Meanwhile, Mexico Still Corrupt

Posted on May 29, 2015May 29, 2015 by Denise Simon

You hear very little about the corruption, the massacres and the crimes in Mexico mostly because the cartels and criminals have killed or bought off the media. Once in a while some items are passed on for publication. Do you ever wonder what the president of Mexico is doing? Do you wonder if the United States or the United Nations pays attention to Mexico?

Mexico is a failed state, examples below.

US Banks Close Branches Along Mexico Border to Prevent Money Laundering

Major US banks have recently closed branches along the southern border with Mexico in an attempt to crack down on money laundering, a reflection of the ease with which Mexican drug traffickers can legitimize illicit proceeds north of the border.

In recent months, major banks such J.P. Morgan and Bank of America have closed their branches in the border town of Nogales, Arizona, reported The Wall Street Journal. Other banks, including Wells Fargo and Chase, have reportedly closed hundreds of customer accounts, many of which belonged to Mexican nationals.

The anti-money laundering measures come amid tightening regulations stipulating that banks can be hit with stiff fines if they fail to adequately monitor suspicious accounts, reported National Public Radio.

Banks on the Mexican side of the border have also recently stepped up their efforts to combat money laundering operations. Some Mexican banks have started refusing to accept US dollars, according to The Associated Press.

InSight Crime Analysis

US banks have real reason to fear criminal networks will use their financial services to launder money. Arizona has previously been singled out as a principal money laundering destination for Mexican drug cartels, and bank executives told The Wall Street Journal that Southern California and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas are also high-risk border areas. As evidenced by the recent decisions, in some cases it is easier for banks to simply close accounts and branches rather than attempting to keep criminals from using their financial services.

Several high-profile cases point to the ability of Mexican drug traffickers to legalize their illicit funds via the US banking system. In 2010, Wachovia (which is now Wells Fargo) reached an agreement with the US government after prosecutors found that at least $110 million in drug proceeds had been laundered through the bank. In 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also uncovered a scheme in which Mexico‘s Zetas cartel laundered money through a horse racing enterprise by using Bank of America accounts.

In addition, the decisions by major banks to close their border branches suggest that putting pressure on banks — rather than going after individuals or criminal networks — may be the most effective way to combat money laundering. A recent legal decision, in which a conviction was overturned in the Zetas horse racing case, demonstrates just how difficult it can be for prosecutors to go after the money launderers themselves.

The case of 43 the missing/dead students:

He said three alleged gang members claimed the students were handed over to them by police.

They said some were already asphyxiated and they shot the others dead, before setting fire to all the bodies.

A total of 43 students went missing after clashing with police on 26 September in the town of Iguala.

A spokesman for their families said they would not accept they were dead until it had been officially confirmed by Argentine forensic scientists working on the case.

Bags found near river

The suspects from the Guerreros Unidos drug gang were recently arrested in connection with the disappearances.

Relatives of the missing said they had been told that six bags of unidentified human remains had been found along a river near where the students vanished.

There was this case in 2013 in Mexico:

MEXICO CITY — He admitted being a salaried killer for a drug cartel, the kind of assassin who preferred slashing his victims’ throats.

On Tuesday, after serving three years behind bars, he was released from a Mexican detention center and was on his way to the United States — where he would soon live as a free man.

Or, rather, a free boy.

The killer, Edgar Jimenez Lugo, known to Mexican crime reporters as “El Ponchis,” is 17 years old. He was 11 when he killed his first victim, and he was 14 when he was arrested, in December 2010, at the Cuernavaca airport, along with luggage containing two handguns and packets of cocaine.

Back then, Jimenez’s tender age transformed him into a media phenomenon, one that shocked Mexico, and the world, into recognizing the extent to which the country’s brutal drug war was consuming its young. And now it is one of the reasons why Jimenez — who claims to have killed four people at an age before most kids get their learner’s permit to drive — will soon be mingling with the residents of San Antonio.

