva commander, Sergio Villarreal Barragan. He was arrested in Puebla state.

September 11, 2010: The U.S. FBI said that it has agents investigating an incident on the border. U.S. Border Patrol agents reported they were fired upon by armed men across the Rio Grande River. The agents chased a vehicle to a Hidalgo County, Texas, park located near the river.

The driver abandoned the vehicle then swam across the river into Mexico. As agents inspected the vehicle they received weapons fire. The agents reported they returned fire and the gunmen fled. This incident in several aspects reflects the danger of spill-over violence. The fleeing suspect clearly had gunmen on the Mexican side of the border prepared to provide covering fire-- and in fact they did.

It is likely there was some sort of radio or telephonic communication between the vehicle driver and the covering force. With good reason many security experts say that the big cartels want to avoid an incident where U.S. border agents or police are killed by cartel gunmen firing upon them from Mexico.

It could trigger a major U.S. political reaction and result in reprisals involving U.S. special operations forces. However, no one completely dismisses the possibility that cartelistas might try and frame rival gangsters with such an incident, as Mexican special operations forces responded at the behest of the U.S.. There are other scenarios that are more outlandish but might serve a cartel leader who wanted to damage Mexico-U.S. relations with the intent of curbing bilateral police and intelligence cooperation. If larger U.S. security forces (SWAT teams, or, to really push the scenario, special operations forces) got involved in an incident like this, the conspirators might try and use the incident to spur a nationalist counter-reaction in Mexico.

Here is the information warfare pitch: Yankee soldiers are attacking us again. This is highly unlikely in present circumstances, but see the September 13 post on Chapultepec. The passions the conspirators would try to exploit remain a political factor.

September 9, 2010: The government took issue with the U.S. State Department over comments that its anti-drug war had aspects of an insurgency. The U.S. Secretary of State compared Mexico's situation to that of Colombia three decades ago. The U.S. statement implicitly posed a theoretical: the organized drug cartels could change over time into organizations with political goals. This is a possibility, and it is not the first time the scenario has been suggested.

It is, however, the first time a senior U.S. government official publicly stated it. There are, however, significant differences in the origins of Colombia's narco-guerrillas and Mexican drug cartels. The Colombians began as leftist revolutionaries and always had a definitive political agenda. The drug cartels don't really want to change the system, they just want to corrupt it so they can continue their illegal businesses and ship drugs north to the U.S..

[American Patriot]

cartelistas; little cartel members....

Poor things.