.Ariz. governor says she was wrong about beheadings

[thoughtone]

Republicans make outlandish statements and accusations, but when they get called on it, their creditability goes up in smoke.

source: Yahoo News


PHOENIX – A claim by Arizona's governor that rising violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has led to headless bodies turning up in the desert came back to haunt her during a stammering debate performance in which she failed to back it up.

Gov. Jan Brewer, who gained national attention defending the state's tough new immigration law and warning of increasing border bloodshed, has spent the time since the gubernatorial candidates' debate earlier this week trying to repair the damage done from her cringe-worthy contest against underdog challenger Terry Goddard.

"That was an error, if I said that," the Republican told The Associated Press on Friday. "I misspoke, but you know, let me be clear, I am concerned about the border region because it continues to be reported in Mexico that there's a lot of violence going on and we don't want that going into Arizona."

She said she was referring to beheadings and other cartel-related violence in Mexico in comments she made earlier this summer about decapitated bodies found in the state's southern region.

Brewer's candidacy caught a big break in April, when she signed a controversial new state immigration law that put local police officers on the front lines of enforcing federal immigration law. At the time, Brewer's primary campaign faced serious challenges, but signing the bill cleared her path to what proved to be an easy primary win on Aug. 24.

Brewer stumbled through her opening statement of the debate Wednesday. She lost her train of thought for more than 10 painful seconds as she laughed, looked down at the table and finally regained her composure.

Goddard, who trailed by 20 points in a July poll, said he brought up the beheadings comments because Brewer hadn't acknowledged she was wrong.

"It's a kind of fear-mongering that has hurt our economy. It has driven jobs away," he said. "She wouldn't come off it."

Brewer apparently first referred to beheadings during a June 16 interview with Fox News, talking about "the kidnappings and the extortion and the beheadings and the fact that people can't feel safe in their community" in discussing controversy surrounding the immigration law.

She went further in a June 27 interview on Phoenix television station KPNX when asked about the earlier beheadings claim.

"Oh, our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert, either buried or just lying out there, that have been beheaded," Brewer said.

A veteran Arizona political observer said her latest gaffes may not sway many voters but could put a charge into Goddard's campaign.

"I think it gave him an opening," said Bruce Merrill, a longtime pollster and retired Arizona State University journalism professor.

Goddard can now play the debate clips over and over as he attacks her competence to lead Arizona.

In fact, there have been beheadings in Mexico in violence associated with criminal cartels that include those active in cross-border smuggling.

And some violence has spilled over the border, including the March slaying of a southern Arizona rancher, Robert Krentz. Law enforcement officials have said they believe Krentz was killed by an illegal immigrant, likely a scout for drug smugglers.

But none of the southern Arizona coroners who handle immigrant cases have seen headless bodies.

Pima County's Dr. Eric Peters said some people might be confused when just skulls are sometimes found in the desert, but that's because of decomposition and animals that feed off bodies. He said it'd be clear if any one of those skulls had been severed from a body.

"You would find what we would call tool marks because you need to use some sort of tool to forcibly remove someone's head from the spine," he said. "You'd see saw marks," even on skulls that have long been in the desert.

A Republican legislator who was the prime sponsor of Arizona's immigration law said Brewer's critics were just playing games and ignoring the real issue — violence bleeding across the border into the United States.

"I can tell you there's been 300 to 500 beheadings and dismemberments along that border," state Sen. Russell Pearce said Thursday. "It is a national security concern, yet we're worried about this game-playing, this word-smithing."

 

[nittie]

Mexican drug cartels' newest weapon: Cold War-era grenades made in U.S.

MEXICO CITY -- Grenades made in the United States and sent to Central America during the Cold War have resurfaced as terrifying new weapons in almost weekly attacks by Mexican drug cartels.

Sent a generation ago to battle communist revolutionaries in the jungles of Central America, U.S. grenades are being diverted from dusty old armories and sold to criminal mafias, who are using them to destabilize the Mexican government and terrorize civilians, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials.

The redeployment of U.S.-made grenades by Mexican drug lords underscores the increasingly intertwined nature of the conflict, as President Felipe Calderón sends his soldiers out to confront gangs armed with a deadly combination of brand-new military-style assault rifles purchased in the United States and munitions left over from the Cold War.

Grenades have killed a relatively small number of the 25,000 people who have died since Calderón launched his U.S.-backed offensive against the cartels. But the grenades pack a far greater psychological punch than the ubiquitous AK-47s and AR-15 rifles -- they can overwhelm and intimidate outgunned soldiers and police while reminding ordinary Mexicans that the country is literally at war.

Beheadings or not there is a war in Mexico and it's spreading.

 

[thoughtone]

Beheadings or not there is a war in Mexico and it's spreading.

and it's spreading.

