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Latin American Leaders Push Back as Trump Orders U.S. Military Action Against Drug Cartels

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Leaders throughout Latin America have strongly opposed former President Donald Trump’s reported directive to use U.S. military forces against drug cartels operating in the region.

Trump’s order reportedly allows the Department of Defense to consider military operations—including drone strikes and naval actions—against cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Many of these groups are based in Mexico, while others operate in Latin America and Haiti. While the plan stops short of a ground invasion, it has alarmed governments concerned about sovereignty and regional stability.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum reassured her citizens, stating firmly, “There will be no invasion. That’s ruled out, absolutely ruled out.” She emphasized that U.S. federal agents already operating in Mexico do so under strict regulations and cooperation agreements, insisting that Mexico maintains control over its territory.

Meanwhile, Colombian President Gustavo Petro criticized the plan, warning that bombing campaigns are not the answer and calling for dialogue and respect for national sovereignty. “National sovereignty exists, and I prefer to talk and coordinate than to impose,” Petro said.

The move has sparked debate about the balance between fighting transnational crime and respecting the independence of Latin American nations. Critics argue military intervention could worsen tensions and potentially destabilize the region.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Citizen Journalist Kidnapped and Murdered Near Texas Border by Mexican Cartel

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Photo Credit: BreitbartA citizen journalist in the border city of Reynosa, Mexico has fallen victim to the hands of the Gulf Cartel in the most brazen attempt to date to silence information about the worsening security situation on the Mexican side of the shared border with Texas.

Social media postings on Thursday morning mourned the passing of Maria Del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, a Reynosa doctor better known by her Twitter handle @Miut3.

Law enforcement sources in Tamaulipas, Mexico confirmed her kidnapping Wednesday afternoon and found her body overnight. Due to the early stages of her investigation authorities didn’t release details of the murder. Officials who spoke with Breitbart Texas said they are not only looking at social media but also at her work as a doctor and acquaintances before determining the motive for the murder.

On Thursday early morning the twitter handle @miut3 posted a farewell message identifying Fuentes by name, posting her picture and telling the community to remain quiet about Reynosa and not make her mistakes “you won’t get anything out of it” as well as warning other citizen journalists that criminals were on to them. The profile image of @Miut3 was changed from the Catwoman photo she always used to a photograph of Fuentes’ bloodied body.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mexican Cartel Beat Texan to Death After Kidnapping and Torturing Him

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Photo Credit: APBy Ildefonso Ortiz.

An American citizen was beaten to death by drug cartel members while another barely managed to survive the kidnapping and torture just south of the Texas border.

The two men have been identified as 38-year-old Erick Candanoza, and 25-year-old Carlos Vela Moreno, who are from the border city of Brownsville and were in the business of selling used cars, according to Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio.

On Wednesday night, the Sheriff’s deputies arrived to the Los Indios International Bridge where the two men had arrived, Candanoza had already died and Vela was rushed to a local hospital where investigators were able to interview him.

The two men had crossed into Mexico a vehicle they were going to sell through the Progreso International Bridge and were driving towards the border city of Matamoros when their car overheated, Lucio said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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15 Arrested After Panga Washes Ashore

By Monica Garske.

U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 15 illegal immigrants early Friday morning after a panga boat washed ashore in the Mission Beach area.

The 35-foot vessel was spotted on the ocean moving north, directly west of Belmont Park, by agents from the Imperial Beach Station at around 3:45 a.m., U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said.

Border Patrol agents in a boat and helicopter from the CBP Office of Air and Marine were called to the location. When the panga arrived on shore around 4 a.m., agents were waiting to take the passengers into custody.

Read more from this story HERE.

TX Border Rancher: Cartels Are Taking Over Open US Border – Politicians Are Lying (+video)

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Ranchers along the Texas border with Mexico are in fear for their lives and the lives of their families.

The Mexican drug cartels are taking over the border.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: How the US Gave Guns to Mexican Cartels

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Matt York

In September 2009, John Dodson, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was assigned to the ATF’s Phoenix office. What he found there shocked him. The bureau was encouraging gun dealers to sell weapons in bulk to known straw buyers, who would funnel those guns to Mexican drug cartels. Known as Operation Fast and Furious, it ended with the death of at least one American law enforcement officer. Dodson became a congressional whistleblower, and the investigation into the operation is ongoing. In this exclusive excerpt from his new book, “The Unarmed Truth,” Dodson explains how tragically inept Fast and Furious was.

‘It’s like the underwear gnomes,” my ATF colleague Lee Casa told me one time as we recounted the latest bizarre goings-on in Phoenix.

“What?” I asked.

