If Violence Escalates In Mexico, Texas Officials Plan To Be Ready-Rumors of War

[painterbw]

The rumors are flying here in the lone star state! If this is true, I say-- it's about damn time that Texans started acting like Texans again!!! I have my doubts, since there is no audio (yet) to confrim the rumors. Here's the run down:

Texas State Senator, Dan Patrick, was rumored to be on FoxNews this morning at 8:45am. Supposedly Senator Patrick said, he had some "breaking news to share". The Texas State Legislature had been trying very hard to get the Obama Administration to respond to a critical situation on the Texas Border. The Administration had not gotten back with Texas as of last night. So, the State of Texas told Washington D.C. basically they could go jump in the Potomac, and "we'll take care of Texas!". As of last night, the Texas National Guard has been put on High Alert!!! This is the first time in history! Texas tried, desperately to get Washington's to take action,  but they could not get it. So, they acted on their own.

Here are some more recent events on the border:

1) For the last two days, hundreds of PRO-DRUG CARTEL Mexicans were blocking the entrance to the United States banging cars, shouting and holding signs. There were 10 people killed Wednesday, and 12 more yesterday at the border (5 of which were children!!!)
2) Authorities aren't sure, but they think the Drug Cartel is paying the demonstrators.
3)  Mr. Patrick, and the other State officials are convinced this violence will spill over into the States! Texas officials are afraid that road-side bombs, and car bombs will make it across the border, and state officials say that they WILL NOT allow that to happen!!
4) Mexico is breaking out in Civil War in the western part of the border and they expect it to spread the entire border with no end in sight.
5) The National Guard will be activated as the scenario worsens and is on Alert now and will remain, until Washington does something to end the danger on the border.

FoxNews has yet to put this on their website. I will post it, IF they get the story out. Even if it is true, the Texas National Guard has had a lot of their critical equipment taken by the Feds for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. It remains to be seen how effective the TXNG would be in such a scenario.

From FOX News:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,491964,00.html

If Violence Escalates in Mexico, Texas Officials Plan to Be Ready
Thursday, February 12, 2009 
By Joshua Rhett Miller

As drug cartels continue to terrorize Mexico, Texas officials are planning for the worst-case scenario: how to respond if the violence spills over the border, and what to do if thousands of Mexicans seek refuge in the United States.

Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said a multi-agency contingency plan is being developed, and it will focus primarily on law enforcement issues, including how to handle an influx of Mexicans fleeing violence.

"At this point, what we're focusing on is spillover violence," Cesinger told FOXNews.com Thursday. "The immediate concern, if any, would be that."

More than 5,300 people were killed in Mexico last year in connection to criminal activity, and some experts predict things will get worse. Along with Pakistan, Mexico was identified in a Department of Defense report last year as a country that could destabilize rapidly.

If that were to happen, officials are concerned that the drug violence could cross the Rio Grande into southern Texas.

Cesinger said the plan currently does not address a potential flood of refugees, though "It may be something that comes into consideration."

"Worst-case scenario, Mexico becomes the Western hemisphere's equivalent of Somalia, with mass violence, mass chaos," said Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank. "That would clearly require a military response from the United States."

Carpenter, who recently authored a study entitled "Troubled Neighbor: Mexico's Drug Violence Poses a Threat to the United States," said Mexican government could collapse, although it's unlikely.

"That's still a relative longshot, but it's not out of the question," Carpenter said. "It's obviously prudent for all of the states along the U.S.-Mexican border and the military to consider that possibility and not get blindsided should it happen."

Some lawmakers in Texas have begun questioning how to deal with a potentially massive influx of Mexican citizens.

"Do you strengthen the borders so people cannot get in by the thousands every day, or do you create detention centers where people are held until their status is determined?" asked state Sen. Dan Patrick. "This is a potential refugee problem..."

"Let's pray that this does not develop in Mexico," Patrick told FOXNews.com. "However, when you hear the president of the United States cast dire warnings on our country, that even our financial system could collapse, it makes you think. If the United States can face catastrophe, obviously Mexico could as well.

"We have to seriously consider that as a remote possibility, so therefore, we need to have a plan."

Patrick called upon Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McGraw to present a comprehensive plan to the state's Legislature.

McGraw, who reportedly told lawmakers at a recent border security meeting that fears of Mexico's collapse were "well-grounded," was unavailable to comment Thursday, Cesinger said.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff indicated last month that the continuing violence has prompted plans for civilian and military law enforcement should it spread into the United States.

Chertoff said the plan calls for armored vehicles, aircraft and teams of personnel along border hotspots. Military forces, however, would be summoned only if civilian agencies like the Border Patrol were unable to control the violence, the New York Times reported.

DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said the department began developing the plan last summer to address a "broad spectrum of contingencies that could occur" if the violence escalates.

"This violence is happening because the [Felipe] Calderon administration is doing the right thing by cracking down on powerful drug cartels," Kudwa said in a statement. "The cartels are, predictably, fighting back to protect their lucrative criminal livelihood. This plan doesn’t change or otherwise supersede existing authorities; it plans for how a number of government organizations would respond and coordinate if local resources were to be overwhelmed."

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is "continuing to develop that plan," Kudwa said Thursday.

