DOJ: "Cartels Control Border Access"

In a stunning admission, the Department of Justice last Wednesday released the following announcement: "Mexican drug-trafficking organizations control access to the United State-Mexico border as well as the smuggling routes across the border, resulting in unprecedented levels of violence in Mexico."

Anyone who opens a newspaper or watches TV news already had a good idea that this was true, but the announcement of reality was a bit of a surprise. The statement goes on to say: "The organizations control, simultaneously use, or are competing for control of various smuggling corridors that they use to regulate drug flow across the border. The value they attach to controlling border access is demonstrated by the ferocity with which several rival transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) fight for control over control of key corridors, or 'plazas'."

And as a near-throwaway line, the statement reports that the Mexican drug cartels "dominate the supply and wholesale distribution of most illicit drugs in the United States." So much for what we may have thought about domestic gangs, the Mafia and those pesky Jamaicans. The next big drug-trafficking movie won't be called The French Connection. In fact, drug-trafficking back in that era seems almost quaint by comparison with today's border wars.

While controlling access for drug trafficking is the main purpose of cartel violence along the border, having complete control of access to entry points into the United States also enhances their ability to traffic in human bodies, both kidnap victims for ransom and women for forced prostitution. What we need to focus on is not just the violence, but the fact that the Mexican army and police have essentially ceded control of near-border access to the cartels. Having gotten control of the north, the cartels are now gaining control of main highways and travel routes throughout the entirety of Mexico.

Most frightening of all, having gained control of the access routes into the United States, the cartels are quickly gaining control of routes on our side of the border. We have an immense border with Mexico, and many of the access roads lead to sparsely-populated desert and rural areas, unfenced and unguarded. Where there are border guards, they are there in grossly insufficient numbers, inadequately armed, and subject to rules of engagement that make them targets for murderous thugs who play by no civilized rules.

Rather than tell us that Janet Napolitano at Homeland Security is nuts, and we're going to beef up the border patrol, use army units freshly back from Iraq or Afghanistan, arm them with state-of-the-art equipment and give them "shoot on sight" orders, the DOJ instead produces assessments which are largely self-fulfilling prophecies. "Collaboration between US gangs and Mexican-based TCOs will continue to increase, facilitating wholesale drug trafficking into and within the United States."

Before anyone starts thinking that I'm suggesting illegal or unconstitutional use of our armed forces on American soil, I need to point out that it is a perfectly legitimate use of the armed forces to repel an invasion. Make no mistake, this is an invasion, and the posse comitatus act simply doesn't apply. Our armies were used within America's borders during the War of 1812, and those weren't the local police who fought the Indian wars of the 1800s. The act was passed after Civil War Reconstruction to avoid having to use the army indefinitely to enforce law in the states formerly in rebellion.

The posse comitatus act was designed to prevent the army from having too much power within American borders, but more specifically it was designed to prevent the armed forces from acting in a law-enforcement capacity. And therein lies the problem with the liberals and the Obama administration. Not only is the administration overly-sympathetic with illegal immigrants, but in regard to the narco-wars the administration once again prefers the metaphorical "war on crime" model rather than the real war model which allows the military to repel armed invaders.

It should also be noted that the posse comitatus act applies solely to the Army and the Air Force. The Marines and the Navy are restricted by Department of Defense directives, not by the act. The Coast Guard is entirely exempted from the act, as is any entity under the aegis of or created by Homeland Security. And to further complicate matters, the restrictions of the act can be lifted by any new act of Congress which does not conflict with the Constitution. So citing the posse comitatus act as a barrier to fending off an armed invasion of American soil is naive at best and disingenuous at worst.

A side benefit of mounting an all-out attack against armed narco cartel invaders is that it would also tend to reduce the entry of non-violent but still illegal immigrants. The same routes that the drug cartels have gained control of are the ones being used by the "coyotes" bringing in illegal immigrants.

In the meantime, the DOJ is very concerned with covering its behind in the wake of the Fast and Furious/Gunrunner scandal in which narco-terrorists obtained thousands of deadly weapons with the full approval and assistance of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It can't be bothered with protecting our southwestern border from an invasion. Those weapons are being used to kill Mexican citizens on their side of the border, but they have also spilled over into the United States resulting in both civilian and Border Patrol deaths.

Unlike the takeover of Chicago by Al Capone in the twenties, this is not a domestic crime syndicate, the local police are helpless to do anything, Eliot Ness is long dead, and the cartels are not amenable to being arrested, tried and imprisoned for tax evasion. What needs to be done is to increase the number of Border Patrol agents armed with the best equipment by a factor of ten or twenty, use the military if necessary, and fight this invasion as if the British are coming to burn the capital.

That will not happen as long as Barack Obama, Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano remain in charge. They are too afraid we might offend the hapless Mexican government or a large demographic of future Democratic voters already inside our borders.