Secy. of Defense Robert Gates Downplays Possible U.S. Role as Fears of Mexico Collapse Mount; Don’t Be Fooled, There’s A Bush-Era Agenda Still Going On Here…

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

A couple of days ago I posted a press release from W.A.M. (Wake Up America) on the impending demise of the “E-Verify Program” which has been operating since the 1990’s. (See URGENT PRESS RELEASE March 4, 2009 from W.A.M. RE: Expiration of the “E-Verify Program” Which Screens Employment of Illegal Aliens.)

You have to wonder why this is being allowed to die, especially with the news coming out of Mexico.  Living only about 50 miles from the border (the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez area), I got to thinking.

On Monday (3/2) I saw a small AP article in the Albuquerque Journal hidden near the fold on page two which reported on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ appearance on Meet the Press the day before.  Since I don’t trust the AP to report anything anymore, I found the transcript of the show; here is the relevant passage:

March 1, 2009

Meet the Press

MR. GREGORY:  We’ve got a few more minutes, and I want to go through as quickly as we can some other really important topics.  The first is Mexico, a major threat on the border with Mexico because of a widening drug war there. The Economist magazine wrote this startling synopsis, and they call it “Who’s in charge?  The police chief in Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico’s border with America, resigned after drug gangs, who had murdered his deputy, threatened to kill one of his officers every 48 hours until he quit.” What’s going on there, and how big of a national security threat is this for the U.S.?

SEC’Y GATES:  Well, I think that what is important is that President Calderon of Mexico, perhaps for the first time, has, has taken on the battle against these cartels.  And because of corruption in the police and so on, he sent the federal army of Mexico into the fight.  The cartels are retaliating.  I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past.  Some of the old biases against cooperation with our–between our militaries and so on I think are being set aside.

MR. GREGORY:  You mean providing military supporting?

SEC’Y GATES:  Providing them with, with training, with, with resources, with reconnaissance and surveillance kinds of capabilities; but just cooperation, including in intelligence. But it clearly is a serious problem, and, and–but what I think people need to point out is the courage that Calderon has shown in taking this on, because one of the reasons it’s gotten as bad as it has is because his predecessors basically refused to do that.

This policy does not come out of the blue. The  plan was signed into law on June 30, 2008.

The Mérida Initiative (also called Plan Mexico by critics) is a security cooperation between the United States and the government of Mexico and the countries of Central America, with the aim of combating the threats of drug trafficking, transnational crime and money laundering. The assistance includes training, equipment and intelligence.

In seeking partnership from the United States, Mexican officials point out that the illicit drug trade is a shared problem in need of a shared solution, and remark that most of the financing for the Mexican traffickers comes from American drug consumers. U.S. law enforcement officials estimate that US$12 to 15 billion per year flows from the United States to the Mexican traffickers, and that is just in cash, and doesn’t include all the money sent by wire transfers.^[1] Other government agencies, including the Government Accountability Office and the National Drug Intelligence Center, have estimated that Mexico’s cartels earn upwards of $23 billion in illicit drug proceeds from the United States.^[2][3]

U.S. State Department officials are aware that Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s willingness to work with the United States is unprecedented on issues of security, crime and drugs, so the U.S. Congress passed legislation in late June 2008 to provide Mexico with $400 million and Central American countries with $65 million this year for the Mérida Initiative. The initiative was announced on 22 October 2007 and signed into law on June 30, 2008.

Now, this plan raises a couple of alarm bells. First, some are speculating that we should expect some sort of terrorist attack on the U.S. that will allow the Obama Administration to do something that will complete their power grab.  George Bush took 911 and we got a spate of new laws regarding security, FISA, and a whole new Homeland Security office.  It doesn’t take much to see the conditions in Mexico as a potential source of  a “transnational crime” of some sort.  What Obama would do with this sort of situation has been widely discussed.  Reports of  “camps” being built, the continuation of FISA, the economic problems and greater government intervention…well, would you be surprised if we saw some more power grabbed by Obama?

