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Column 072108 Brewer

Monday, July 21, 2008

Drug Demand in the USA Continues to Invite Terrorism

By Jerry Brewer

Although the sobering wake up call to the U.S. southern border

has apparently gone unanswered for the last several years, the
message to be played is loud and clear. While a nation
hammered out hostilities towards acts of illegal immigration,
demanding walls and fences to stop the "people flow," the
enemy made end runs around the migrants. The enemies are
drug cartels that supply the demand for illicit narcotics, and they
are clearly terrorists. The enormous cost of such a "barrier
boondoggle" would never justify the means; especially when the
terror apparatus knows no limits, nor is it even remotely
hindered by border barriers.

Groups pushing for the legalization of drugs relentlessly

continue to press for an end to the "war on drugs," claiming that
legalization would stop the violence and end the death and
destruction. Too, they call the war against drugs useless and
highly unsuccessful. However this hedonistic view fails to have
the clarity of reality and fact, nor has the focus of the maladies
inherent in terror ideology.

Let's examine and separate what is fact from fiction and

requires no interpretation, for it is what it is.

Mexican drug cartels are, without question, the most powerful

organized criminal organizations of Latin America. A common
defensive response to this fact is that "they will go away with
drug legalization efforts." The rationale being that the lower
prices would drive them out of the business. Secondly, they
claim that the "terror" branding of these groups is "big brother's"
hype to inflict their own moral standards with their own
terrorizing of sorts.

Here is what fiction is not made of. "Islamic terrorist groups are
selling arms to Mexican trafficking cartels and collaborating with
them to expand revenue via drug sales." The U.S., as many
other countries, has been threatened with death and destruction
by these terrorist groups now for a couple of decades. Of
course, the reality of the actual carnage clearly demonstrates
that this is not a figment of anyone's imagination. They refuse to
go away until their work is done.

The National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) reports that

information and investigation on narcoterrorism has identified
ties between Mexican narcotics traffickers and "elements
belonging to foreign organizations designated as terrorists." The
tri-border confluence with Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil is
well represented with ties to the Palestinians by "the majority of
Islamic groups." Elements of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the
Palestine Liberation Front for the Liberation of Palestine have
been linked as associates of narcotrafficking cartels from
Mexico.

The carnage that has been seen by Mexico due to the murder
and associated violence by the narcotraffickers desperation and
vengeance is graphically illustrated by their superior firepower
and strategic tactics. Their main mission, as with terrorists, has
been the ritual terrifying of communities into submission and
maintaining control of their own members.

The murder of over 5,000 people across Mexico in less than two
years, including around 500 police officers and senior officials,
have been carried out with a myriad of powerful weapons.

Many of these weapons are being seized and linked to origins in

Europe and/or the Middle East. These weapons have been
described as those "used by Islamic groups that support the
Palestinian cause." Assault rifles, anti-tank/aircraft weapons,
rocket propelled grenade launchers, bazookas, and similar
warlike weapons are being found and confiscated near the
violence.

A Department of Justice document dated 9 May 2006 reported

terrorist groups "are getting huge amounts of money from the
drugs sold to them mainly by the Mexican narcotics dealers." I
think the wise and ostensibly astute can and will conclude that
the terrorist's rationale is not in providing the "infidels" a
pleasurable recreation.

The Central American gangs, such as the Mara Salvatrucha,

that have penetrated U.S. cities primarily for the drug trade and
"enforcer" duties for the Mexican cartels, along with elements of
the former military Kaibiles of Guatemala, are providing the
terror to the U.S. by proxy. Their links in collaboration with the
Islamic terrorist groups is officially reported. Traditional U.S. law
enforcement is currently no match for this level of superior
weaponry and advanced military tactics. Recent captures in
Mexico of "cartel hit men" resulted in seizures of fragmentation
grenades and bulletproof vests, among other superior firepower.

U.S. cities that are main transshipment points for the cartels are
in serious jeopardy. The cartels are angry, they are killing all
who stand in their way, as well as innocents. Add the Islamic
terrorist apparatus to the equation and the math is done for us.

——————————
Jerry Brewer, the Vice President of Criminal Justice
International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm
headquartered in Miami, Florida, is a guest columnist with
MexiData.info jbrewer@cjiausa.org