To where?

 

[nittie]

Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal
By Michael Smith - Jun 28, 2010 9:00 PM PT


June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Martin Woods, former director of Wachovia Corp.'s anti-money-laundering unit in London, talks with Bloomberg's Julie Hyman and Mark Crumpton about the use of Wachovia Corp. and others by Mexican drug cartels to launder funds. Bloomberg Markets Magazine senior writer Michael Smith reports in the magazine's August 2010 issue that Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers. (Source: Bloomberg)


June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg Markets Magazine senior writer Michael Smith discusses the use of Wachovia Corp., Bank of America Corp. and others by Mexican drug cartels to launder funds. In the magazine's August 2010 issue, Smith reports that Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers. Smith speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Border between U.S. and Mexico

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent inspects a vehicle heading into the U.S. at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego. Photographer: Scott Dalton/Bloomberg Markets via Bloomberg
Border between U.S. and Mexico

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent inspects a vehicle heading into Mexico at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego. Photographer: Scott Dalton/Bloomberg Markets via Bloomberg
Border between U.S. and Mexico

A marker shows where the international border lies between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico. Photographer: Scott Dalton/Bloomberg Markets via Bloomberg

Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet.

They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, Mexican prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else.

The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue.

This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers -- including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.

The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years.

‘Blatant Disregard’

Wachovia admitted it didn’t do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion for Mexican-currency-exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. That’s the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history -- a sum equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product.

“Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations,” says Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the case.

Since 2006, more than 22,000 people have been killed in drug-related battles that have raged mostly along the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border that Mexico shares with the U.S. In the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, 700 people had been murdered this year as of mid- June. Six Juarez police officers were slaughtered by automatic weapons fire in a midday ambush in April.

Rondolfo Torre, the leading candidate for governor in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, was gunned down yesterday, less than a week before elections in which violence related to drug trafficking was a central issue.

45,000 Troops

Mexican President Felipe Calderon vowed to crush the drug cartels when he took office in December 2006, and he’s since deployed 45,000 troops to fight the cartels. They’ve had little success.

Among the dead are police, soldiers, journalists and ordinary citizens. The U.S. has pledged Mexico $1.1 billion in the past two years to aid in the fight against narcotics cartels.

In May, President Barack Obama said he’d send 1,200 National Guard troops, adding to the 17,400 agents on the U.S. side of the border to help stem drug traffic and illegal immigration.

Behind the carnage in Mexico is an industry that supplies hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines to Americans. The cartels have built a network of dealers in 231 U.S. cities from coast to coast, taking in about $39 billion in sales annually, according to the Justice Department.

This is a clear and present danger maybe worst than Al Qaeda.

 

[thoughtone]

This is a clear and present danger maybe worst than Al Qaeda.

The main thing that's spreading is America's appetite for Mexican gang funded drugs!

 

[nittie]

Mexico condemns US 'corruption'

President says corrupt US officials and drugs demand hindering battle against gangs.

The Mexican president has blamed US "corruption" for hampering his nation's efforts to combat violent drug cartels.

Felipe Calderon also told the AFP news agency that the main cause of Mexico's drug gang problems was "having the world's biggest consumer [of drugs] next to us".

"Drug trafficking in the United States is fuelled by the phenomenon of corruption on the part of the American authorities," he said on Wednesday.

The Mexican president launched a massive assault on drug cartels after entering office in late 2006 but the cartels have responded with campaigns of violence and intimidation that left 6,000 dead in 2008 alone and around 1,000 in 2009 so far.

Calderon acknowledged some Mexican officials had helped the cartels but said the US should ask itself how many of its own officials were implicated.

"It is not an exclusively Mexican problem, it is a common problem between Mexico and the United States," he said.

"I want to know how many American officials have been prosecuted for this [corruption]."

Border concerns

Mexico has deployed thousands of troops in
a bid to quell drugs violence [Reuters]


Calderon, who has deployed more than 36,000 troops to the troubled Mexico-US border regions to crack down on violence, also said that the US must halt the flow of weapons into Mexico, where the police and security services are often outgunned.


But he said recent talks with Barack Obama, the US president, had provided "a clearer, more decisive response, one which matches the magnitude of the problem which we face," he said.

There's a real possibilty that drug gangs control major banks. Maybe that's the reason the economy hasn't rebounded. If they control or have any influence within the banks they control the economy. That means they are more of a threat than Islamic terrorist. No one has really explained where the money from the banking meltdown went.

 

[thoughtone]

There's a real possibilty that drug gangs control major banks. Maybe that's the reason the economy hasn't rebounded. If they control or have any influence within the banks they control the economy. That means they are more of a threat than Islamic terrorist. No one has really explained where the money from the banking meltdown went.

The bottom line is the bitch lied!