for violence on US border

WASHINGTON – Tighter gun control and stronger law enforcement in Southwestern states were recommended Thursday by lawmakers concerned about drug violence in Mexico possibly spilling across the border.

The escalating violence — which has killed thousands, mostly south of the border — has been blamed on Mexican drug cartels which one Homeland Security official described as the biggest organized crime threat facing the United States.

Roger Rufe, Homeland Security's head of operations, outlined the agency's plans for protecting the border, a response that includes — as a last resort — deploying military personnel and equipment to the region if other agencies are overwhelmed.

Echoing comments a day earlier from President Barack Obama, Rufe said there currently was no need to militarize the Southwestern border with Mexico, despite violence that threatens to migrate into the United States.

"We would take all resources short of DoD (Defense Department) and National Guard troops before we reach that tipping point," Rufe told lawmakers on a House homeland security subcommittee. "We very much do not want to militarize our border."

Rufe did not specify what circumstances would trigger a call for troops.

The violence is blamed on Mexican President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug cartels over the past two years.

In recent weeks, his government has deployed 700 extra federal police to Ciudad Juarez, a city across from El Paso, Texas, where local police have been swamped by drug violence. This month, 3,200 federal troops were sent to the city.

Tijuana and Culiacan are also hotbeds of violence, according to Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Mexican officials say the violence killed 6,290 people last year and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009.

"The United States and Mexico border violence can only be solved if we look at all parts of the equation," Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., said Thursday during a House subcommittee considering changes to U.S. gun laws. "Let's examine our gun laws, let's cut down on U.S. drug consumption, let's ask there to be more resources to root out drug money laundering," he said.

Tierney said 90 percent of the weapons seized from Mexican organized crime came from the United States. Tierney said the information was from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Gun control expert Tom Diaz said the U.S. needs to enforce gun importation laws already on the books to prevent weapons coming into the U.S. and ending up in Mexico.

Lawmakers also weighed the option of increasing inspections of people and vehicles leaving the U.S. to go to Mexico, to help stop the potential smuggling of weapons. The Customs and Border Protection agency currently does some inspections. But Salvador Nieto, a senior official within the agency's intelligence division, said more resources would be needed if Congress wants to step up inspections.

Warring drug cartels are blamed for more than 560 kidnappings in Phoenix in 2007 and the first half of 2008, as well as killings in Atlanta, and Birmingham, Ala., and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Rufe said that while the violence along the border in Mexico is appalling, violent crimes have not increased in U.S. border cities as a result. He said kidnappings are up, but violent crime is down.

((In our state it has been on the news that the missionary missions that teens like to do around this time is being cancelled by churches. It is just too dangerous they say to feel good about letting them go.))

"We're not so concerned, at least at this point, about that violence spilling over into our cities," he said.

Further, the Homeland Security Department's representative in Mexico, Alonzo Pena, said the violence there is not as dangerous to U.S. tourists as has been portrayed.

Pena said the violence is in isolated areas of the country and affects only the people involved in criminal activity. He said the violence is not affecting U.S. citizens visiting Mexico, and Americans should not cancel their vacations in the country.

This month, the ATF warned college students on spring breaks not to travel to parts of northern Mexico because it was too dangerous.

In February, the State Department advised travelers to avoid areas of prostitution and drug-dealing in Mexico.

This is where we should be watching. This is a war that is coming.

Kat

I find it funny with this war just across our borders....deadlier than deadly...these killers are getting the least attention. It is coming...to our cities. Hell...it is here. Just not full on yet.

There will be murder such as we have never seen.

Kat

Kat,
I've been in Mexico for the last week. Yesterday, There were local Del Rio Police just past the toll booth. I was wondering why they were in place there. May be, they are going to be inspecting suspect vehicles for weapons and other paraphernalia.

Acuna has a Military base here and I haven't seen any Troops on the streets at all and I travel the city and visit friends as far as 50 miles into the frontera.

As far as drug violence on the border. As I stated before, Juarez is across from El Paso and miles away from any other city. If it pours over there, it only affects ElPaso.

Tj has forever been known for drug violence. It's been pouring over for years.

Mexically is quiet also. Nuevo Laredo is quiet. No talk of excessive violence there.

I think the Media is blowing this all out of proportion.

If Mexico was really concerned about a war on drugs, they have sufficient resources to combat it there.

According to the CIA World Fact book, Mexico's available military manpower is 20,000,000 (males age 18-49, 2005 est.), with 19,058,337 males fit for military service, and 1,063,233 males annually reaching military service age. Since 2000, women have been allowed to volunteer for military service. Currently, Mexico's armed forces number some 620,400, including the reserves. Mexico's military is in two branches, the National Defense Secretariat (Army and Air Force) and the Navy Secretariat (Navy, Naval Air Force, Marines).

If the Feds decide to Militarize the Southern Border, I see a possible reason why.
To keep the US Citizen out of Mexico. In case of Martial Law, I and some others I know will head to Mexico.

I'd bet, there is more drug related killing going on in DC than any border town along the whole Southern Border.

The media says Cartels. Just a fancy word for organized drug dealers. How many rich, organized drug dealers do we have here.

Drug dealers killing other dealers is just a volley for turf. Happens in the US every day. So much so, it's no longer news worthy.

The media adding that dealers are beheading other dealers and corrupt cops, I guess would be for the shock effect. No one is shocked any longer when the media reports drug dealers getting shot and killed. Dead is dead, no matter how they got that way.

One other point.
Gun control would only disarm the Lawful Citizen and give more power to the ones who are supposedly providing arms to Mexican dealers. Makes not one lick of sense.

