In Mexico, restrictions on U.S. agents signal drug war shift
Peña Nieto’s decision to limit the ability of American agents to operate in Mexico has been met with dismay by U.S. law enforcement agencies, which left a heavy footprint under the previous administration of Felipe Calderon. They warn that intelligence sharing will suffer if they can no longer choose which Mexican force — the army, navy or federal police — to give sensitive information to; they’ve been instructed to now funnel everything through Mexico’s Interior Ministry instead.
The agents also caution that the personal relationships developed under Calderon will fray if they are no longer welcome to work side by side with trusted partners at sites such as the joint command centers where Americans helped spy on Mexican narcotics traffickers and direct operations against them.
Yeah, they don’t want to be bothered by little details like the fact that Mexico is a sovereign nation. They just want to run the drug war their own way and get their own Mexican agents working for them, rather than working for… Mexico.
The same is true here in the United States where the DEA for years has worked to undermine local and state government authority in the drug war through joint task forces and the so-called “equitable sharing” of forfeitures.
When congress removes the grants for marijuana arrests it will hamstring the DEA,,because without “buying” law enforcement support they will no longer lobby for keeping marijuana illegal and will move on to other crimes that still pay those grant monies. The DEA/ONDCP/DOJ has militarized and commercialized law enforcement so much that they will continue to chase the gold and ignore other crimes.
Those bastards will make up rules just to chase the gold. Prison workers and police all have unions, but I don’t recall ever hearing that the military has a union and according to Cornell University Law School, unions are illegal for the military. You are absolutely right about that Clay, “Commercializing†of the police. Doesn’t the DOJ work under the Executive Branch? Yet they get unions and lobbies like private companies do. So, basically, we get an organization, which has been practically privatized via unions and yet the cops supposedly have authority . . . Teachers have unions, so why don’t we give them the right to respond to search warrants and arrest citizens? Should not every union have the same rights in arresting citizens for crimes or should we make it illegal for cops and prison guards etc to have unions? Something deep down inside of me tells me that it’s illegal for cops to have authority if unions exist for them. If we don’t stop this commercialization of our police, then Mrs. Schnell –a third grad teacher, will have the authority to pull you over and ask if you’ve been taking the kids’ lunch money and demand a search –simply because your cup holder (in plain sight) had a few quarters and pennies in it.
I think you are right on the money, Clay. How many swat teams would be breaking down gardeners doors without the federal funds to create those swat teams? I suggest we take those same funds and use them to investigate federal reps who propose laws that are in violation of our constitution. Send the violators for mandatory treatment – a study of the Bill of Rights and the American Constitution. We can start with the prohibitionists extant in our government.
with an introductory course on the Declaration of Independence…
I think we should make every candidate for federal office take Michael Badnarik’s course on the Constitution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nOMbfsgZ9s
And send every Sheriff in the country to this one (now, and when a new one is elected before the beginning of his/her term):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=912IS3dpC3Y
for “personal relationships” read corrupt, unaccountable dealings with their selected partners in crime
Too bad the DEA don’t have Carlos Salinas de Gortari anymore as the Mexican President. You’ve just go to know those DEA hogs made a few million from his brother.
Ecuador is getting some of the same treatment Mexico gets from the U.S. government as part of its professed drug war effort. Perhaps current U.S. policy dictates the threat of marijuana legalization by Uruguay demands a militant counter-response:
well, it just gets harder for ’em every day… bad press everywhere, filmmakers from Mexico getting their films about the drug war in Mexico shown at Cannes… human rights advocates causing a stir… it’s not easy to wage a war when people don’ wanna do that no more.
Blog del Narco: author who chronicled Mexico’s drugs war forced to flee
http://tinyurl.com/ap4un7s
Its hard to imagine. If this were Mexico, none of us would be safe here at Pete’s couch. US drug enforcement efforts have turned Mexico into a battleground. This drug war must end.
OT (to this post)…
Washington state releases draft rules for marijuana industry
and here’s the rules, PDF: https://lcb.box.com/initial-draft-rules
Yikes, thank God those are only draft rules. I say we use these as our counterproposal and then try to work out some kind of reasonable compromise in committee.
The people of WA have until June 10 to review those rules and make suggestions for deletions, alterations and additions.
At cbsnews.com (the ‘bs’ stands for bullshit) the MSM screw up a piece on a new study debunking New Zealand’s marijuana-IQ propaganda by tossing in a few comments by Nora Volkow/NIDA.
Dr. Nora Volkow is to prohibition what the cigarette scientists were to the tobacco industry.
In the tobacco trials, the battle was to obscure and suppress accurate scientific information on anything that might hurt big tobacco’s income. The abominable Dr. Volkow has picked up Big Tobacco’s gauntlet and now leads attacks on anything making sense with regard to illicit drugs.
She and CBS are being eviscerated in the comments.
Too bad the CIA drug runners won’t be able to use their sting operations as cover for their profit driven drug trade.
We are now finding out that the drug war is being used to cover up a critical shortage of physical gold in bank vaults. Owners of gold who pay banks to store their gold are being restricted on how much and how often they can take possession of their gold. Banks are using money laundering and the drug war as their excuse to hide how leveraged they are in the gold market.