May 28, 2009  Criminals/narcoterrorists exploit places where lawlessness is systemic. We commend the UN's efforts to gather transit information regarding precursor drug manufacturing chemicals flowing from the Middle East through Africa and then to central and South America.

We commend the US DEA for moving in dark places to end this global trade. This article reports," But it [Mexico] was a latecomer to a global effort to halt the movement of obviously too-large amounts of meth-making chemicals. For much of the past decade, dozens of European and Far East countries, signatories to the 1988 [1] UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, have aggressively policed the pharmaceutical shipments to great effect. Like the proverbial water balloon, every squeeze here sent the chemicals there.

When Mexico finally signed on, its drug mafias set out into the world on a mission of discovery. They rather quickly blazed a winding path of least resistance through non-signatory countries — like state sponsors of terror Syria, Sudan, and Iran — that have neither the means nor the will to join the rest of the world. The Narcotics Control Board only learned about all of this starting in 2007. World governments sent intelligence agents all over the Middle East and Africa in Operation Crystal Flow in 2007 and Operation Ice Block in 2008.

The tonnages seized in these operations were enormous, as were those that got through. I called the DEA recently to learn more about American involvement in these efforts. It turns out the DEA is ramping up its offices in Africa to deal with the problem. It is setting up, for instance, a new station in Accara, Ghana, and beefing up offices in Lagos, Nigeria, Cairo, and South Africa....To date, the International Narcotics Control Board reports laying all of this out have fallen on deaf ears."

This report states that Latin drug cartels rely on their hand picked failed states for supplies which are states coincidentally existing as non signatory nations to the UN counternarcotics treaties. Or rather we should say- this is no coincidence but an obvious check list.
 
Further, "What has yet to be reported anywhere, until now, is that some of Mexico’s most venal drug trafficking organizations, chief among them the Gulf Cartel, have engineered the mother of all end-runs on the crackdowns. It’s an almost unbelievable checkmate strategy that promises to keep the drug mafias rich — and therefore continually able to stave off the good guys. The Mexican trafficking syndicates have been able to maintain one of their most lucrative activities — producing and shipping over the U.S. border almost all of America’s methamphetamine — by moving operations to the failing states of Africa and off-the-grid, America-hating Muslim countries."

When you question why Mexican cartels, Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa have enjoined the FARC with non state Muslim terrorists such as Hezbollah and state-backed criminals, know that it is for criminal profiteering. But this article states that key players here are "off-the-grid, America-hating Muslim countries." Why do you suppose that is and just who are these "off-the-grid, America-hating Muslim countries"?

And finally comes a story that Brazil has apprehended Al Qaeda's top intelligence operative.... not one word on any extradition to... Guantanamo. We seriously doubt that Lula would permit this....or even that such a request for same exists but we do not know.

The AP reports:   "He was arrested under laws that prohibit the promotion of racism in Brazil, not on terrorism charges, the spokeswoman said. She declined to provide more details and would not say when the man was detained. Brazil is home to one of the largest Arab populations outside the Middle East, with most living in Sao Paulo and in Foz do Iguacu, a hotbed of smuggling and contraband in the so-called Tri-Border region near Argentina and Paraguay. U.S. officials have been concerned for years that the area could be a fundraising center for Hezbollah and Hamas — although a recent U.S. State Department report said there was no confirmation "that these or other Islamic extremist groups had an operational presence in the region."
 
We hope that our Brazilian leaders can clear this up for us. What  we read- and of course Reuters and the AP could be wrong, is that Brazil has and holds the key Al Qaeda terrorist not because he is a terrorist but for making racist comments. Almost every single Latin nation has removed what little existed of terrorist laws and reporting on same so while the USA disingenuously and dishonestly claims to KNOW NOTHING of terrorists in South America, there is no functional honest reporting by Latin nation states anyway even as "Air Iran" with Chavez flies Iranian-promoted materiel and humans daily in to Latin America. Calling the chief of Al Qaeda's network a racial criminal yields no track on terrorist activity- only racists. It is a devious ploy to avoid stating the facts which in turn reveals sustained enabling of narcoterrorists by nation states. And so we ask again....just who are these "off-the-grid, America-hating Muslim countries"?

It looks to us that Brazil's claim that any concerns about terrorist infiltration and activities in Brazil as "unfounded" has just been negated whether Brazil likes it or not. Perhaps Brazil will sustain its specious protest that Al Qaeda are just racists and not cold blooded, murdering drug running, humanity killing terrorists....somehow we feel sure they will. And somehow we feel sure that no one will request that Brazil change its laws and its persuasions and call Al Qaeda for what it is: a killing machine, not merely racist....and end its practice of legalized terrorism.
 
The Washington Times reports,  "It is estimated that Mexican cartels earn more than $25 billion a year from narcotics trafficking in the U.S. alone, military officials said. A good portion of the money goes to purchase equipment such as semi-submersible boats, submarines and airplanes as well as to pay for spotters, hired to watch U.S. border security personnel. Military and law enforcement officials also have gathered intelligence that suggests cartels are continuing to build tunnels along the San Diego corridor and to use "sewers and storm drains under the southwest border to smuggle personnel and cargo into the United States." A roadside tamale stand was part of a strategy to alert middlemen and smugglers to open entry points along San Diego's border fence with Tijuana. U.S. military intelligence personnel "observed a woman setting up a road-side tamale stand on the south side of the primary fence with the nose of her vehicle pointing towards known fence breach points," the report said. It added that the woman did not have a single customer all day in the sparsely populated area. In addition, cartel members used taxis and legitimate businesses to smuggle people and drugs without arousing suspicion, according to the report. "
 
There is no question that the drug cartels use and abuse women and children with gay abandon, mimicking human and weapons trafficking practices and routes. Unless and until families stand united to stop this....such as the cartel informant tamale stand woman in the middle of nowhere who was a cartel informant, the practice is one of internal corruption- very systemic and not one curtailed by legalization. Of course Mexican drug cartels will use and abuse children: the USA gifts sanctuary and legal status to children always....the cartel families know this and use these gifts to further their own crimes while hiding in over 300 USA towns which today gift drug cartel gangs with implausible de facto legalization called "sanctuary" where none are arrested for crimes and no deportation exists. This occurs no doubt because the USA's policy does not, like Brazil, want to be "racist." We are being cynical here. Racism is unacceptable. So too is murder. Criminals deserve no shelter...only the facts.

Meanwhile......

Drug Cartels Use Failed States to Traffic in Chemicals

Brazil arrests high ranking Qaeda operative – report

Brazil detains suspected al-Qaida member

EXCLUSIVE: Cartels use children to breach U.S. border

ECrisis notes that as long as the highly vaulted, and at times just a phony decoy,  diplomacy is used and abused to hide crime and sustains diplomatic disconnects, it is important to retain serious inter and intra personal mores and values. Diplomatic safe guards if abused by criminals will never help you- only even handed justice practiced with moral certainty in your own life will further sustainable communities.

-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis