Most of you probably already follow the excellent work of the TransBorder
Institute and its director David Shirk. If not, highly recommended, and
included here is the most recent note from David and a link to the
institute’s monthly report.

*ACTTing Out in Arizona –*

*Where the Drug War now has a “Unified Command”*

* *

· Arizona is “ground zero” in the reconfigured war on drugs.

· Numbers tell the story of the failed drug war and a misguided
combat against transnational crime.

· ACCT is a paper alliance created to demonstrate Obama’s border
security/transnational crime strategy.

· It’s all about marijuana and immigrants – the same old story of
border control, now called border security.

Arizona and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands are the “ground zero in the war on
drugs.”

That’s the assessment of the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission (ACJC), the
state office that receives federal criminal-justice grants — and which then
redistributes these Department of Justice (DOJ) grants to Arizona’s
multiagency drug task forces and other counternarcotics programs.

Making the essentially same threat assessment about the border’s frontline
status in protecting the U.S. against the transnational threat of illegal
drug flows, the Obama administration launched its Southwest Border
Initiative in March 2009, calling it the “way ahead” in combating drug
trafficking.

As part of that 2009 initiative, which brought together the resources of the
Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice (DOJ), DHS launched the
Arizona-based Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats (ACTT) in September
2009, describing it as an “innovative” and “unprecedented” multiagency
assault on crossborder drug trafficking.

*Old Drug War Numbers and Body Counts*

* *

ACTT does point to the large number of immigrant apprehensions and drug
seizures as evidence of its progress against transnational threats.

The Border Patrol and allied sheriff’s departments provide post-ACTT
operation reports of the numbers of illegal aliens arrests, marijuana
seized, weapons confiscated, and assets seized and forfeited.

Typically, ACTT boasts of the number of “illegal aliens” apprehended and
thousands of pounds of marijuana seized.

The title, for example, of a May 27, 2011 CBP release reads:

*“ACTT Operation Yields More than $4.4 million in Marijuana” *
* *
Followed by the subhead:
*“Intelligence-Driven Operations Continue to Yield Results”*
* *

The total results of this 60-day operation in Pinal and Pima Counties were:
“732 illegal aliens arrested, one U.S. citizen, 8,925 pounds of marijuana,
and 17 firearms.”

Another “intelligence-driven operation” by ACTT aimed to “counter
transnational criminal organizations in the Arizona corridor” called
Operation Trident Surge targeted TCO traffic on Forest Service and BLM lands
over three months. The headline of the May 27 CBP media release about this
ACTT operation read: “1,759 people arrested; 23,650 pounds of marijuana
seized.” There were no other reported results, and nothing about how any of
the arrests or marijuana seizures related to government intelligence about
transnational criminal organizations.

Marijuana seizures also headlined another ACTT operation in Pinal County,
which boasted “more than 5,900 pounds of marijuana seized.” The operation
also reported 55 illegal aliens apprehended, five U.S. citizens arrested,
$115,000 in illicit currency seized, four firearms confiscated, and five
stolen vehicles recovered. Typically, no other illegal substances except
marijuana were seized and there was no attempt to show how the operation
targeted transnational crime.

Media releases and internal Border Patrol summaries of ACTT arrests and
seizures echo the agency’s decades-long tradition of measuring border
control progress by way of immigrant arrests and drug seizures –
disconnected from such other measures as the illegal immigrant population,
drug consumption levels, and drug prices.

What has changed, though, is that DHS and the Border Patrol use the same
categories of statistics as part of an unconvincing attempt to demonstrate
progress in combating transnational organized crime and deterring
transnational threats.

*U.S. Military Gets in on the ACTT*

* *

Given that ACTT was created to combat transnational threats and protect
national security, it is not surprising that the Defense Department claims a
role in ACTT operations.

According to the U.S. Northern Command’s General Victor Renuart
:
At the request of DHS Assistant Secretary Alan Bersin, JTF-North [the El
Paso-based Joint Task Force Bravo] provided support to the Alliance to
Combat Transnational Threats…. JTF-North facilitated intelligence and
operational planning, and provided sensor capabilities during execution of
this intelligence-driven operation.

Through JTF-North’s missions and activities, USNORTHCOM continues to sustain
important relationships with Federal law enforcement agencies in securing
our nation’s borders against drug traffickers and their associated
activities. Robust collaboration exists today between JTF-North and
operational-level leaders in CBP, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Drug
Enforcement Administration, and the FBI… [by way of USNorthCom’s]
Counternarcotics (CN) Programs. USNORTHCOM’s CN Program is an integral part
of the defense and security of our nation.

