Obama Considering National Guard Troops to Mexican Border
From McClatchy News Service:
WASHINGTON — President Obama weighed in Wednesday on the escalating drug war on the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that he was looking at possibly deploying National Guard troops to contain the violence but ruled out any immediate military move.
“We’re going to examine whether and if National Guard deployments would make sense and under what circumstances they would make sense,” Obama said during an interview with journalists for regional papers, including a McClatchy reporter.
“I don’t have a particular tipping point in mind,” he said. “I think it’s unacceptable if you’ve got drug gangs crossing our borders and killing U.S. citizens.”
More on Mexico’s Failed State Symptoms
Who’s In Charge in Juarez? from the New York Times
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — Mayor José Reyes Ferriz is supposed to be the one to hire and fire the police chief in this gritty border city that is at the center of Mexico’s drug war. It turns out, though, that real life in Ciudad Juárez does not follow the municipal code.
It was drug traffickers who decided that Chief Roberto Orduña Cruz, a retired army major who had been on the job since May, should go. To make clear their insistence, they vowed to kill a police officer every 48 hours until he resigned.
They first killed Mr. Orduña’s deputy, Operations Director Sacramento Pérez Serrano, together with three of his men. Then another police officer and a prison guard turned up dead. As the body count grew, Mr. Orduña eventually did as the traffickers had demanded, resigning his post on Feb. 20 and fleeing the city. (Read Entire Story)
Def Secy Gates on Mexican drug war on our border: from 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. (Entire Transcript)
Mexican drug war bleeds across border: Reuters
PHOENIX (Reuters) – Hit men dressed in fake police tactical gear burst into a home in Phoenix, rake it with gunfire and execute a man.
Armed kidnappers snatch victims from cars and even a local shopping mall across the Phoenix valley for ransom, turning the sun-baked city into the “kidnap capital” of the United States.
Violence of this kind is common in Mexico where drug cartel abductions and executions are a daily feature of a raging drug war that claimed 6,000 lives south of the border last year.
But U.S. authorities now fear that violent crime is beginning to bleed over the porous Mexico border and take hold here.
“The fight in Mexico is about domination of the smuggling corridors and those corridors don’t stop at the border,” Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said. (Entire Article)
The Daily Graphic: January U.S. Oil Imports
Courtesy of the Pickens Plan is the following graphic about how much oil we imported into the U.S. during the month of January. They get their numbers from the U.S. Dept. of Energy.
Mexico – Our Own Little Slice of Pakistan?
Can you imagine a collapse of the Mexican central government? Perhaps army units around the country would align themselves with regional leaders or drug lords. Next would come the potential for armed rivals fighting one another for central control. What we’re talking about is Afghanistan just after the Soviets departed where there weren’t two sides in a civil war, but several. What we might experience is hundreds of thousands of refugees on our southern border.
Our armed forces are currently stretched to the limit due to the Iraqi adventure. What’s available to secure our southern border or insert into Mexico to keep or restore the peace? China has spent the past several years working on its relations with Central and South America, primarily in places with oil, like Mexico. How soon could the Chinese have a division or two on the ground, in Mexico? When would they leave?
So, there’s a little bit of the nightmare scenario. Do I believe any of the above will happen – no. Could it? Yes.
Transcript: Obama News Conference Announcing Hillary Clinton and National Security Team | December 1
Filed under: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Terrorism
(Source: CQ Transcripts Wire)
SPEAKERS: PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA; SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, D-N.Y.; SUSAN E. RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY WORKING GROUP LEADER, OBAMA-BIDEN PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION TEAM; GENERAL JIM JONES (USMC, RET.) SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT M. GATES;
GOVERNOR JANET NAPOLITANO, D-ARIZ., ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER, OBAMA-BIDEN PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION TEAM; FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER; VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
[*] OBAMA: Good morning, everybody. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Last week, we announced our economic team which is working as we speak to craft an economic recovery program to create jobs and grow our struggling economy.
Today, Vice President-elect Biden and I are pleased to announce our national security team. The national security challenges we face are just as great and just as urgent as our economic crisis. We are fighting two wars. Our old conflicts remain unresolved. And newly- asserted powers have put strains on the international system. Read more
Video: Obama’s National Security Team, Face the Nation, Woodward, Zakaria, Mayer, Dyson | November 30
Filed under: Afghanistan, Hillary Clinton, India, Obama Transition, Terrorism, U.S. Economy
The following 16 minute video is well worth watching – insightful talk with Bob Woodward, Fareed Zakaria, Jane Mayer and Michael Eric Dyson regarding President-elect Barack Obama’s announcement tomorrow unveiling his national security team. One interesting comment from Woodward:
SCHIEFFER: …the president, if all goes as expected, at 10:50 Eastern time tomorrow will
announce his new national security team, to be headed by Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of
state.Mr. WOODWARD: She never goes away, she and her husband. It’s an amazing national security team that Obama appears to have selected. It’s kind of like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”
You’ve got too cool, which might be–or at least appropriately cool, General Jones as the national security adviser; Gates is kind of just right, in the middle; and Hillary Clinton, hot. This is going to be a whole new center of gravity for the news media, for the whole world. My assessment without having any knowledge, really, is that the economists and the economic team around Obama convinced him that the economic crisis is so deep and going to require to much time, go ahead and give Hillary and Bill the world.
Yikes. I’m not sure that’s what I voted for, Bob.