Secondly, what could the “cooperation” that Gates describes actually lead to?  The use of the word “just”, as in “just cooperation” automatically raises suspicion, as if it’s all being minimized to sound simple and benign. Foreign Policy In Focus analyzed the plan this way:

From what’s known of it, the package — officially dubbed the “Mérida Initiative” but more commonly referred to as “Plan Mexico” — contains direct donations of military and intelligence equipment, and training programs for Mexican law enforcement officials. A White House fact sheet lists surveillance equipment, helicopters and aircraft, scanners for border revisions, communications systems, and training programs for “strengthening the institutions of justice.” An additional $50 million dollars is earmarked for Central American countries to support their fight against “gangs, drugs, and arms.”

The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of the “Overall Justification Document,” reported that more than a third of the package will be spent on aerial surveillance and facilitating the rapid deployment of troops.

But what has legislators and civil society worried on both sides of the border is not the money involved or the equipment to be sent. It’s the reach of Plan Mexico in recasting the binational relationship, to create what the Bush administration calls “a new paradigm for security cooperation.”

SNIP

The concept of a joint security strategy for North America goes back at least as far as the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in March of 2005. Since that time, the Bush administration has attempted to push its Northern American trade partners into a common front that would assume shared responsibility for protecting the United States from terrorist threats and bolstering U.S. global hegemony in the region.

SNIP

Plan Mexico twists the plot by presenting Bush administration efforts to create a North American security strategy in the guise of a war on drugs.

And Gates is still there as a carryover in Obama’s cabinet.

On Monday( 3/9) this site will be featuring a post on a planned “community,” with many of the target dates for reaching certain goals set for 2010.  The demise of E-Verify may be part of a larger scenario that’s being played out.  Remember “SPP”–you’ll be reading about it in more detail on Monday.

Is the plan going to work? A recent article from the El Paso Times reports on some doubts:

Lawmakers to evaluate Merida Initiative’s success

By Darren Meritz / El Paso Times

Posted: 02/08/2009 12:00:00 AM MST

EL PASO — As drug violence claims lives every day across the border in Juárez, lingering questions about the Merida Initiative may come to dog lawmakers, who could find themselves under pressure if the cooperative agreement to fight drugs is not a success.Security experts have urged Congress to consider a range of indicators when evaluating the progress of the Merida Initiative.

Whether the initiative will work and whether benchmarks have been set to measure success of failure remain key questions for lawmakers and local officials, some of whom are skeptical about the three-year, $1.4 billion plan.

SNIP

Meanwhile, fears abound that money, materials and services from the Merida Initiative won’t make it to their intended recipients, with corruption getting in the way and the potential for worsening violence as drug cartels continue to clash.

Gee, no “indicators”?  Doubts about whether “benchmarks” have been established? Sounds sort of  like how the “stimulus package” and bailout money is set up…no real oversight!

I found a rundown of some recent news items at The Albuquerque Journal site which paint a pretty grim picture of what’s going on. Click on the following headline to get the full list.

Updated at 11:20am — Cartels Said To Have 100,000 Foot Soldiers

Pentagon source tells Washington Times rival drug organizations may be negotiating a merger…

Here are the other headlines, which are descriptive enough:

7:10am 2/9/09 — Texas Plans for Possible Mexican Collapse: ‘You hope for the best, plan for the worst,’ Gov. Perry’s aide tells El Paso Times.

6:45am 2/2/09 — Ambassador: Mexico Not Collapsing: Top envoy responds to chorus of alarms by current and former U.S. officials over border violence.

9:45am 1/29/09 — Joint Chiefs Chairman Worries About Mexican Violence: Navy Adm. Mike Mullen tells D.C. press briefing that border drug war ‘has all of our attention.’

11:25am 1/14/09 — Military Report: Mexico’s ‘Sudden Collapse’ Possible: U.S. Joint Forces Command study puts Mexico on a par with Pakistan as global security threat.

9:35am 1/9/09 — U.S. Says It’s Ready for Mexican Violence: Homeland Security has a ‘surge’ plan, including use of military, if drug wars spill over the border. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told The New York Times this week that if Mexico’s vicious and escalating drug war spills over the border, the United States has several response plans, including the use of the military, the El Paso Times reported.

10:00am 1/7/09 — Ex-U.S. Drug Czar Warns of Mexican Chaos: McCaffrey tells incoming Obama administration ‘millions of refugees’ could surge across border…The United States has provided only minimal support for the Mexican government to date, with Congress approving the $400 million Merida Initiative worked out by President Bush with Mexican and Canadian participation only “after a divisive and insulting debate,” the report said…”A terrible tragedy is going to take place in the coming decade if we don’t closely ally ourselves with the courageous Mexican leadership of (President Felipe) Calderon’s administration — and develop a resourced strategy appropriate for the dangers we face,” McCaffrey told the incoming administration.