Under the laws at the time in the Mexican state of Morelos, where he was prosecuted, Jimenez could be sentenced to a maximum of only three years of incarceration because he was a minor. A judge ordered him released Tuesday, a few days before his three years were up.

And because he is a U.S. citizen, born in San Diego, he has every right to return to his home country.

“Apparently he’s paid his debt for whatever crimes he was convicted of [in Mexico], and I’m not aware of any charges the U.S., federal or state, has against him,” Michelle Lee, an FBI special agent based in San Antonio, said Tuesday. “The situation with him is really no different than any other U.S. national who commits a crime, completes their sentence and is released.”

Jimenez, who had lived, and killed, in Jiutepec, a town near the popular resort city of Cuernavaca, was on a plane headed to San Antonio, where he has family, Jorge Vicente Messeguer Guillen, the Morelos government secretary, said in a TV interview.

Once in San Antonio, Messeguer said, Jimenez would be sent to what he referred to as a “support center” but would not be locked up.

Graco Ramirez, the Morelos governor, said in a separate TV interview that Jimenez’s rehabilitation in the Mexican penal system had been “notable.” He also said that Jimenez had to leave Mexico because his life might be in danger.

U.S. State Department officials would not elaborate on what Jimenez’s living arrangements would be when he arrived in Texas. Nor did they clarify what Messeguer meant by a “support center.”

“We are aware of Edgar Lugo’s upcoming release by the Mexican authorities following completion of his sentence,” a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said in a statement Tuesday. “We are closely coordinating with our Mexican counterparts and appropriate authorities in the United States regarding Edgar Lugo’s release.

“Due to privacy considerations, we do not publicly discuss details of matters involving U.S. citizens,” he said.

Jimenez’s case is far from unique. In February, a 13-year-old boy was arrested in the state of Zacatecas along with a group of gunmen. The boy, identified as Armando, confessed to participating in at least 10 slayings. He was freed because the state criminal code does not prosecute minors younger than 14. A month later, the boy and his mother were found slain along with four other people.

In 2011, a 15-year-old who went by the name Erick was arrested and said he worked for the same group that Jimenez did, participating with other teenagers in kidnappings and drug dealing. He was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.

U.S. Declares Cuba Normal Despite Terror History

Posted on May 29, 2015May 29, 2015 by Denise Simon

As you read this short notice, consider that now that relations with Cuba have been formally normalized, will the next step be to turn Guantanamo over to Cuba and terminate the lease, which was designed in perpetuity?

Kerry signed the order on Cuba today placing Cuba back to a pre-Cold War status. Only 3 countries left that carry the distinction of a state sponsor of terror .

The step comes as officials from the countries continue to hash out details of restoring full diplomatic relations, including opening embassies in Washington and Havana and returning ambassadors to the two countries. Friday’s removal of Cuba from the terrorism list had been a key Cuban demand.

President Barack Obama recommended to Congress last month that Cuba be removed from the U.S. list, triggering a 45-day congressional notification period.

State Sponsors of Terrorism

Countries determined by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism are designated pursuant to three laws: section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act, section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act, and section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act. Taken together, the four main categories of sanctions resulting from designation under these authorities include restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions.

Designation under the above-referenced authorities also implicates other sanctions laws that penalize persons and countries engaging in certain trade with state sponsors. Currently there are three countries designated under these authorities: Iran, Sudan, and Syria.

Country	Designation Date
Iran	January 19, 1984
Sudan	August 12, 1993
Syria	December 29, 1979

Recommendation to Rescind Cuba’s Designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism

(Apr. 14): In December 2014, as a critical component of establishing a new direction for U.S.–Cuba relations, the President directed the State Department to launch a review of Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism and provide a report to him within six months. Last week, the State Department submitted a report to the White House recommending, based on the facts and the statutory standard, that President Obama rescind Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

Country Reports on Terrorism

U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism.

The U.S. State Department keeps a summary and classification on countries. To read further on those go here.

