Border wall near Yuma
Column By Mike Bibb
Ever wonder why we can drone and SEAL Team the bad guys in the Middle East and send weapons and billions of dollars to the Ukrainians, but for some inexplicable reason, we can’t seem to muster the fortitude to kick the drug cartel’s posterior?
It’s not that we don’t know where they are – they’re just down the road a few miles along our southern border. At least, a bunch of their lieutenants are.
Satellite imaginary, electronic surveillance, law enforcement agencies, espionage, and paid informants regularly keep us informed of the cartel’s nefarious activities.
I’m positive our government has reams of information on the whereabouts of cartel jefes (bosses) and suspected drug manufacturing and distribution centers, in both the United States and Mexico.
If we can track down and terminate Osama bin Laden half a globe away, we certainly should be able to find and do the same to a few secluded mega-criminals residing next door.
One would think so, but we can’t even persuade our own president and vice president to tour the area or discuss border issues, other than hearing their daffy comments “The border is secure,” as thousands of migrants a day scamper across an imaginary boundary.
Since Joe’s been in office, almost two million people, from more than 130 countries, have illegally entered our nation from Mexico. Sadly, government officials do not really know where they have all gone, in spite of tax dollars paying for their transportation to various destinations within our country.
Joe and Kamala are more interested in climate change, “renewable fuels,” promoting EVs, Green New Deals, and condoning the Jan. 6th insurrection hearings rather than reducing or containing the persistent chaos going on along Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California state lines.
What world are these buffoons living on? Certainly not the one you or I wake up to every day.
In an era when uncontrolled drugs, rampant violence, and human trafficking is permitted to exist, the primary sponsors of these illicit activities – the international crime syndicates of Mexico and China – seem to operate virtually unimpeded by law enforcement.
We catch and release hundreds of thousands of little fish, while the big fish – the ones planning and implementing their maniacal schemes – swim free in an ocean of money and civil degradation.
Actually, their illegitimate activities appear to be assisted by Washington and President Biden’s convoluted border policies.
Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr has also noticed our government’s reluctance to take a more determined attitude toward subduing the intimidation, business activities, and fury of the cartels.
In an interview on Newsmax’s “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” July 22, 2022, Barr suggested, “Mexico is well on the way to being a failed narco-state.”
Continuing with his assessment Barr noted, “The United States has been relegated to working through Mexico to try to deal with the cartels, and I think that’s a losing proposition.”
“I think they (Mexico) have to be forced and pushed into action with us,” he said. “We have to be more active against the cartels. In my mind, we have to approach the cartels more like ISIS and less like the mafia.”
Barr further commented “They (cartels) are effectively terrorist organizations. They are increasingly building their connections with terrorists. Their paramilitary can take on the Mexican military, and they have so much money they can corrupt any system.”
Finally, he mentioned what nearly everyone has recognized, the Biden Presidency has “essentially abandoned the border” to the cartels.
This lunacy isn’t new; it’s been building for years. Washington’s negligence in resolving the situation has been a bipartisan failure to put together some kind of sensical legislation that would actually confront the southern border’s problems.
Sometimes, efforts were self-defeating or totally irrational.
During the Obama Administration, it was thought if guns were provided to the cartels, we could then track those weapons into the dins of the drug lords and make arrests.
Several thousand semi-automatic rifles – AR-15 style – were permitted to be purchased through federally licensed gun dealers by cartel operatives. Many, right here in Arizona.
The operation was given the Hollywood tag “Fast and Furious.” Unfortunately, the action movie was vastly more successful than Washington’s version.
When the guns began showing up at numerous crime scenes, and used in the murder of a Border Patrol 0fficer south of Tucson, Arizona, the program was finally abandoned.
By then, the damage had been done – tracking the weapons was an abject failure. Most of the rifles were never recovered.
A more recent attempt by former President Trump to secure the border by erecting a steel barrier met with prolonged Democratic Party resistance. Trump’s been gone more than a year-and-a-half and the border is wide open and more violent than ever.
AG Bill Barr was 100% correct when he accurately opined the cartels, “have so much money they can corrupt any system.”
Maybe, even our own political and justice system.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