Meanwhile, Tim Irwin, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said he was unaware of any plans in Texas to prepare for an influx of Mexicans seeking refuge. Theoretically, Irwin said, a Mexican citizen could go to a border crossing and seek asylum based on fears of returning home amid the ongoing drug wars.

"It's a valid claim to make, but you'd need to back that up," Irwin said. "That would start the process."

Irwin said the individual would be initially detained and given a "credible fear interview" to determine if his or her concerns are valid. If so, they could be eventually be released into the United States.

But Carpenter said the worst-case scenario — a "sudden surge" of up to 1 million refugees in addition to the hundreds of thousands who enter illegally each year — would be daunting.

"That would be very difficult to handle," Carpenter told FOXNews.com. "I suspect what'd you see fairly soon is an attempt to seal the border as much as possible. That would probably be the initial response, along with the building of additional facilities [to detain the Mexican refugees]. But nobody wants to see that happen."

[TruthBrigade]

Mexico attorney general: We don't need U.S. troops to intervene in drug war

08:16 AM CST on Wednesday, February 25, 2009
By TODD J. GILLMAN / Washington Bureau
tgillman@dallasnews.com
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/022509dnintmexico.4b7011ca.html

WASHINGTON — Mexico’s attorney general said Tuesday he sees no need for U.S. troops to intervene in his country’s war on drug cartels, nor to gear up for a spillover of violence across the border.

“I don’t see that,” Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. “I don’t see the U.S. military playing an active role. The size of the problem on the U.S. side is not calling for that, and certainly Mexico has enough institutional capabilities to deal with this.”

U.S. officials view the violence as a potential national security threat, and last month the Bush administration’s homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, said Washington has drawn up contingency plans for a “surge” of both civilian law enforcement and military assets along the border.

Texas also has developed a contingency plan to cope with spillover violence. On Tuesday, Gov. Rick Perry demanded a tighter security net from Washington, saying he’s asked the Obama administration for more aircraft and “a thousand more troops” to the border.

“I don’t care whether they’re military troops, or they’re National Guard troops or whether they’re customs agents,” he said during a visit to El Paso with retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the former U.S. drug czar who warned two months ago that Mexico could soon become a “narco state.”

“I’m concerned,” Perry said in an interview, calling the city directly across the border from El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, “one of the deadliest cities on the North American continent. … Darn tootin’ it concerns us.”

The drug violence has cost more than 6,000 lives in the past 13 months, as drug gangs fight for territory and trafficking routes and battle a Mexican army crackdown. Juárez, a city of 1.3 million, has had almost a third of the killings.

Last Friday, the city’s police chief resigned after gunmen killed one of his officers and a jail guard. Three days earlier, his top deputy and three other officers were killed, and gangs had threatened to shoot a policeman every 48 hours until the chief quit.

Medina-Mora, over coffee at Mexico’s Embassy a few blocks from the White House, said there is little hope of eradicating the drug trade or ending the violence entirely.

“This is beyond our means and our capability” as long as demand for narcotics persists, he said. Rather, the goal is to regain “normality” for Mexican citizens.

“This means fragmenting and diminishing the power that these criminal groups have accumulated throughout the years, and transform it from a national security problem …to a police problem, to a public security problem,” he said.

Criminals account for nine out of 10 casualties, Medina-Mora said. Most of the others are police, though a few innocent bystanders have been killed. Beheadings of rival gang members have grown more common, and police corruption is widespread.

“The police forces of Tijuana and Juárez were in a way privatized by these criminal groups,” he said. “It’s no accident that violence is very high in those areas, where the local police force was not precisely sound, and to rebuild those forces is difficult.”

He said the violence can also be attributed to the success of Mexico’s aggressive use of Federal Police and army units to disrupt the drug trade. New U.S. figures show that the street price of cocaine has more than doubled since Mexican President Felipe Calderón took office at the end of 2006 and began the crackdown.

“We have been successful in dismantling their criminal infrastructure, building up obstacles for them to produce income,” Medina-Mora said.

The “unwanted” effects of the war on the drug trade, he asserted, will ultimately lead to an easing of violence.

“I think that this is foreseeable in the near future.” he said. “… Criminal groups that are active in this activity are in the process of breakdown.”

Last week in Paris, Economy Secretary Gerardo Ruiz Mateos said that if Calderón had not taken on the cartels, “the next president of the republic would be a narco-trafficker.”

Medina-Mora disagreed, but added: “I certainly believe that there was no choice for President Calderón but to address this in a very bold manner. The challenge from these groups to institutions, particularly local police forces, was already too big.”

He called it natural that the residents of Juárez remain frustrated with the escalating violence. But the lawlessness in border regions doesn’t mean the Mexican state is failing, as some critics assert.

“Mexico has never been a weak state. It is not today. It will not be in the future,” he said. “We do have a critical problem that needs very bold, determined action by the government, which is taking place.”

Medina-Mora said Mexicans remain frustrated with the flow of cash and guns from the U.S. drug trade — $10 billion a year and thousands of weapons, which are illegal in Mexico. He discussed that topic Monday with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and on Tuesday with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

“These groups easily get into their hands assault rifles and weapons that are coming from the U.S.,” he said, adding that although Mexico respects the rights of Americans under the U.S. Constitution, “the Second Amendment was never meant to arm foreign criminal groups.”