Roger Rufe, Homeland Security's head of operations, outlined the agency's plans for protecting the border, a response that includes — as a last resort — deploying military personnel and equipment to the region if other agencies are overwhelmed


This should have happened the day after 9/11. There has been barely any upgrade to the security at our borders since 9/11. Of course I would say it should have been more of a priority long before but you know how that goes.

Homeland security has other plans... involving your 4th amendment.

Pentagon plans blimp to spy from new heights


The giant dirigible would use radar to closely and constantly monitor activity on the ground from 65,000 feet.
Reporting from Washington — The Pentagon said Thursday that it intends to spend $400 million to develop a giant dirigible that will float 65,000 feet above the Earth for 10 years, providing unblinking and intricate radar surveillance of the vehicles, planes and even people below.

"It is absolutely revolutionary," Werner J.A. Dahm, chief scientist for the Air Force, said of the proposed unmanned airship — describing it as a cross between a satellite and a spy plane.
The 450-foot-long craft would give the U.S. military a better understanding of an adversary’s movements, habits and tactics, officials said. And the ability to constantly monitor small movements in a wide area — the Afghanistan- Pakistan border, for example — would dramatically improve military intelligence.

"It is constant surveillance, uninterrupted," Dahm said. "When you only have a short-time view — whether it is a few hours or a few days — that is not enough to put the picture together."

The project reflects a shift in Pentagon planning and spending priorities under Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has urged the military services to improve intelligence and surveillance operations while cutting high-tech weaponry costs.
If successful, the dirigible — the brainchild of the Air Force and the Pentagon’s research arm — could pave the way for a fleet of spy airships, military officials said.

However, it marks the return to a form of flight that has stirred anxiety and doubt since the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. Thirty-six people were killed when that airship went up in flames in New Jersey.

The military has used less-sophisticated tethered blimps — called aerostats — to conduct surveillance around military bases in Iraq. But flying at 65,000 feet, the giant airship would be nearly impossible to see, beyond the range of any hand-held missile, and safe from most fighter planes.

And its range would be such that the spy craft could operate at the distant edges of any military theater, probably out of the range of surface-to-air missiles as well.

The Air Force’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance abilities have improved dramatically in the last five years with the expansion of the Predator and other drones. Although such craft can linger over an area for a long time, they do not watch constantly.

The giant airship’s military value would come from its radar system. Giant antenna would allow the military to see farther and with more detail than it can now.

"Being able to observe threats [and] understand what is happening is really the game-changing piece here," Dahm said.

The dirigible will be filled with helium and powered by an innovative system that uses solar panels to recharge hydrogen fuel cells. Military officials said those underlying technologies — plus a very lightweight hull — were critical to making the project work.

"The things we had to do here were not trivial; they were revolutionary," said Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon’s research arm.

The Air Force has signed an agreement with DARPA to develop a demonstration dirigible by 2014. The prototype will be a third as long as the planned surveillance craft — known as ISIS, for Integrated Sensor Is the Structure, because the radar system will be built into the structure of the ship.

While the military says the craft is closer to a blimp than a zeppelin — which has a rigid external structure — officials usually call the project an airship. Blimps get their shape from helium gas pressure.

The Pentagon has not yet awarded a contractor to build the prototype. Earlier work was done by Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach — as well as Baltimore and other locations — and by Lockheed Martin in Palmdale, Calif.; Akron, Ohio; and Denver.

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This story didn't come from some "black helicopter" website... nope, it was in the Friggin Denver Post.

They already have similar stuff already in place and working as we speak.

Police find 9 bodies in Mexican border city

6 mins ago AP – Police and forensic officers work at the site where bodies were found in the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, … CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Police acting on a tip found nine bodies partially buried in the desert on the outskirts of the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, an official said Saturday.

Investigators are searching the desert site south of the city to see whether there are any more bodies.

An official with the state prosecutor's office who declined to be named in line with department policy says a police officer's badge was found at the site. Authorities were working to identify the bodies.

State security official Enrique Torres Valadez said a total of nine bodies, seven male and two female, have been found so far.

"One was handcuffed, all were tortured," he said. "They had been there for days or maybe weeks."

Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million people across the border from El Paso, Texas, has been hit by a wave of drug-fueled violence, prompting federal authorities to dispatch thousands of soldiers.

Torres said 1,500 more troops were arriving Saturday, on top of 2,150 who arrived Friday.

Farther east, in the border city of Reynosa, federal police announced Saturday that they had arrested a man who allegedly led operations there for the feared Zetas, a group of hit men for the Gulf drug cartel.

Sergio Pena Mendoza, 39, is also suspected of participating in an unsuccessful plot to free an imprisoned Zetas leader from jail in neighboring Guatemala, authorities told a news conference in Mexico City.

Pena Mendoza was arrested after he tried to flee a police patrol in a stolen pickup truck with Texas plates. Police found an assault rifle in the truck and said Pena Mendoza is suspected of killing a police official and a businessman in southern Mexico.

Interim Federal Police Commissioner Rodrigo Esparza said Pena Mendoza achieved the same rank in the Zetas — and was a possible replacement for — Jaime Gonzalez Duran, also known as "The Hummer," a founding member of the gang who was arrested in Reynosa in November.

Questioned by reporters as he was led through police installations in Mexico City, Pena Mendoza denied the accusations.

Also Saturday, a male suspect threw a hand grenade at police officers in the western city of Guadalajara, according to a statement from the Jalisco state prosecutor's office. The statement said the officers were not seriously injured, but gave no further details, including how many were hurt.

Police detained the suspect and later found 14 more grenades and 10 assault rifles in his home.



Kat