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MEXIDATA . INFO
Column 112105 Brewer

Monday, November 21, 2005

The U.S.-Mexico border wars demand action

By Jerry Brewer

Delays, lip service, or simply ignoring the potential of

hostilities along our long southern border with Mexico is
outlandish, unwise, and must not be tolerated. There is
a clear and well-defined enemy lurking about and
penetrating that border routinely. The enemy is not the
usual Mexican immigrant seeking work and a better
way of life. Nor is it an enemy that will be stopped by a
wall or fences, or worry about a civilian militia.

This enemy is a well-trained and skilled army of former

Special Forces’ commandos and military deserters from
Latin American countries. Paramilitary types who are
recruited as enforcers for the drug cartels.
Assassinations, kidnappings, shootouts, and related
violence are their calling cards. Calling cards that are
strewn metaphorically to the tune of 157 drug-related
murders and 63 kidnappings in Nuevo Laredo,
Tamaulipas alone this year.

U.S. Border Patrol agents along the southern border

know the enemy well, as so far there have been 548
assaults on agents in 2005, this compared to 220 in
2003.

Law enforcement personnel defending our southern

border are out manned, and quite simply outgunned –
with many of these brave men and women having
stared down the barrels of AK-47 assault rifles and
other sophisticated automatic weaponry. And many
have watched as camouflaged paramilitary types
stealthily parade past, escorting contraband across the
border, hunkered down because they face such superior
firepower.
Let us be clear and realistic. Fences and walls will not
stop the above, just as those with knives will not win a
gunfight. A porous border plugged with walls might
stop and inconvenience the migrants’ march to their
perceived utopia and reunions with family members
who crossed before them. However well armed
paramilitary types or dogma driven terrorists will still
complete the trip.

Furthermore, these insurgents have allies north of the

border. Organized crime groups in the United States
that include the Mexican Mafia, the Central American-
based Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, and other gangs
that support them.

Another accomplice in the United States, in this alliance

of terror, is the US$30 billion drug habit. This
conveniently allows the continued purchases of leading-
edge weapons and hired guns, plus it permits untold
bribes and payoffs. And it is money that paves the
cross-border entry routes with gold.

Walls and high fences are not obstacles to suppliers,

considering the intense demand for contraband and the
profits involved. This is about money and power, and it
also involves weapons, human trafficking for multiple
purposes, terrorist ideology, financial crime, and other
forms of criminal violence.

The lucrative overland smuggling corridors are alive and

well, plus there are air and sea routes, and you can bet
those involved in drug trafficking and people smuggling
are constantly researching every perceived obstacle to
stop them. As for a wall, the drug cartels could pay the
US$8 billion construction costs from petty cash, a
deception just to make us feel better.

What they could not stop is a strategic, comprehensive,

well-planned and properly executed enforcement plan.

In addition, Mexican drug cartels and their associates

are running marijuana farms, and protecting them with
booby traps and assault rifles, right here in the United
States. Last year the National Park Service seized
marijuana at a street value of US$240 million in
California where it was being grown. One might
repulsively admire their tenacity however, for increased
attention at the Mexican border has convinced those
involved it is easier to grow marijuana in the U.S. than
to smuggle it in.

In the interests of our homeland security, now is the

time for U.S. politicians to halt the partisan tug of war
with the American public. Who supported war, who lied
about weapons of mass destruction, who changed their
minds, and who is posturing for a run for the
presidency and office in the next elections, seem a little
shallow. The American homeland is vulnerable and lives
are at risk.

An internal implosion doesn’t sound unrealistic, given

the facts and assessing the threat. America needs to
roll up its sleeves like it has throughout our proud
history, and politicians need to be called on the carpet
in this democracy to once again unite for the common
good.

War does not stop at the border.

——————————
Jerry Brewer, the Vice President of Criminal Justice
International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm
headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, is also a columnist
with MexiData.info. He can be reached via e-mail at
Cjiaincusa@aol.com and jbrewer@cjiausa.org.