Obama on the Border: The Language Shift & Plan to Use Executive Orders–Tying It All Together (Security, Trade, Immigration )

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

I had to laugh when I went to the Albuquerque Journal‘s website yesterday and saw story about how the story I looking for had been linked to Drudge, complete with screen capture from the Drudge Report site!

Journal Query Sparks Screaming Drudge Headline – 9:05am MDT

Journal Washington Bureau reporter Michael Coleman asked President Obama a question.   (Albuquerque Journal staff report)

This story links to all the fanfare in the various papers in the Southwest were invited to hear The One speak on border issues.

But it’s the print version of the story that I was interested in…Here’s the headline from the ABQ Journal:

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Border Violence Concerns Obama

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama vowed Wednesday to help prevent Mexican drug violence from spilling over the U.S. border and said he would consider using National Guard troops to protect Americans.

SNIP

“I am interested in creating the kind of partnership with the Mexican government that ensures the safety of U.S. citizens, ensures the safety of Mexican citizens and allows for the kind of trade that is so critical to the region,” the president said.

SNIP

The president said that although reviving the U.S. economy is his top priority, border and immigration issues also are on his radar screen.

He noted that Calderón was the first foreign head of state he met with after being elected. And last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Mexican officials to offer U.S. intelligence and training.

Obama said that the collapse of U.S. housing construction industry “has slowed the flow of illegal immigrants coming into the country” but that it “remains a serious concern.”

The president said he hopes to make changes in U.S. immigration laws through executive actions first, then look for a new legislative path on Capitol Hill.

“We’ve started to talk to … both parties involved here in Washington about prospects of taking legislative steps, but obviously we’ve got a lot on our plate right now,” Obama said. “So, what we can do administratively, that’s where we’re going to start.”

MORE

Ah, there  are  the real money quotes in bold!!  It’s that “executive order” business that raised my antennae.  And the comment on trade. And the one on immigration…

Let’s look back at some of the research we’ve posted here over the past week and how it ties in to Obama’s interview.

Start with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates declaring that we’d just be “cooperating” with Mexico on intelligence, but offering some vagueness on the troops on Meet the Press a couple of  weeks ago (a point repeated by Adm. Mike Mullen head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff).  Here’s the quote from the transcript:

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.

Full discussion here:

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…

Now, we’ve got Obama opening the door a bit wider in his interview, employing the “protect Americans” angle and mentioning the National Guard…It’s the subtle fear card again, that nice touch of Bush that Obama uses so well.

Then let’s consider the business about trade:  On the horizon, the Punta Colonet seaport which we discussed just yesterday. Here’s a review of the key issues: Citicorp bailout/our money and American jobs as the economies meld:

Citicorp has been meeting with high-level Mexican officials to discuss participating in the financing of this project.

SNIP

In the current world economic recession, many people question the timing for Punta Colonet. Previously, the capacity and the ability of the mature U.S. West Coast ports to handle increasing ocean cargo was a major concern, but the volume at the Los Angeles and Long Beach Ports has recently decreased by up to 30 percent because of the economic crisis, and the capacity issue has become less important. Many people, particularly players in the U.S. and California, are worried that bringing such a large port on line would further depress and dilute the ocean cargo business.

Full discussion here:

Mexico Plans World’s Third Largest Seaport, Will Impact U.S. Ports on West Coast; Citigroup to Help Finance?

And now for the wrap-up: the plans for a North American Community and the various goals that were in the original plan, with the target date of 2010 for putting them into place.  There is so much in THAT story, but let’s mention immigration, since Obama seems to be planning to use executive orders before getting around to “legislative steps” that are apparently being crafted , with “BOTH parties involved,” right now. Here are just a few of the points in the piece we posted a couple of days ago which are of special interest. First, quotes on military cooperation and easing trade, then a bit on immigration and the borders.  Quotes from the Council of Foreign Relations report:

LAW ENFORCEMENT and MILITARY COOPERATION (Pages 10-12)

The Task Force proposes an expansion of NORAD and “information and intelligence-sharing at the local and national levels in both law enforcement and military organizations.”

OPEN SKIES AND OPEN ROADS (Page 25):

“Governments should consider the benefits of allowing North American transportation firms unlimited access to each other’s territory, including full cabotage (trade between two points within a country; for example, a Canadian trucker hauling freight from Chicago to Los Angeles, or an American Airline carrying passengers between Mexico City and Monterrey) for airlines and surface carriers.” This would mean Mexican trucking companies could contract for hauling business in the United States or Canada totally inside what we now call U.S. and Canadian borders.

“TESTED ONCE” FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY AND PHARMACEUTICALS (Page 25):

A product tested in one country would meet the standards set by another, or to establish a North American testing center with personnel from each country, integrating protection of food, health and the environment.

Also included: the development of  a unified North American Border Plan with “a North American Border Pass with biometric identifier to allow its bearer expedited passage through customs, immigration, and airport security throughout the region.”

Full discussion here:

THE PROPOSED NORTH AMERICAN COMMUNITY/NORTH AMERICAN UNION: 2010 Is Just Around the Corner

Don’t those references to  “biometric identifier” and “expedited passage through… immigration” grab you? How about “unlimited access to each other’s territory“? I’m not sure if Obama will bring up the trucking issue again; the “Bush administration initiative to allow Mexican-licensed trucks to operate outside of commercial border zones” was cut from the omnibus spending bill that was passed on Tuesday (3/10) and signed by Obama.

But who knows?  Trade, immigration, the U.S. military waiting in the wings…and that executive order power in the hands of Obama.

And those Mexican trucks may just start rolling again if the “open roads” REALLY open up…and would you be surprised? I wouldn’t be…

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…

Tarnished Star #2? Keith Olbermann Does a Nastier Version of the Bill Richardson “Turn on the Clintons”

Here’s must read article in the New Yorker magazine entitled “One Angry Man” that really describes in gory detail the Keith Olbermann personality disturbance which manifested during the primaries. The article starts with how Olbermann has become the latest to help transform “news” into “opinion” on cable, even before the primary season, but the really interesting part of the piece comes later in the piece and centers on Olbermann’s nasty turn on the Clintons. It’s one thing to change one’s allegiance, but another to do so with such overt hostility. Richardson, at least, didn’t get nearly as nasty as he threw the Clintons under the bus. And Richardson doesn’t have a nightly television show which he can use to deliver a regular pounding.

I remember, as does the author, the time when Olbermann was a fan of Bill Clinton, in the era B.B.O. (Before Barack Obama). Clinton, for all his troubles, was what Republicans could be compared to, much to the detriment of the current Administration.

Olbermann says that he began the campaign season determined to remain neutral on the Democratic race, although he was plainly friendly with the Clintons. (During an interview with Bill Clinton in 2006, Olbermann handed the former President a personal donation to the Clinton Foundation.) Olbermann liked Obama, but he believed, at first, that he would not make a strong candidate.

Then, of course, the wheels came off. Olbermann, once the daring, outspoken “truthseeker,” bought into the meme that Clinton and surrogates were “attacking” Obama. I recently rewatched what I think was a pivotal moment in the shift of the season’s narrative. It’s the video of Michelle Obama just before the South Carolina primary in which she is asked why Obama has, if I recall correctly, “only 38% of the black vote” and she stated that figure would change because “black people will wake up.” We all know now that the campaign to turn Bill Clinton into a racist bloomed then.