team effort

More Hezbollah in South America, moving closer. Now they are hooking up with Mexican drug cartels (thanks to Switters for the link). 

The article references a memo leaked by the LulzSec hackers. The memo comes from the Tuscon, AZ police department. 

Article conclusion:

Partnerships between Mexican organized crime and Islamic militants are mutually beneficial — and therefore terrifying. The cartels are able to gain smuggling and weapons expertise, as well as access to cheap heroin from Afghanistan and Iran. The terrorists benefit from Mexico's drug war lawlessness and its porous border with their primary target: The United States.

Here's the trade: cartels get smuggling and weapons expertise, cheap heroin from Afghanistan and Iran; and "the terrorists" get access to the US in the lawless territory controlled by the cartels.

It seems that the cartels already have sufficient access to smuggling, weapons expertise, and cheap heroin, given that the authorities can never seem to catch up to the cartels' superior intelligence, as discussed here. But we wouldn't want the narrative about the super-wily cartels aka TCOs (transnational criminal organizations), who can never be caught, to interfere with the one about them being a little wet behind the ears and needing to borrow expertise from Hezbollah. Also, we wouldn't want to look too closely at who moves the drugs out of Afghanistan.

According to the memo, "the terrorists" (Hezbollah) only want to get into the US, "their primary target," and cause trouble.

Hezbollah’s main goal is to cast out any form of Israeli rule and/or occupation. Due to the U.S.’ political and financial support of Israel, Hezbollah regards our nation as a viable target. While there is no immediate or confirmed threat to the Tucson area, recent events and the current middle eastern political arena merit a renewed awareness of the group’s capabilities and presence throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Oh wait so Hezbollah wants to end the occupation, and we keep supporting the occupation and our best friends ever Israel, and so that's why we're the "primary target" of Hezbollah; and even though there is no immediate or confirmed threat, we should have a renewed awareness of this group's presence in our hemisphere rather than tell our friends the Israelis to end the occupation. Got it.


The memo provides the following list to help renew awareness of Hezbollah in South America:

 Recent Events
April 2009 Jamal Yousef is charged in New York City for plotting to sell high-powered weapons to the Colombian FARC in exchange for more than a ton of cocaine.
February 2010 Iran successfully produces first batch of 20% enriched uranium.
June 2010 U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick writes letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking for further investigation of Hezbollah’s potential threat and presence along theU.S. – Mexico border.
June 2010 Lebanese-American, Moussa Ali Hamdan, is arrested in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, for conspiring to provide material support to Hezbollah.
July 2010 Hezbollah operative, Jameel Nasr, is arrested in Mexico for attempting to establish
network in South America.
Sept. 2010 Russia approves sale of advanced cruise missiles to Syria

We have unpacked a lot of this stuff if you want to read the links. We are tired of running them all down. We've written about it exhaustively. This entire narrative is a crock of shit. Just pick any link to an older post and read it and the links in it, and you can spend all day examining all the holes in this bloody narrative.

For instance see: violence around the world for the following details on the Venezuelan-accented Hezbollahniks:

The Myrick memo to DHS included this gem:

Experts believe Iranian agents and members of Hezbollah are going to Venezuela to learn Spanish. When somewhat fluent, they obtain false documents in hopes of crossing the US border as a Hispanic. If stopped by border agents when trying to cross, they try to pass off as Mexican. Only well trained border agents can detect that their Spanish accent is Venezuelan, not Mexican.

And another expert, Dr. Walid Phares, brought up the matter of the accents separately:

Venezuela has granted Hezbollah operatives permission to organize their presence under the protection of Iran’s Pasdaran and local intelligence, and according to U.S. Department of Defense reports, the Venezuelans are providing Iranian units with Spanish language instruction with the aim of inserting them in a Latin American context.