***

See that mention of Canada in the last excerpt?  You’ll be reading more about Canada next week…

And please remember who Felipe Calderon is. Recall that during Mexico’s national election in July 2006, there was a great deal of scuttlebutt around about how Calderon was “selected.”    As reported at the time:

Mexico Vote Gives Bush New “Amigo” in Latin America

Catherine Bremer – Reuters

Felipe Calderon’s election victory in Mexico gives the U.S. government a much-needed conservative ally in Latin America, where it has lost influence in recent years as a string of leftist leaders took power.

For months, it seemed that Washington would have to work with a combative Mexican leader in Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a fiery leftist who led opinion polls and promised to end two decades of U.S.-backed economic reforms.

But Calderon won the narrowest of victories and Mexico’s electoral court named him president-elect on Tuesday, throwing out Lopez Obrador’s accusations of massive fraud.

MORE

Now, doesn’t that sound real familiar?

Reviewing all this information, it’s plain to see that E-Verify is just an afterthought these days.  Maybe bigger things are brewing…

Why Obama Doesn’t Want Clinton Democrats

~~By Grail Guardian

It’s 44 days until the General Election as I write this and after a long and hard fought primary season the Democratic Party, and the Obama campaign specifically, are still unable to get over their terminal case of CDS. I can’t help but ask “Why”? For the uninitiated, CDS stands for Clinton Derangement Syndrome, usually defined as the uncontrollable impulse to rail against all things Clinton (Hillary, Bill, Chelsea, Hillary’s supporters, and basically anything connected to centrist positions).

Team Obama not only masterminded the overthrow of the Democratic Party to form the “New Democrats” (remember the May 31, 2008 coup when all semblance of the rules were overthrown at a behind-closed-doors meeting of the Rules and Bylaws Committee), they literally declared the nomination belonged to Obama despite the fact that:

• Hillary Clinton won more of the popular vote than Obama (when the Florida and Michigan primaries are included as originally voted)
• Automatic (also called Super) Delegates are unable to actually cast a vote until the national Convention
• Obama did not actually have enough Super Delegates “locked in” to declare himself the winner when he did
• Hillary Clinton didn’t contest the illegal theft of earned delegates in Michigan, despite her legal right to do so

Clinton suspended her own campaign, as she had promised during the primaries she began to campaign for Obama, she asked her fundraisers to jump to Team Obama, and eventually Clinton herself served as the conduit to end her historic campaign by interrupting a roll call vote at the convention to ask for Obama’s nomination by acclaim. Yet still the Oborg continues to harass Clinton supporters. Team O bloggers continue to infiltrate web sites that had been pro-Clinton. Commenters continue to compare John McCain and Sarah Plain to Clinton, who they now conveniently claim as one of their own. Web sites continue to be hijacked and crashed. The Main Stream Media continues to fawn over Obama as messiah, ignore every negative story posted about him on the Internet, and call anyone disagreeing with their views a racist. And Middle Class voters continue to be insulted, marginalized, and discounted.

So at this late juncture, one must ask why it is that so many of the Oborg continue to fight dirty against the moderate, centrist voters that refuse to support Obama, rather than to sensibly go after them? After all, Obama went after the right wing and evangelical voters with his votes on FISA and promises to continue funding George W. Bush’s Faith Based Initiative, so why not court the center? It only makes good political sense that once the cries of “you have no where else to go” and “you’ll fall in line eventually” were obviously falling on deaf ears that the next move would be to go after this significant voting bloc with gusto and speed. But with just over 6 weeks left, the taunting and harassment continues unabated.

So let’s look at the possibilities:

If You Don’t Take Care of Women in Your Party (and Don’t Respect Those in the Other Party), How Can You Be Trusted with Issues Affecting Women–Or Anything Else, For That Matter? (It’s the Loss of Credibility, Stupid!)

It’s the LOSS OF CREDIBILITY, STUPID!

That’s all I have to say now.  The Democratic Party has ZERO credibility with me now.