WH Declares that Iraq/ISIS is Iraq’s Problem

Posted on May 28, 2015May 28, 2015 by Denise Simon

If you wonder why there is no strategy to defeat ISIS, it is because the White House, meaning Barack Obama and Susan Rice have formally declared that the civil war in Iraq and Syria belong to others to handle. The United States will not be responsible for securing Iraq, PERIOD.

This has been known for quite some time at the Pentagon and military leaders including the SecDefs, both Hagel and Carter have written and voiced their immediate requests for a strategy. There are liaisons between the Pentagon and Congress that provide information to key lawmakers, there is no doubt that the Pentagon is reaching out for some real help from Congress. When Senator Dick Durbin, who is anti-war requests a strategy and safe zones of the military and the White House, the case is proven, Congress is current on the bumbling by the White House with regard to ISIS.

Earlier this month, Durbin asked Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Ash Carter about the feasibility of establishing the zones when they testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Durbin is the ranking member of the powerful subcommittee, which controls the Pentagon’s purse strings.

Carter added, “We would need to fight to create such a space, and then fight to keep such a space.” The Pentagon readily admits the Islamic State cannot be defeated without addressing the glaring Syria question, but it has adopted an “Iraq first” strategy toward the terrorist group, focusing U.S. airpower in a country where the government requested it. But after the fall of Ramadi last weekend, more lawmakers are renewing calls for deeper U.S. military involvement, including embedding American troops with Iraqi forces to call in airstrikes.

President Obama, after months of equivocation over how to respond to the takeover of parts of Iraq and Syria by radical militants, announced in September that the United States would “lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” the White House swung quickly into action, sending proposed legislation to train and equip Syrian rebels to Capitol Hill that same day.

Unfortunately, the White House failed to consult with the Pentagon—which would be doing most of the rolling back—on the timing or details of the announcement.
To be part of the U.S. coalition, members had to offer some assistance. That assistance could be any type of cooperation with such participation as MRE’s, a terrorism training class, publishing bulletins, fighter jets, approved air-space for refueling or just holding a conference call. Exactly, what kind of help is Estonia or Greece offering? Here is the document on the coalition members and requests for involvement.

While U.S. aircraft are flying a handful of sorties a day, 70% of the aircraft return to base without dropping ordnance because of lack of approval and no quality ground-controllers delivering coordinates. We are just wasting fuel and essentially practicing an air campaign.

Our military knows how to fight this fight as they have successfully performed the operations before. Today, on the ground in Iraq are Shiite militia, Iranian proxies coordinating ground operations for the sake of their future victory, Iraq will belong to Iran, as will Syria. In the case of Syria however, the forecast is it will be a split state between Iran and Russia. The same is likely for Libya.

Today, Bashir al Assad is running an aggressive campaign to defeat al Nusra and ISIS under the promise of future financial support from Iran. Assad’s success will be fleeting at best, even while Hezbollah is aiding in some measure to protect the regime. Once again, the U.S. air operations in Syria are in coordination with Assad, consider that both state’s aircraft have been in the air at the same time. That puts the U.S. siding with Hezbollah. Yes…real twisted conditions for sure.

Poll Tested Social Engineering, Religion and Policy

Posted on May 27, 2015May 27, 2015 by Denise Simon

Do you ever wonder where social issues, legislating behavior, growing policy on you personally really comes from? Any why now? Take note, those ‘Millennials’ are the target.

Enter Public Religion Research Institute who is in partnership with liberal think tanks, academia and the United Nations for world affair affects. No longer can you think independently as you are provided issues with liberal socialist bents and the matters are poll tested that require upgrades and new definitions to ensure cooperation and re-tooled attitudes. This is especially the condition as they relate to sex, gender and education. Those three items actually are as old as man so why do we need to be taught something new? Simple answer is money.

There is was a working draft of this platform created in 2009 by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

Social Justice

America is becoming more religiously liberal with each generation, and religious conservatives, though more numerous now, will become dinosaurs. That’s the confident projection of a new poll from the liberal leaning Public Religion Research Institute. It’s predictably gotten good media play, as claims about irrelevance for religious conservatives often do. And it supplements other polls supposedly proving the rise of the religiously unaffiliated in America.

The Left, in its alternative cosmology, believes in its own nonreligious providential destiny. But history moves in more crooked, unpredictable paths. And religious traditionalists, most of them conservative, believe that history has a another ultimately inexorable direction, guided by The Lord of history. The Left’s own more secular faith is often buttressed by short term trends.

“Our new research shows a complex religious landscape, with religious conservatives holding an advantage over religious progressives in terms of size and homogeneity,” PPRI admitted when releasing its poll. “However, the percentage of religious conservatives shrinks in each successive generation, with religious progressives outnumbering religious conservatives in the Millennial generation.”

Nearly half of the older than age 66 crowd is religiously conservative, while less than 20 percent of the under 33 crowd is. Only 12 percent of oldsters are religiously liberal while almost a quarter of the young are. So — presto — the future belongs to the Religious Left. As the much vaunted Millennial Generation ages into leadership, the Religious Right’s doom supposedly will be sealed.

This determinism of course assumes that these Millennials will not change their views as they age. And it assumes subsequent generations will not react against previous generations, even though most generations, when young, assume they are wiser and therefore must be different from their immediate predecessors. In the future, a new crop of youngsters will look somewhat smugly on the by-then aging Millennials.

Transform America

Lisa Sharon Harper, director of mobilizing for Sojourners, a progressive Christian organization, says shifts are due to young people choosing to identify with Jesus and his teachings as opposed to a particular political party. Harper believes the GOP is being pulled to the far right by extremists on issues like abortion, thus forgetting and alienating those whom Jesus affirmed and advocated for: poor people, ethnic minorities, and women.

“I think the focus on the person of Jesus is birthing a younger generation inspired by [Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount],” she says. “Their political agenda is shaped by Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, make sure the thirsty have clean water, make sure all have access to healthcare, transform America into a welcoming place for immigrants, fix our inequitable penal system, and end abject poverty abroad and in the forgotten corners of our urban and rural communities.”

Lisa Sharon Harper, Sojourners’ senior director of mobilizing, was the founding executive director of New York Faith & Justice—an organization at the hub of a new ecumenical movement to end poverty in New York City. In that capacity, she helped establish Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice, a citywide collaborative effort of faith leaders committed to leveraging the power of their constituencies and their moral authority in partnership with communities bearing the weight of environmental injustice. She also organized faith leaders to speak out for immigration reform and organized the South Bronx Conversations for Change, a dialogue-to-change project between police and the community.

She has written extensively on tax reform, comprehensive immigration reform, health-care reform, poverty, racial justice, and transformational civic engagement for publications and blogs including The National Civic Review, God’s Politics blog, The Huffington Post, Urban Faith, Prism, and Slant33.

There is more including a magazine. Topics include ‘Divest from Nuclear Weapons, Testing Jesus, Divest from Fossil Fuels and the Christian Nation vs. Secular Country.

No Longer Nuclear Zero

Posted on May 27, 2015May 27, 2015 by Denise Simon

The nuclear weapons chatter is rising by the day. The Saudis paid for much of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program that included an agreement to access to weapons at a future date. The ongoing talks the P5+1 with Iran has Saudi Arabia dusting off their immediate options. The White House and John Kerry are seeing a final date slippage with regard to the June 30 deadline, but to what end?

There has been recent inquiries into Israel’s nuclear program exposing their weapons systems, something that has never been previously discussed.

Vladimir Putin has recently increased his own nuclear points and expansion of flights by his nuclear bombers that include the Ukraine, Poland and northern Europe. This has NATO expressing distress and a counter-measures strategy.

Yet Russia has had some chilling nuclear weapons program history putting the world that includes jihadi network into the equation.

Breakdown in U.S.-Russia relations raises risk of nuclear-armed jihadists

In the last several years, a number of troubling events have revealed weaknesses in Russian nuclear security. A Russian general in command of nuclear weapon storage sites was fired due to massive corruption. A colonel in the Russian Ministry of Interior in charge of nuclear security inspections was arrested for soliciting bribes to overlook security violations. One American researcher visiting a nuclear facility was told it would take merely $100 to bribe his way in.