As part of ONDCP’s new border counternarcotics strategy, the “Intelligence
Community” and DOD are involved in formulating and coordinating “Common
Operating Pictures” and “Common Intelligence Pictures” with other federal
partners and local law enforcement agencies. This collaboration bringing
together the nation’s military and intelligence apparatuses with border law
enforcement agencies will adhere to the information-sharing restrictions
specified in the August 2010 Executive Order on Classified National Security
Information Programsfor state, local, tribal, and private sector entities.

*ACCT as Symbol *

If DHS could make a case that multiagency counternarcotics and other border
security operations like ACTT were indeed reducing the criminal activity of
the illegal drug trade, decreasing the rates of addiction to harmful drugs
such as meth, or helping to end the drug-related violence in Mexico, there
would be less skepticism about ACTT.

DHS and DOJ have a hard time describing what exactly ACTT is. That’s
because, more than anything else, it is more symbolic than real – and one
more tragic symbol of drug prohibition and its consequences.

*Tom Barry directs the TransBorder Project at the Center for International
Policy. Author of numerous books on Latin America and U.S. foreign policy,
Barry wrote Border Wars(MIT Press, 2011). He blogs at:
http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/*

*Also see related articles and policy reports:*

Escalating the Drug War in Arizona

Drug War Intensity: A Look at HIDTA

Alarming New Border Counternarcotics Strategy

Drug War Turns to Transnational Combat

Policy on the Edge: Failures of Border Security & New Directions for Border
Control

* *

*Trans-Border Institute*

http://justiceinmexico.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/2011-08-
august-news-report.pdf

On behalf of the Trans-Border Institute (TBI) at the University of San
Diego, I’m pleased to send you our August 2011 news report from the
Justice in Mexico Project. Here are a few highlights:

• Weekly average of national ejecuciones up from 2010, Chihuahua’s
and Sinaloa’s rates decrease
• Over 50 killed in arson attack in Monterrey casino
• SESNSP suspends release of funds to nearly 80% of its
recipients
• PGR turbulent amidst purges by new leadership, mass-departure of
state prosecutors
• 14-year-old U.S. citizen sentenced to three years in Mexican prison
• Federal District performs first oral trials

As always, remember that our monthly reports, as well as our latest
drug violence maps, are available on our project website
(www.justiceinmexico.org). You can also view regular updates on rule
of law and security issues in Mexico on our blog and RSS feed at our
project website. You can now follow us on Twitter (@JusticeinMexico)
and Facebook (Justice in Mexico). Also, our database of crime
indicators can be accessed on the TBI website (www.sandiego.edu/
tbidata). Recent results from our joint project with the Mexico
Institute can be found at (http://bit.ly/projectpage). – David Shirk

Death and Drugs in Colombia, New York Review of Books, June 23, 2011 by Daniel Wilkinson
Quote: “Paramilitaries also confessed to judicial investigators that they had collaborated extensively with military officers, both before and during Uribe’s presidency, including two generals Uribe chose to lead branches of the armed forces. Perhaps most damning was evidence of collaboration with top DAS officials—including the President’s intelligence chief, who allegedly supplied the AUC with names of trade unionists who were then assassinated. Other troubling allegations involved Uribe’s younger brother—who has been accused of running a paramilitary group in Antioquia—and the use of his own cattle ranch as a meeting place for paramilitaries.

To date, only one former paramilitary has implicated Uribe himself directly in paramilitary activity—yet his testimony was full of inconsistencies. He was assassinated in 2009.

Uribe and his top officials have denied all those allegations.

The people who would know the full extent of whatever collaboration took place on Uribe’s watch are the ones he extradited to the US.

Since the extradition, however, they have essentially stopped cooperating with Colombian investigators. Several—including Mancuso—have explained that if they revealed all they know, they would be unable to protect their families from reprisals in Colombia.” (my underline)

and

“López’s book shows that the Ralito Pact’s reference to “refounding the nation”—from which the book takes its title—was not merely pompous rhetoric. Rather, it reflected a broader objective shared by the AUC commanders and local politicians and landholders: to legalize the enormous wealth and power they had amassed during years of paramilitary expansion.

The paramilitaries had driven more than one million poor farmers off their lands, preparing the way for what the authors refer to as a “counter-agrarian reform.” Large landholders and investors—including paramilitaries and other traffickers—acquired the land, and corrupt officials helped them obtain title. As one former paramilitary put it: “We went in killing, others followed buying, and the third group legalized.””