Aha, the matter of the accents again. I think this detail may be important, because as Myrick points out, only certain "well trained border agents" can detect that the Iranian and Hezbollah terrorists (who are hell-bent on harming Americans and Israelis) learned Spanish-as-a-second-language in Venezuela, not Mexico, as their accent will prove as long as they are caught by the certain unspecified but well-trained border agents, probably the same sorts of experts who recognize how similar the Mexican border terrain in San Diego is to Israel's border terrain. Otherwise, being very wily, the Venezuelan-accented Hezbollahniks will slip right through the border, and that will surely be very regrettable, because they hate us for our freedoms.

Why is this an important detail? Aside from it being ridiculous, it fits into the narrative that we are only spared by LUCK. We noted this in the last post. Daniel Pipes wrote an account of Operation Smokescreen in which he notes that the hapless US authorities routinely bungle matters and we are only saved from terrorist doom by lucky breaks. REGRETTABLE. By having the ridiculous narrative detail that the "terrorists" learn Spanish-as-a-second-language in Venezuela, which gives them a unique accent that can only be detected by the certain well-trained border agents, no doubt you can see that some terrorists will definitely slip through that porous border and it is only a matter of time before luck runs out. Because we won't have enough of these special well-trained border agents, and/or the hapless authorities will bungle matters. The narrative sets up the failure which leads to the scenario. Reverse engineering.

The Tuscon memo also gets into the tattoos of suspected Hezbollah members. For instance, a tattoo of an AK47 on a man's arm is a representation of the AK47 on the Hezbollah flag. Hmm, CONFLATE MUCH?

If we're going to talk about tattoos and assault weapons, let's include all the other mafias that love tattoos and assault weapons, like the "Russian" mafia, the Japanese yakuza, and the US military, just to narrow it down to a couple hundred thousand people.

izismile.com
that's US Army not Hezbollah

So, whatever. This is the narrative. A13 gave us another link to another twist in the narrative: now the Mexican cartels are going to be just like Knights Templars. That's right. Just to mindfuck you a little more, some cartels reportedly use medieval symbols and codes of honor now: hooded tunics, blood initiation rituals, 'gentleman'-like behavior such as respecting women and killing snitches and their entire families, etc.

So listen, DON'T WORRY! We are here today to tell you that the White House has released a strategy to combat these transnational criminal organizations, and wait until you see the team.

Just over a year ago, we released President Obama’s National Security Strategy.  That strategy commits this administration to the pursuit of four enduring national interests:  security, prosperity, respect for universal values, and the shaping of an international order that can meet the challenges of the 21st century.  One of the most significant of those challenges is the expanding size, scope, and influence of transnational organized crime and its impact on U.S. and international security and governance.  

Transnational organized crime is a challenge of the 21st century, and a significant one because of its expanding size, scope and influence. It's a Big Problem. What is the Big Solution? A great BIG TEAM of expanding size, scope and influence. Naturally.

• Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan
• Attorney General Eric Holder
• Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
• Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns
• Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen
• Deputy Administrator of USAID Don Steinberg
• Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske
• Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
• FBI Director Robert Mueller
• Representatives from DOD, Customs and Border Protection
• Representatives from DEA, Immigrations and Custom Enforcement
• Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control
• US Secret Service
• The Intelligence Community
• Diplomatic corps, state and local law enforcement, academia, industry, congressional committees, NGOs and civil society organizations, etc.

What do you suppose the chances are that all these people on YOUR TAX PAYROLL will be able to stop all those people on the TCO PAYROLLS?

http://taheenacelebrity.blogspot.com/2009/02/if-u-seek-esseker.html

http://mafija.biz/russian-organized-crime/

"Transnational criminal networks are striking alliances with corrupt elements of national governments -- including intelligence and security personnel -- and they use the power and influence of those elements to further their criminal activities."

But it has nothing to do with ANY of the people on the great big team.

Rest Assured.

These alliances only happen in *other* governments, corrupt governments like the ones you might find in South America.