Oh, it was hanging by a thread even before this primary season.  In 2005, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were going to “Drain the Swamp.” Except that the Democratic Party itself turned into “The Swamp.” on their way to achieving the lowest Congressional approval ratings ever in Gallup poll history . The first 100 hours went by in a flash with nothing much happening.  Harry Reid kept mailing me about how he was “giving them hell” but I never saw any flames.

And my criteria for “results” was pretty low. Did I expect a wave of programs sailing through and a rollback of the Bush agenda? No! All I expected were a few signs of life and SOME FIGHT!!  Did I get any? None that stick with me.

I wasn’t a Hillary Clinton supporter in the beginning. The only one who appealed to me was John Edwards, because he was mentioning corporatism and how its tentacles affected every aspect of American life.  The media ignored Edwards out of the race, which turned out to be a good thing as his pants had been unzipped unbeknownst to us who really were hoping for a fighter.

Obama never really made a great impression on me. From the get go, I didn’t trust him.  He had no experience and I knew early on about his questionable connections.  Being an old hag, I wasn’t buying all the hopey dopey stuff.

I saw a book event by Obama biographer Shelby Steele in Berkeley, California and listened to his discussion of Obama’s life and how his followers would be disappointed.  It sure made a lot of sense to me.

Once Obama opened his mouth saying that the Viet Nam war held no lessons to be learned and then launched into his admiration for the operating system of the Reagan Era (all in the same interview) he was pretty much over for me.

His version of “change” didn’t look like change to me as he voted for FISA and it was revealed that he was going to vote for John Roberts for the Supreme Court but was advised otherwise because it wouldn’t look right.  He caved on his nuclear safety bill and accommodated the GOP. Well, he also accommodated himself since Exelon was one of his biggest donors. His flip flops would later come at such breakneck speed that I couldn’t figure out when he had the time to stick his finger into the wind to even see which way the wind was blowing.

Then there was the crap he started dishing out to Hillary Clinton.  “You’re likable enough,” uttered with his head turned down and away from her, was a complete turnoff. His strutting around the stage like a bad imitation of a nightclub comedian bugged me.  When he flicked Hillary off his shoulder and gave her the “street finger” I was appalled at his cocky arrogance. With this behavior, you knew he and the Party weren’t about to stand up to the misogyny being dished out to Hillary by the media.

The man swung between intoning platitudes with forced gravitas and acting like a street thug.  It was like he couldn’t make up his mind whom he was talking to.  One minute he was talking like a preacher, the next he was posing for a “crotch shot” for women reporters on his plane. And, oh, that plane. Just the type of plane that Sarah Palin would love to put on Ebay…

But the crowning achievement of Barack Obama was to re-create Bill and Hillary Clinton as a racists.  It took all of his own talents as a whiner and faux victim, coupled with the same qualities in his wife, to accomplish this.  The surrogates waved paper around on Meet the Press and off they went, leaving the wreckage of Bill Clinton’s legacy and the old guard of the civil rights movement behind.

I didn’t like the people he hung out with.  Rezko, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Nadhmi Auchi, a boatload of “mega-pastors, ” William Ayers…but not too many real people.  And Axelrod…the guy who cleverly gave Obama Deval Patrick’s speech to read and was emulating every Rovian trick in the book.

You know what really appalled me? That comment about women and late-term abortion: “”Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother,” said Obama.   And NARAL and even Planned Parenthood are still on board. Was it the money promised or the threats of no money that got them there?

And then his crew got to humiliate Hillary Clinton at the RBC Meeting and the Democratic Convention and the next week, stood by as Obama followers trashed Sarah Palin.

Threats. Intimidation. Lack of respect. Acceptance of misogyny. Divisiveness. That seems to have replaced reaching out…especially to many in his own Party!

I’m recalling the lovely black woman whom CNN caught on tape…She wept as she expressed what Hillary Clinton represented to her.  Beside her was a young man, whom I thought was a guard of some sort.  Well, it turned out he was…an enforcer from the Obama camp, who spoke sharply to her as she finished speaking.

The hallmark of the Obama campaign has been the lack of caring for anybody but Obama. I don’t see much evidence of his really caring about much else…and that includes the people in Rezko’s slums

Last night I caught a rerun of “The Best Man” on TCM. The older Secretary of State (played by Henry Fonda) confronts the ruthless Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson) with this hard truth:

“You have no sense of responsibility to anyone or anything…and that is a sad thing for a man and a disaster for the country.”

Seems to sum it up perfectly.