Has the fog of war descended on the U.S. southern border, obscuring the reporting of news and concealing the truth about what is going on along the Rio Grande and in Arizona and California? Many violent incidents are not widely covered, if at all, by the media; some coverage, when it does occur, comes weeks to months afterward.
According to recent information on the FBI’s website, “brutal abductions and murders” are not isolated incidents on the U.S. side. (Emphasis is from the original).
Emerging from the port of entry’s administrative offices into a sunny San Diego morning, Special Agent Dean Giboney spoke in fluent Spanish with the man whose temporary U.S. visa he had just helped renew.
The kidnappings, beatings, and murders that mark the extreme drug-related violence of Mexican border cities such as Tijuana and Juarez have increasingly spilled over the border. Agent Giboney is hoping the man–we’ll call him José –can provide information that will help in the Bureau’s efforts to dismantle the cartels and the criminal enterprises they fuel.
The following are some of the better-publicized stories being reported from the southern border. How many of them are already familiar to readers?
- Phoenix AZ is now the kidnapping capital of America and the number two city in the world for kidnappings.
- Judicial Watch FOIA demands released a flood of information documenting hundreds of incursions by the Mexican military into U.S. territory, most of which are denied by federal authorities when contacted.
- U.S. Consulate employee Lesley A. Enriquez and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, and one other man were gunned down by a cartel gunman. A State Department investigation concluded that there was no cartel involvement, but that report is contradicted by the gunman himself and U.S. intelligence. The captured gunman stated that the U.S. consulate in Juarez, across from El Paso, had been “infiltrated” by a rival gang and that Enriquez had helped rival gang members obtain U.S. visas.
- Americans have been kidnapped in Texas and had their business torched.
- Mexican drug cartels are openly threatening American police and shooting at U.S. law enforcement.
- [T]he Department of Homeland Security has released nearly 500 illegal immigrants–who remain fugitives–from terrorist-sponsoring countries and others known to present a danger to the U.S.
Six weeks ago, the Sonoran Weekly Review (Ariz.) dropped all pretenses and called it The War on the Southern Border.
Just this week, next to the home of U.S. Army Intelligence training base Ft Huachuca, the United States has been invaded by foreign enemies. These enemies are Narco-terrorists, illegal aliens, criminals, etc. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu has described the situation and his inability to protect the United States from a law enforcement approach.
“We are outgunned, we are outmanned, and we don’t have the resources to fight this.”
How many more stories go unreported is a guess. What are the reasons? Why do violence and murders go unreported? After all, this is the United States and we’re not talking about UFOs.
One phrase that often appears when talking with people who live close to the Mexican border — in both phone conversations and in emails — is, “This sort of thing happens all the time and never gets reported.” One reason? Fear.
The following video of a local Texas TV station doing a report on an incursion by a Mexican Marina (Navy) helicopter provides some evidence. Notice that the reporter reveals she can’t get any of the townspeople to appear on camera and “a dozen federal agencies refused to comment.”
[youtube VHGgFgTiyWw nolink]
Two other incidents occurred in the Falcon Lake area during May that received practically no media coverage: reports of cartel pirates attacking Texas fishermen on the U.S. side of Falcon Lake and the Los Zetas plan to blow up the Falcon Dam. About the pirates: it’s legal to carry a loaded firearm on the Texas side of the lake but not on the Mexican side. Dwayne Deets, a fisherman from Houston said, “I just pray no one gets killed out there.”
In the case of the Falcon Dam, U.S. officials became aware of the plot only when the Los Zetas cartel warned residents on the Mexican side of the border to “Get out” using pamphlets and bullhorns. A “small army” of federal and local law enforcement “swarmed” the area around the dam, finding dynamite and foiling the plot.
Though this incident occurred in May, the only media mention was a June story in the Houston Chronicle. Three weeks later, Fox News mentioned the plot during routine coverage of a House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power hearing. Dynamite found along a dam serving four million people and only two media reports–both weeks later. Readers don’t know how many weeks because officials would only state that the plot happened “sometime in May.”
In June, the U.S. government closed over 3500 acres along the Arizona-Mexican border to Americans, stating that it can no longer protect Americans who venture into the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Park contained within the restricted area. This story has received wider national coverage than most — partly because of the efforts of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer in her fight with the Obama administration over SB 1070.
But there’s much, much more.
Continued tomorrow
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.