Sunday, May 2, 2010

Ralph Peters on Mexico's "new and savage revolution."

Pancho Villa

It ain't Pancho's revolution any more.

Border disorder

By RALPH PETERS

Last Updated: 4:39 AM, April 29, 2010

Posted: 12:21 AM, April 29, 2010

South of the border, down Mexico way, a new and savage revolution rages just beyond our inspection lanes. After less than five years of fighting, estimates of the dead have reached 22,000.

The rate of killing accelerates each month. And Washington covers its eyes like a kid at a scary movie. Well, the Mexican narco-insurgency, in which well-armed guerrilla forces confront the authority and presence of the state, is our No. 1 security challenge.

The chaos in northern Mexico has far deeper implications for our country than Islamist terror or even an Iranian nuclear capability (as grim as those threats are).

The rule of law has collapsed from Tijuana on the Pacific's edge to Matamoros and the Gulf of Mexico. Major cities are now "ungoverned spaces," as our diplomats refer tidily to distant trouble spots.

More people now die violently on our southern border than in Somalia, Yemen or even Afghanistan. But Washington doesn't know what to do about Mexico. So Washington does nothing much.

Our ruling class simply doesn't feel the pain. So the DC elite demonizes Arizona's desperate effort to shove the narco-revolution's disorder back across the border. Murdered ranchers, overwhelmed emergency rooms and soaring crime rates in our border states mean less to the White House than a terrorist detainee's claims of abuse. Our governing elite pretends that illegal immigration, torrential crime where illegals cluster, overcrowded prisons, Mexico's narco-insurgency, legal cross-border commerce and the drug trade are separate issues, to be addressed discreetly.

But these issues are all interwoven with the Mexican government's existential crisis. Drug wealth fuels criminal empires. Those narco-empires are now so powerful that they've risen against the state. Human trafficking is a useful sideline for drug lords. And illegal immigration drives crime rates in bankruptcy-threatened US cities and states.

Cross-border trade's the next target. Narco-insurgents now feel sufficiently confident to attack Mexican army installations and US consulates. The maquiladoras, those thousands of assembly plants along the border, won't escape the mayhem. Given their enormous contribution to Mexico's fiscal stability and employment rates, those plants are obvious targets as the narco-challenge to the state intensifies.

Mexican journalists, too, have been killed by the hundreds. Their torture and execution doesn't generate much excitement north of the border, though. It's their bad luck to be butchered by Mexican narcos. Had they been killed accidentally by US forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, they'd be famous martyrs.

And Arizona's "discriminatory" new state law empowering police to pursue criminal aliens? Should Phoenix let the rule of law collapse because Washington prefers political correctness to public safety? In DC, it's about politics. In Arizona, it's about survival.

It bewilders me that my fellow citizens don't take the disintegration of government authority in northern Mexico seriously. As I've written repeatedly, no country is more important to us socially, economically and security-wise than Mexico. Afghanistan's fluff by comparison.

Precisely 100 years ago, in 1910, the Mexican Revolution erupted in northern Mexico -- already the most prosperous and industrially developed portion of the country. That revolution lasted a bloody, destructive decade.

It wasn't the bandido affair beloved of Hollywood knuckleheads, but a complex contest for power with large armies, strategic campaigns, major battles, trench warfare, barbed wire and machine guns. In 1915, the military vision of the self-taught Gen. Alvaro Obregon -- destined to become Mexico's president -- was more sophisticated than that of the US Army. Mexico pioneered the 20th century's revolutions.

Since then, northern Mexico -- from the border cities southward through the industrial powerhouse of Monterrey -- has continued to be the country's primary agent of change. Influenced by its proximity to America, the north long has been a different country from the impoverished states south of the capital.

Now a new Mexican revolution is underway in the vital north. In 1910, idealists struggled to change an autocratic regime. In 2010, criminal syndicates fight to wrest power from a democratic government and to grab market share from each other.

(In an eerie parallel, a bloody strike in the northern mining center of Cananea helped ignite the 1910 revolution; today, a three-year-long strike in Cananea by mining and metal workers signals a new generation's impatience with the status quo -- and we're just not paying attention.)

During that earlier revolution, the citizens of El Paso, Texas, and Douglas, Arizona, gathered to watch the battles just across the border as Pancho Villa's troops drove out the Federals, then as the Constitutionalists defeated Villa. Those spectators were confident in their immunity as American citizens.

We're no longer immune.

Ralph Peters' latest book is "Endless War."

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

A sheriff's deputy was recently shot in Az by a man suspected of being an illegal immigrant.

Citizens are just as vulnerable. Keep your powder dry!

Dan Galena said...

Illegals ? They're lawbreakers. Simply start rounding them up. Oh....and round up illegal sympathizers too !

aughtsix said...

Taylor H:

Citizens are just as vulnerable. Keep your powder dry!

May 2, 2010 8:47 AM

Dry, Hell. Burn that powder.

Jon

III

dennis308 said...

That ain´t the first time a Law Enforcement Officer been shot on the Border. This time he got lucky a few others have not been so fortunate. And the Citizens are even more vulnerable. Interfere in their BUSSNESS and watch out they will go so far as kill your family members on either side of the BORDER.

Dennis
III
Texas

Anonymous said...

Aughtsix:

Only if necessary my friend...or it happens to be range day.

MamaLiberty said...

How sad that a single action by congress could take the wind out of all their sails. Outright repeal of all the drug and "controlled substance" bogus laws would take the money out of this deal almost overnight.

And ending the welfare state would be a terrific next step, though it might take longer.

And guess who would oppose this the most loudly? All of those right here in America who profit by this obscenity.

I'm sure you all know who they are.

Charlie Anderson said...

Pull the financial rug out from under these scumbags by ending the failed War on Drugs

Unknown said...

Great news, everybody! Say Uncle assures us that there is no need to panic: there are already SERIOUS laws that deal with home invasion, kidnapping and murder.

So please remain calm. Do not cry for help. Do not attempt to defend yourself. And no matter what you do, do not get out of the boiling water.

Janet Incompetano said...

but... but these poor democrats / Mexicans are just doing the jobs that no one else wants to do!!!

Anonymous said...

Foxnews is owned by an immigrant, Rupert Murdoch, and you know Murdoch of course bought his way into American citizenship.

Unknown said...

" Mexican journalists, too, have been killed by the hundreds. Their torture and execution doesn't generate much excitement north of the border, though. It's their bad luck to be butchered by Mexican narcos. Had they been killed accidentally by US forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, they'd be famous martyrs."

Herein lies the seeds of our return to freedom, for in the ignorance of the American mainstream" media, we can prevail. The American people will someday need people like us.

Anonymous said...

Its not nearly as bad as they say.... However, the last time I went to Cuidad Jaurez, a police chief's head did show up on the steps of the police station - in a cooler. On second thought, maybe it is as bad as they say. I think next time I'll shop in El Paso.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/World/Story/STIStory_328439.html

Anonymous said...

Blogger Taylor H said...

Aughtsix:

Only if necessary my friend...or it happens to be range day.

May 2, 2010 11:03 AM

How fraking "necessary" does it have to be for you?

I ask all of you...

When does the other shoe drop?

When is enough enough?

How many usurpations, intolerable acts, crimes against humanity and affronts to Liberty and common sense are sufficient to grant us Absolution?

When will we find our balls and ACT?

Sorry, Mike, but I'm getting waaay past worrying about your cautionary "Ft. Sumpter" injunction. It will not matter in the long run. Our enemies will do whatever they think they can get away with, whenever they wish and blame us for it anyway.

The longer we wait, the more it is to their advantage. I don't think we can win a propaganda war when they have all the organs of power, influence and The Big Megaphone.

We have to win tactically and then reeducate the people. How? I have no sure knowledge other than to begin in what ever ways are available to us. To continue to wait for them to "outrage" the public sufficiently will prove fatal... to Liberty and to each of us personally.

John Robert Mallernee, KB3KWS, in Vernal, Utah said...

I posted this on my own personal blog, "OUR ETERNAL STRUGGLE", and at the FACEBOOK social networking web site:

*****************************

"I HAVE A QUESTION - - - ?"

Greetings and Salutations to All my Kith and Kin and All the Ships in Outer Space:

For quite some time now, police departments throughout the nation, at every level of government, in nearly every venue, have done absolutely nothing when illegal aliens have brazenly flouted our laws, while openly flaunting their illegal status, even rioting and committing violent assaults on private citizens who dare to espouse any dissenting view.

Since our courts apparently refuse to enforce existing laws against foreign invaders, can we, as private citizens, bring criminal charges against individual police officers for failure to perform their sworn duties?

Would this tactic turn things around?

I live at the Old Soldiers' Home in the very heart of our nation's capital, and this megalopolis is SWARMING with illegal aliens from numerous countries, many of whom speak no English, or speak it unintelligibly, due to their distinctive foreign accents.

Many suspected illegal aliens have been repeatedly observed employed on the grounds here at the Old Soldiers' Home, although our administrative staff officially denies this happens.

Even the local officials of my church, The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints (i.e., the so-called "Mormon" church) appear to have been complicit in harboring these foreign criminals.