Read more about this brutal effort to legalize the stolen wealth of Colombians by US-backed paramilitaries in this account highlighting US government supported laundering scheme overseen by the ARD, a yet-to-be indicted (it is arguably illegal to give material support to terrorist organizations like the paramilitaries benefited by this scheme) USAID vendor, based in the state of human rights champion, Senator Leahy of Vermont.

The rest of the review is here.

Quotes from the story:

With headline stories across the nation exposing massive fraud and money laundering schemes infilitrating the American financial systems: how could it have been so difficult for the Feds to establish criminal intent for these lawbreakers?

Although in selected cases, a civil complaint filed by the SEC (Security Exchange Commission) is usually offered to corporations and banks that allow them to wiggle out of a criminal indictment in exchange for a fine. A civil fine is usually the norm but the bulk of wrongdoing goes unpunished.

Experts familiar with large corporations and banks that violate the law have said the fine these companies pay the government is merely the cost of doing business.

. . .

We are currently living under government more interested in preserving the integrity of financial operations that it has investigated for fraud and money laundering. Even more appalling is the fact our government found the institutions guility of intentionally breaking the law. And still no real punishment.

. . .

Adam Kaufman, chief of the investigative division of the Manhattan D.A. office defended the approach in the AP story, by saying, “prosecutors could have indicted low-level bank employees who handled the transactions on a daily basis. But that wouldn’t get the executives making the decisions and figuring out exactly who that is can be daunting.”

. . .

The DA summed up what many believe is true, that banks and corporations are “too-big-to fail and too-big-to jail.”

From the oped:
“In an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker.

The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America’s “war on drugs,” which was declared 40 years ago today.
. . .
The commission’s facts and arguments are persuasive. It recommends that governments be encouraged to experiment “with models of legal regulation of drugs … that are designed to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.” For effective examples, they can look to policies that have shown promising results in Europe, Australia and other places.”

Read the entire oped here.

Cipriana Jurado is a Mexican activist who for years struggled to assert the rights of maquila workers in Ciudad Juarez on the US border. She directed the Centre for Research and Worker Solidarity until, in mid-March 2010, she took refuge in the United States and applied for asylum because her life was in danger. On Saturday 11 June 2011, the United States granted her political asylum.

Her asylum application was accepted on the basis of evidence that the Mexican army persecuted her after she sought to defend a family from which three members, including two women, disappeared in Chihuahua in late 2009. The Mexican army has been used in Chihuahua as part of the federal anti-drug strategy, and it has been repeatedly linked to human rights violations.

Cipriana Jurado is the first human rights defender to receive political asylum for being persecuted by the Mexican army – the same army the United States is supporting to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in the war against drugs.

Her asylum sets a precedent. It also illustrates the complex relations between Mexico and the United States in the war on drugs.

To read the rest of this excellent article, click here.

The “War on Drugs” was launched by President Richard Nixon 40 years ago this week. In 1980, at the end of its first decade, I began a nine-year career as a “captain” in the war on drugs. I was the attorney in the U.S. House of Representatives principally responsible for overseeing DEA and writing anti-drug laws as counsel to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime.
Read the rest here.

Thousands of Mexicans changed the face of national and international politics May 8 in the world’s first mass protest against the drug war.

Read the rest of this excellent piece here.

The clock on the Torre Latinoamericana strikes 5:00 on April 6th as the ragtag group that fills the esplanade of the Bellas Artes museum yells ‘No more blood!’ and ‘Down with Felipe Calderon!’. This is not a common place to begin a protest, but this march was called by poets and artists, friends, followers, and men and women who read the poems and articles of Javier Sicilia. They all believe that poetry and art will triumph over death.

After the murder of his son and six of his friends on March 28 in Cuernavaca, the poet and social activist published “An Open Letter to Politicians and Criminals,” in which he condemns Calderon’s war as being poorly planned, poorly executed, poorly directed, and for putting the country in a state of emergency. In his letter he also called upon his fellow Mexicans to struggle for peace and justice.
For the rest of the article, please click here.

Consulate wires leaked by Wikileaks indicate that U.S. military grade weapons are in the hands of Mexican Drug Cartels. The attempt, by the Obama Administration to finger gun sellers in the U.S., as the source of our “Border War,” is challenged in the report from NarcoNews.

“The lot numbers of some of the grenades recovered, including the grenade used in the attack on Televisa, indicate that previously ordnance with these same lot numbers may have been sold by the USG [U.S. Government] to the El Salvadoran military in the early 1990s via the Foreign Military Sales program.”

To read this excellent piece, click here.