- An April 12, 2011 Associated Press report described how 116 bodies were found in a pit in northern Mexico. All of the dead are believed to have been kidnapped off of buses while traveling on a main highway by drug cartels, murdered and dumped in this mass pit or grave.
A number of distressing things about this incident besides the unnecessary killing of 116 human beings. First, this highway is regularly patrolled by Mexican military forces, just another indication of how brazen the major drug cartels have become in Mexico. Second, one of the captured suspects in this mass killing confessed to witnessing or participating in the killings of over 200 other human beings. Third, Mexican authorities believe that this is a new way for the cartels to forcibly recruit young men into their ranks. Those that refuse to join up are murdered. Finally, this incident took place only 90 miles from the border with Texas.
- An article in the March 18, 2011 issue of The Week magazine reported that Mexican citizen Marisol Valles Garcia is seeking asylum in the United States. Why is this important? At 20 years old, Ms. Garcia had become the youngest police chief in Mexico when she accepted the post in a border town. This police chief position that had been vacant for over a year since no one was willing to confront the drug cartels that were battling each other and the Mexican authorities for control of the town. After receiving death threats for months after her appointment, she took a five day leave of absence to care for her baby son but rather than return to her job, she crossed the border into the U.S. at El Paso.
- An Associated Press article from April 18, 2011 reported that Afghanistan poppy production was likely to be down slightly this year because of the fighting between NATO and Afghan government forces against the Taliban in the southern part of the country. Poppy production, the basis for heroin, was up in the northern part of the country to partially offset the loss from the south.
As a result of reading this article, I checked some reliable sources on the Web to see if Afghanistan was still the world leader in poppy production, which it apparently is. I was also surprised and a little shocked to find out that about a year ago, according to a Reuters news article, the country was also the top producer of marijuana in the world.
Unfortunately, a great deal of the profit from trafficking in these illicit drugs is used to fund the resources of the Taliban and other terrorists, the very people that are attacking and killing our armed forces personnel. And Afghanistan has attained this leadership position in poppy, heroin, and marijuana in the midst of a raging war. Imagine how much more production be done if the war was not going on and how much more money would go to fund terrorists?
Nasty, nasty stuff. The human toll on this issue is horrific, Murders, kidnappings, intimidation of law enforcement, forced conscription of young Mexican men, addiction, etc. But by not having a sane, compassionate, and effective strategy to dealing with this problem since Nixon declared "war" in the late 1960s, we have now endangered our national security. Well armed and well financed gangs roaming well within range of our borders. Law enforcement officers from Mexico fleeing for their lives. Our armed forces killed with weapons purchased as a result of selling marijuana and heroin to our own citizens.
These disparate events are all tightly related to each other: the thirst for illegal drugs in this country, the source of those drugs in Mexico, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, the profits that are used to destabilize Central and South American countries besides Mexico and the profits that are used to kill our soldiers. And the latest wrinkle comes from an article in the March 18, 2011, "Triple Frontier, Brazil - Hotbed of Islamic Militancy."
According to the article, Islamic al-Qaida extremists and other terror groups have set up camp in a remote part of the Brazilian jungle. The article cited Brazilian and U.S. intelligence sources and Wikileaks documents as the basis for the reporting. The article detailed how there were at least 20 high ranking members of al Qaida, Hamas, and Hezbollah at the camp where they are busy raising money and planning attacks on high profile Western targets. The article named the leader of the group, who is originally from Lebanon, is currently a Brazilian citizen, and who is responsible for terror activities in more than twelve countries.
The immediate concerns in Brazil are the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, both of which will be hosted by Brazil. However, the larger, more strategic concern should be our safety here in the United States. Foreign terrorists are no longer separated by the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans from our shores. They now have a foothold in South America and a land bridge from their foothold up through Central America and Mexico to our borders, which we know are still very porous. The sad part is that the drug profits that are funding the weapons that kill our soldiers may eventually fund the weapons that kill our civilians.
And we are supposed to believe that our political class will be able to protect us from this multi-faceted threat? The same political class that could not even develop an one year budget on time? The same political class that allowed SEC employees to search for porn all day on their government job and government computers? The same political class that cannot keep its air traffic controllers awake during an eight hour shift of duty? The same political class that would rather posture and campaign for their re-election than solve any issue facing America? The same political class whose second in command, Vice President Biden, cannot even stay awake during a critical budget summit?
We are in trouble. Doing things they way we always have done them in this area is not going to work, the threats and danger keep growing. That is why Step 26 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" is so critical to implement. Step 26 would establish a blue ribbon panel of smart Americans, exclusive of the political class and their lobbyist friends, to once and for all accurately address this issue of illegal drugs and put together a strategic plan to address the underlying root causes before it is too late.
Members of this panel would include law enforcement experts from many different agencies, both local, and Federal, military personnel, economists, sociologists, drug treatment experts, medical experts, and others. Others would include experts form other countries who may have tried other approaches to their nation's drug addiction problem. For example, apparently Portugal decriminalized illegal drugs a little while ago which actually resulted in lower illegal drug usage.
One option that must be on the table, an option that the political class would never consider, is the complete legalization or decriminalization of illegal drugs. Americans have proven over the past forty or so years, since Nixon's time, that they will indulge in illegal drug usage. The illegality of this usage has resulted in record profits for drug cartels and foreign terrorists as the "war on drugs" drove up the price of delivering illegal drugs that Americans and others continue to use.
I am not endorsing legalization or decriminalization, I am not an expert in this area, the panel would be. However, the results are clear. Usage of illegal drugs, both in this country and around the world, is unrelenting. The production of the illegal drugs is unrelenting. The distribution of the illegal drugs is unrelenting. Unfortunately, the ever rising record profits from illegal drugs is now a national security issue.
Somebody needs to step up and develop a coherent plan before lost weeks become lost years which eventually become lost freedom from this farce known as the "war on drugs."
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com
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