So, since our elected and/or appointed political and bureaucratic public officials are obviously recalcitrant to have existing immigration laws enforced, maybe a new and unusual method should be attempted.

If a private citizen suspects someone of being in the country illegally, or has knowledge that fellow American citizens are harboring, transporting, or employing these foreign criminals, and the private citizen witnesses law enforcement personnel ignoring these crimes, then can the private citizen lodge a formal criminal complaint against the individual police officer?

If a formal criminal complaint is filed, is there any legal mandate for it to be investigated and prosecuted?

Of course, if this doesn't work, then I reckon the only alternative remaining would be the solution which has been used by American citizens over and over when there either was no law, or the established authorities were unresponsive, i.e., organized night riding vigilante justice with a hangman's noose.

I think you know where I stand on this issue, so what do YOU think?

Thank you.

John Robert Mallernee
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400

pdxr13 said...

The hippy-surfer-peace-luv-hope&change vibe was in full swing in Santa Cruz.... oh wait it was illegal aliens breaking windows, spray painting, and setting fires.

Illegals Riot & Set Fire to Santa Cruz

Riot breaks out in downtown Santa Cruz; windows broken on dozens of businesses, porch of cafe set on fire

By Alia Wilson

SANTA CRUZ – A large group of protesters demonstrating at a May Day rally for worker’s and immigrant rights downtown broke off into a riot vandalizing about a dozen businesses around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, police said.

Many in the group were carrying makeshift torches as they marched, breaking storefront windows and writing “anarchist graffiti” on buildings, according to Capt. Steve Clark. Many businesses sustained multiple broken windows including very large storefront windows at Urban Outfitters and The Rittenhouse building. Police believe at least 15 businesses suffered damage.

The violence was initiated from a group holding a rally at the town clock for May Day. Windows at Jamba Juice and Velvet Underground were left shattered and graffiti including anarchy signs were tagged onto buildings.

Because of the size and violent demeanor of the crowd, Santa Cruz police asked for help from all agencies in the county to break up the riot. At one point, protesters lit a fire on the porch of Caffe Pergolesi and blocked access to firefighters, officers said. Police were able to clear out the demonstrators before more damage was caused.

A large rock sat outside Verizon Wireless on the 100 block of Cooper Street, where vandals tried to break the window twice, according to Clark.

“The damage that was caused was without purpose,” Clark said. “It was senseless violence that victimized a community who cannot afford to be victimized in this manner. This did nothing to add credit to whatever they believed their cause was.”

One person, 24-year-old Jimi Haynes, a transient from Fresno County, was arrested for felony vandalism for damaging a window. Haynes is also wanted on a parole violation, Clark said. Police are searching for others responsible for the damage. Protesters cleared the downtown area around midnight.

“Our entire team of investigators are processing the scene of violence for evidence,” Clark said. “We will be looking at video available to try to ID who’s responsible.”

Haynes was observed traveling with this group and breaking windows at the Dell Williams Jewelry store. Haynes broke two large display windows in the front of the store. The witnesses followed him and called police. Haynes was located by arriving Watsonville PD officers who detained Haynes, Clark said.

Haynes is on parole out of Fresno County for burglary. He has been in Santa Cruz for the past several weeks where he has established an arrest history, Clark said. Haynes admitted to participating in the rally after receiving a flyer at a local anarchist café. Haynes was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail.

Once order was restored, police detectives worked throughout the night to collect evidence and document the damage to each of the businesses, Clark said. The police department guarded exposed storefronts, and arranged for private security to watch the businesses until windows could be boarded, and responsible persons contacted.

The police department encourages anyone with information (include any photos or video footage) to make contact and report the information. The police department will be working to identify and prosecute additional individuals involved in the march and subsequent violence.

Police ask anyone with information about the incident to contact the investigations department at 420-5820.

Happy D said...

"Major cities are now "ungoverned spaces," as our diplomats refer tidily to distant trouble spots"

Any of my Anarchist friends moving to live the dream?
It is just south of the border now. You do not even have to leave the continent now.

Anonymous said...

J.R. Mallernee,

Won't do any good since the same Supreme & state court rulings that protect LE from being held liable for not responding to a call for help would be applied in the scenario you propose. See Warren v D.C. for proof & then spread the word, you'd be amazed @ the reaction people have when they're shown proof that the cops don't have to protect them & that their desertion @ the outbreak of the Rodney King riot & before/during/after Katrina is legally sanctioned & there's NOTHING that the citizens can do about it.


pdxr13,

I find it a wonderful thing when Leftists reap what they've sown & are the recipients of a good, stiff dose of Karma.


Happy D,

Bwaaaahaaaaaahahaha, good one, as IF!



Cassandra (of Troy)