“You ever watch ‘South Park’? There’s this episode where all the boys get their underwear stolen by these underwear gnomes. They track them down to get it back and one of them asks why they are stealing everyone’s underwear. The gnomes break out this PowerPoint and reveal their master plan: Phase One: Collect underpants . . . Phase Two: ? . . . Phase Three: Profit.”

“We’re doing the same thing,” he explained. “We know Phase One is ‘Walk guns’ and Phase Three is ‘Take down a big cartel!’ ” Both of us were laughing now; a more fitting and appropriate allegory could never be found. Casa concluded, “Just nobody can figure out what the f–k Phase Two is!”

What was happening did at times almost seem like a spoof. Letting guns “walk” was a tactic that I had never before seen or even contemplated. It simply wasn’t done.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mexican Cartels Hiring US Soldiers as Hit Men

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsMexican cartels are recruiting hit men from the U.S. military, offering big money to highly-trained soldiers to carry out contract killings and potentially share their skills with gangsters south of the border, according to law enforcement experts.

The involvement of three American soldiers in separate incidents, including a 2009 murder that led to last week’s life sentence for a former Army private, underscore a problem the U.S. military has fought hard to address.

“We have seen examples over the past few years where American servicemen are becoming involved in this type of activity,” said Fred Burton, vice president for STRATFOR Global Intelligence. “It is quite worrisome to have individuals with specialized military training and combat experience being associated with the cartels.”

The life sentence handed down in El Paso District court July 25 to an Army private hired by the Juarez Cartel to be the triggerman in a 2009 hit in this border city is the most recent case.

Michael Apodaca, 22, was a private first-class stationed at nearby Fort Bliss Army Base and was attached to the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade when he was recruited and paid $5,000 by the Juarez Cartel to shoot and kill Jose Daniel Gonzalez-Galeana, a cartel member who had been outed as an informant for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Apodaca, who was the triggerman in the May 15, 2009, hit, was sentenced in El Paso District Court July 25.

Read more from this story HERE.

Border conspiracy: local law manipulates crime stats for feds (+hidden video)

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Photo credit: Marion Doss

Every year, the federal government doles out roughly a billion taxpayer dollars to local law enforcement agencies in the form of grants. These agencies — city police and constables, state agencies, county sheriffs — apply for the grants through the Department of Justice’s COPS (for Community Oriented Policing Services) program and use them to hire more personnel, purchase vehicles and equipment, and enhance their crime-fighting capabilities.  But do the federal grants actually help fight crime?

Local law enforcement agencies insist that the grant money is vital to fighting crime and even to their departments’ survival. But is there a dark side to federalizing local law enforcement funding? PJ Media has obtained exclusive hidden camera video that shows federal grant money creates an incentive for local law enforcement to falsify their crime statistics. The fake stats tell a story that ends up benefiting the local agencies that clamor for the grants, while helping Washington sell its story that the border is safer than it really is:

 

Case in point: Hidalgo County, Texas. This border county is home to McAllen, one of the fastest-growing cities in the entire United States. Hidalgo County boasts the most border crossings of any county along the Texas-Mexico border. Property values are rising here despite the stagnant U.S. economy. The county is home both to gang-infested barrios and to a posh neighborhood that boasts fountains, manicured lawns, beautiful new custom homes, and many cars bearing Mexican license plates.

Hidalgo County sits across the border from Reynosa, Mexico, one of the most violent and troubled cities in the Mexican drug wars. But according to some local officials, Mexico’s drug war has not spilled over into their bustling Texas community. They say this even though U.S. forces engaged drug cartel members in a firefight at Chimney Park in Hidalgo County in 2011.

Hidalgo County elected Democrat Guadalupe “Lupe” Treviño sheriff in 2004 and then re-elected him in 2008, and this spring he reportedly spent more than a half a million dollars to clinch the Democratic nomination for a third term as the county’s sheriff. In this heavily Democratic county, Treviño is a cinch to win that third term. The former Austin police officer claims that Hidalgo County has seen a dramatic reduction of violent crime during his tenure. Sheriff Treviño dismisses the presence and influence of drug cartels in his border county. To hear Sheriff Treviño talk, domestic violence may be a bigger issue in Hidalgo County. But as a local news story that was published August 10, 2012, shows, many residents of Hidalgo County do not feel safe and do not believe that crime is down at all. They also do not believe that Sheriff Treviño’s office is concerned about them.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Fast & Furious report-US gov’t supported cartel, allowed drugs into US

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In an absolutely shocking report, Fox 19’s Reality Check suggests that Fast and Furious was really about the federal government supporting a Mexican drug cartel as well as permitting massive quantities of drugs to enter the US.

 

Photo credit: SurfaceWarriors