From Volume 8, Issue 1 of EIR Online, Published Jan. 6, 2009

United States News Digest

McCaffrey: U.S., Mexico Should Fight Narcoterror Together

Jan. 2 (EIRNS)—Former President Bill Clinton's anti-drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey (ret.), who is today an adjunct professor at West Point, issued a dramatic and accurate warning on Dec. 29, that the United States must quickly and fully come to the aid of its southern neighbor, which is now "fighting for survival against narcoterrorism.... Mexico is on the edge of the abyss—it could become a narco-state in the coming decade."

U.S. aid must respect Mexico's sovereignty, and it must include an abrupt end to U.S. refusal to shut down weapons trafficking and money shipments from the United States into Mexico, McCaffrey emphasized. Perhaps 90% of the high-powered weapons used by the cartels are smuggled across the U.S. border. "The confiscation rates by Mexican law enforcement of hand grenades, PGSs, and AK-47s are at the level of wartime battlefield seizures. It is hard to understand the seeming indifference and incompetence of U.S. authorities at the state and Federal level to such callous disregard for a national security threat to a neighboring democratic state. We would consider it an act of warfare from a sanctuary state if we were the victim," he wrote.

McCaffrey's warning constitutes a head-on attack against speculator George Soros's Opium War against the United States and its neighbors. It was issued in the form of a public After Action Report for West Point, following McCaffrey's Dec. 5-7 visit to Mexico, where he participated in a meeting of the International Forum of Intelligence and Security Specialists which advises the Mexican government.

McCaffrey spoke out repeatedly against the conduct of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld wars, and also, as Clinton's 1995-2000 anti-drug chief, took on Soros, by name, and his drug-legalization drive, as a threat to the United States. He also allied with Colombia to stop Wall Street's war to force Colombia to capitulate to the drug cartels.

Mexico's Calderón government is committed to fighting the drug trade, McCaffrey argues, but it requires significant assistance from the United States, quickly, before the incredible levels of narcoterrorism, and the corruption and intimidation of the populace convince political authorities to remain passive. Already, he warns, there is "increasing discussion of legalization of drugs, or acquiescence in the drug trade."

"Now is the time, during the opening months of a new U.S. Administration, to jointly commit to a fully-resourced major partnership as political equals of the Mexican government," McCaffrey concluded.

Soros's 'Mexican' Drug War Is Coming to U.S.

Jan. 2 (EIRNS)—With Mexican-based drug cartels having gang members in over 200 U.S. cities, President-elect Obama will face an immediate crisis of escalating violence from cartels battling for greater U.S. market share, today's Washington Times blares.

The National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC)/U.S. Justice Department had reported in April 2008, in its "Cities in Which Drug Trafficking Organizations Operate in the United States," that Mexican cartels operate in at least 195 U.S. cities, and in every state except Montana and Vermont. By the time the National Drug Threat Assessment 2009 report was released in mid-December, that number had risen to 230.

Inside Mexico, anywhere from 4,000 to 5,300 people were killed in drug-related violence in 2008. At least 450 Mexican police officers and soldiers have been killed since January 2007. In June, Congress passed legislation to provide Mexico with $400 million for law enforcement training and equipment, but this includes no weapons for the vastly outgunned Mexican police forces. President George W. Bush has tried to shut down the NDIC since 2005, including in his 2009 budget.

The Washington Times reports that Obama has said his Administration will target transnational gangs, violence, drugs, and organized crime, citing Obama's statement that "it's time to work together to find the best practices that work across the hemisphere, and to tailor approaches to fit each country." He will direct his Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano to "sit down with all their counterparts in the Americas during my first year in office. We need tougher border security, and a renewed focus on busting up gangs and traffickers crossing our border. As President, I'll make it clear that we're coming after the guns; we're coming after the money laundering, and we're coming after the vehicles that enable this crime."

This will not please George Soros, the number-one funder of drug legalization efforts in the United States, who thought he had bought the Democratic Party.

Obama's Transition website supplied the curt answer, "The President-elect does not support marijuana decriminalization" to a "Round One" question arguing for it. In "Round Two" of questions, whose answers are to appear in coming days, three more questions on drug decriminalization appear.

Pelosi, Obama To Meet on Jobs, Economic Crisis

Jan. 1 (EIRNS)—Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would like to have a bill on the economy to be voted up the House of Representatives as soon as the "week of Jan. 12," says the Washington Post today. She will meet President-elect Barack Obama early next week, after he moves to Washington, D.C.

But, there is no concrete legislation yet being proposed, and the House is still in the stage of planning hearings which won't be finalized until after the Pelosi-Obama meeting. Pelosi said in a letter to House Democrats that the first hearing, on Jan. 7, will be about "the need to act with deliberate speed to safeguard as many as three million jobs" by making needed investments in infrastructure, alternative energy science, etc. The vague wording may be due to the fact that Obama has not yet given Pelosi the proposals specifying what the White House wants. The Jan. 7 hearing will be followed by a series of hearings before several committees, says the Post. Witnesses would include Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary under Clinton, and Mark Zandi of Moodys.com.

Sources in the Democratic Party have told EIR that Obama would like to have a bill that immediately creates jobs to sign on Jan. 20.

Politics, Indeed, Makes Strange Bedfellows

Jan. 1 (EIRNS)—New York City political consultant Josh Isay is very busy these days, managing the political campaigns of two unlikely bedfellows: Caroline Kennedy and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu. Kennedy hired Isay, a campaign consultant to both Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to manage her efforts to win the appointment to the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton, presuming the latter is confirmed as the next Secretary of State. Several weeks earlier, the New York Observer received a confirming note from Isay that he had signed up with Netanyahu, to bolster the Likud boss's campaign to be the next prime minister of Israel, in elections scheduled for February.

Israeli Spy with Links to Pollard Reaches Plea Agreement

Jan. 1 (EIRNS)—Ben Ami Kadish, an 85-year-old American engineer who worked at a U.S. Army research laboratory for decades, has reached a plea agreement with Federal prosecutors, to avoid a long jail sentence. Kadish admitted that he had passed U.S. military secrets to Israel, and identified a former science attaché at the Israeli UN Mission in New York City, Yosef Yagur, as his controller and the man to whom he passed the classified material. Yagur fled the United States in 1985, when Jonathan Pollard was arrested as an Israeli spy. Yagur had been one of Pollard's handlers as well. Kadish was arrested in March 2008, and confessed to the FBI that he had passed 50-100 classified documents, including details of the U.S. nuclear weapons program and engineering specs on the F-15 fighter jet, to Yagur during the early 1980s, the same time that the Israeli official was getting massive amounts of Pentagon secrets from Pollard.

Concealed Weapons at the Obama Inauguration

Dec. 29 (EIRNS)—A month after Barack Obama was elected, and in the midst of concern about his possible assassination, the Bush/Cheney Department of Interior announced a change in regulations that could directly compromise the President-elect's security. Starting in early January, people will be allowed to carry concealed weapons in U.S. National Parks, as long as they have concealed firearms permits in their home states, and the district or state which the park is in allows concealed weapons. Obama is to be inaugurated Jan. 20 on the National Mall, two miles of National Park land.

Washington, D.C. does not allow concealed weapons, but The Hill reports that D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and others have said that the confusion over the new Bush/Cheney regulation could lead visitors to bring concealed weapons to the Inauguration.

All rights reserved © 2009 EIRNS