With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. - Herman Melville > Moby Dick
“What’s very troubling is the fact that at a time when we in law enforcement and our state need help from the federal government, instead of sending help they put up billboard-size signs warning our citizens to stay out of the desert in my county because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits and all these other things and then, behind that, they drag us into court with the ACLU,” Babeu said.
What is the Obama Administration's goal? Why do they refuse to meaningful defend the border and why do the want to prevent the States from doing the job the Federal Government refuses to do?
Could it be that the Obama Administration does not think that the border should be effectively closed to illegal immigrants?
On the day parts of Arizona's immigration law, SB 1070, went into effect, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in the news for another reason: there's a price on his head - allegedly offered by a Mexican drug cartel.
This is not the first instance of a Mexican Drug Cartel threatening to kill US Law Enforcement Officers.
A Mexican drug cartel has threatened Nogales police officers, saying they will be targeted for retribution if they conduct off-duty drug busts.
Nogales Police Chief Jeffrey Kirkham told the Nogales International on Friday that the threats stemmed from an incident approximately two weeks ago, when off-duty officers surprised marijuana smugglers while riding horseback in an unincorporated border area east of town.
The officers seized part of the drug load, and the smugglers were able to flee back into Mexico with the other part.
“As a result of that,” Kirkham said, “our officers have received threats from the cartel that they are to look the other way if they are off-duty, or they will be targeted by a sniper or by other means.”
In our nation's history, we have dealt with a similar problem with Mexico.
It resulted in what the history books call "The Punitive Expedition" or "The Poncho Villa Expedition."
In late 1915 - early 1916, Poncho Villa began a campaign of killing Americans living and working in Northern Mexico. It escalated from there to a cross border war into New Mexico.
Poncho Villa's raid into Columbus New Mexico, killing 18 and wounding 8, sparked a military response from the US.
A General Pershing type incursion into Mexico to hunt down Mexican Narco-Terrorist may have to be repeated if the Democrat led US Government is unable or unwilling to secure our borders with Mexico. This would not be a good war, though it may become a necessary one.
The Democrats in Washington D.C. need to recognize the risks they are running by refusing to look at the cross border threats from Mexican gangsters as serious threats to our national security.
So far to date, the most aggressive and forward posture that the Obama Administration has initiated to contain the violence that is spilling across the border from Mexico, is to put up signs in the desert on the American side of the border, warning Americans to stay out of threatened US land. Tactically, Obama has implemented a policy of retreat.
The signs were posted over a month after a Pinal County Sheriff's Deputy was shot by suspected drug traffickers while patrolling the area around the junction of Interstate 8 and Arizona Highway 84. Last week, two bodies belived to those of drug mules were found shot to death in the same area where the deputy was ambushed. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said in an interview Tuscon's KGUN TV that the cartels are in increasing control of parts of Arizona, including Pinal County.
As unpleasant as it may be for Obama and the Democrats that control Washington D.C. to consider, they have to secure the US border with Mexico. If they fail to do so, they will be responsible for having failed to prevent a war that we will end up having to fight on our southern border.
[Fenway's Not Another New England Sports Blog! has more on the topic of the Mexican Narco-insurgency and the illegal immigration issue. Its worth taking a look at.]
With Congress gridlocked on an immigration bill, the Obama administration is considering using a back door to stop deporting many illegal immigrants - what a draft government memo said could be "a non-legislative version of amnesty."
The memo, addressed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas and written by four agency staffers, lists tools it says the administration has to "reduce the threat of removal" for many illegal immigrants who have run afoul of immigration authorities.
On the surface, it is about the politics of illegal immigration.
But there is something happening here that is working below the surface. It is a "Big Picture" thing. It is something that is working on an emotional level in the Modern American Left.
It explains much of the way the modern American Left feels about the problem that we have with illegal immigration.
John Lennon's Imagine is not just a silly pop song. It is their prayer, their hymnal, their anthem. It is a dream that the Modern American Left hopes is our future and the whole worlds future.
(Yoram Hazony's Israel Through European Eyes explains why Israel is hated by much of the European, and by extension, the American Left. The core of his argument is compelling and it has important implications for all of the Western Nations that fought in WWII.)
In enjoining Arizona’s landmark immigration law, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton maintains the Obama administration’s carefully cultivated fiction: that what concerns the White House regarding S.B. 1070 is its effect on legal, rather than illegal, aliens. Almost nowhere in the government’s briefs or the judge’s ruling is the arrest and detention of illegal aliens addressed. This fiction is transparent, however. The real threat posed by S.B. 1070 was that it would disrupt the de facto amnesty that the executive branch has accorded to the vast majority of illegal aliens. It would start to implement congressional mandates and the public will that the immigration laws be enforced. For that reason, it had to be stopped.
[Emphasis is mine.]
The ruling will be appealed. Jan Brewer knew that no matter which way Clinton appointed U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled, the law would be appealed up through the courts, eventually reaching the Supreme Court Of The United States.