Here's the strategy:
 

• First, protect Americans and our partners from the harm, violence, and exploitation perpetrated by transnational criminal networks.  
• Second, help partner countries strengthen governance and transparency, break the corruptive power of transnational criminal networks, and sever state-crime alliances.  
• Third, break the economic power of transnational criminal networks and protect strategic markets and the U.S. financial system from criminal penetration and abuse.  
• Fourth, defeat criminal networks that pose the greatest threat to national security by targeting their infrastructures, depriving them of their enabling means, and preventing the criminal facilitation of terrorist activities.  
• And fifth, build international consensus, multilateral cooperation, and public-private partnerships to defeat transnational organized crime. 

It all depends on how they define the TCOs. Because if anyone thinks they will look at Israel, and how all the top organized crime bosses in the world have Israeli passports, and how Israel will not extradite these people, one would be disappointed. They will not focus on Israel, or banks laundering money. They will focus on the border with Mexico and whatever things that can be arranged thereabouts.

We start here at home...and severing the illicit flow of money and weapons across the Southwest border -- to lessen the threat and impact of transnational crime domestically as well as on our foreign partners.......and a rewards program to help capture the world’s top transnational crime figures [except the ones safe in Israel - ed,]. Yesterday President Obama signed an executive order designed to block all assets and property under U.S. jurisdiction of designated major transnational organized crime organizations that threaten the critical interests of the United States. Yesterday, the President also signed a new proclamation barring admission to the United States of persons designated under this executive order and other comparable programs.  The proclamation also provides additional legal authority for barring admission to the United States of persons subject to United Nations Security Council travel bans. 

It all depends how they define the problem. They make a list. They put the names of "the terrorists" on the list. They leave other names off the list. Now the proper people have been "designated." It is SO SIMPLE.

Eric Holder made remarks. Eric Holder used to be the top legal counsel for Chiquita during a period when Chiquita paid paramilitary groups to kill peasants in Guatemala, calling them suspected guerrillas or criminals.

Janet Napolitano made remarks. Janet Napolitano appeared with Frank Lautenberg to discuss new Homeland Security rules back in November 2010. Frank Lautenberg of the infamous Lautenberg Amendment, which made "special provisions" for Jewish and evangelical refugees to emigrate to the US from the former Soviet Union, without having to prove any persecution. Thus for over twenty years hundreds of thousands of "refugees" have come to the US coincidentally at the same time that "Russian" mafia rooted across this country.

This is the TEAM that's going to protect you from TCOs.

"It’s especially relevant to the work we’ve been doing along the Southwest border, where the transnational organized criminal activity of drug cartels is a major concern....Over the past two and a half years, CBP and ICE have seized 75 percent more currency, 31 percent more drugs, and 64 percent more weapons along the Southwest border....In November, the administration established the Border Intelligence Fusion Center of the El Paso Intelligence Center, which provides U.S. law enforcement, border enforcement and investigative agencies with the intelligence necessary to aid in their work along the Southwest border. " ~ Janet Napolitano

William Burns of the US State Department remarks:

Global markets for drugs fund the weapons of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the FARC in Colombia.  Supplies of illegal Latin American drugs are making their way across West Africa.  In the tri-border area of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, individuals with connections to violent extremist groups have been active in drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms trafficking, and money laundering.

William Cohen of Treasury remarks:

The Treasury Department is employing these new powers by implementing sanctions today against four significant transnational criminal organizations.  First, the Brothers' Circle, also as the Moscow Center, which is a multiethnic criminal group composed of leaders and senior members of several criminal organizations largely based in countries of the former Soviet Union.  ...Second, the Camorra, which is a very large Italian organized crime group earning roughly $25 billion each year from illicit activities. ...Third, the Yakuza of Japan, with an estimated 80,000 members, engages in serious criminal activities, including narcotics and weapons trafficking, and a variety of white-collar crimes....  And finally, an already designated drug kingpin organization, Los Zetas, is an extremely violent transnational criminal organization based in Mexico.

Focusing on Russians, Italians, Japanese and Mexicans. CHECK.

We are good to go.