Graft in Russia is rife, and corruption plus available uranium is a troubling combination. This vulnerability is heightened by the fact that at many nuclear sites the accounting systems to track uranium and plutonium could not sufficiently identify thefts of newly manufactured or older stored fissile materials. More broadly, Russia does not possess a master baseline inventory of all nuclear materials produced in the former Soviet Union — and where all of it is today.

At a 2010 summit of world leaders, President Barack Obama described nuclear terrorism as “the single biggest threat to U.S. security.” He’s right — but as the crisis in Ukraine festers, recent U.S. actions have unraveled decades of successful cooperation with Russia to reduce the risk.

While some argue that the United States needs to “punish” Russia due to Moscow’s contribution to the crisis in Ukraine, this is akin to cutting off our nose to spite our face. Given the threat from “loose nukes” to our national security, the United States should take steps to jump-start U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American policymakers suddenly faced a frightening new threat: Poverty and chaos caused a complete breakdown in security throughout the former Soviet nuclear complex. Insiders at top-secret Russian nuclear weapons plants tried to steal and sell nuclear materials on the black market. Unpaid guards at nuclear sites left their posts to search for food. A senior White House science adviser even discovered more than 150 pounds of highly enriched uranium — enough for several nuclear bombs — sitting unguarded in lockers in the middle of Moscow.

In response to this threat, the United States spent billions of dollars under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to help Russia secure its nuclear materials and facilities. From the deactivation of almost 8,000 Russian nuclear warheads to the building of a massive storage facility for 27 tons of fissile materials, CTR was arguably the most successful American foreign aid program in history.

Following the conclusion of the CTR program in 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom signed a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement. This agreement, which was designed to build trust between the two countries, called for projects ranging from the development of advanced nuclear security and safety technologies, to visits by each side’s scientists to the other’s most sensitive nuclear labs and facilities.

Less than seven months after the agreement was signed, however, the DOE dealt a devastating blow to Russian-American nuclear security cooperation, banning Russian nuclear scientists from visiting the United States while also banning DOE nuclear scientists from visiting Russia.

The current defense budget, passed seven months after the DOE’s action, also bars all funding for nuclear nonproliferation activities and assistance in Russia.

Its pride wounded, Russia retaliated, first announcing it would boycott the 2016 nuclear security summit in Chicago and then informing U.S. officials it would no longer accept American aid to help secure Russia’s weapons-grade uranium and plutonium — a significant blow to U.S. national security.

Nuclear security in Russia is undoubtedly better than it was in the 1990s. Guards at nuclear sites are paid on time. Perimeter fences surrounding these sites no longer have holes. Fissile materials are no longer stored in lockers. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that while physical security at nuclear sites is greatly improved, real problems still remain. Russia continues to have the world’s largest nuclear stockpile and there are more than 200 buildings and bunkers where highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium is stored. Sophisticated criminals could still exploit the remaining weaknesses in Russian nuclear security.

We know that Osama bin Laden considered a nuclear attack targeting American civilians to be a legitimate action, and last year Islamic State stole 88 pounds of non-enriched uranium compounds from a university in Mosul. With nearly 2,000 Russian citizens fighting with Middle East extremist groups, if fissile material does end up in the hands of militants, it is quite possible it will have originated from Russia.

The DOE should work with Rosatom to restart the September 2013 agreement and implement the reciprocal nuclear site visits, scientist-to-scientist cooperation and joint-research the agreement envisions. The personal relationships developed over decades of cooperation between Russian and American scientists are too important to jeopardize — we are only shooting ourselves in the foot by cutting these off.

The United States should also understand that the narrative from the 1990s whereby the United States is a donor and Russia is an aid recipient is no longer acceptable in Moscow. Going forward, nuclear cooperation must be reframed as a partnership of equals, with both sides contributing to the conversation about how and why to strengthen security. Republicans and Democrats should put aside partisan differences and fully fund U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation — whatever that ultimately involves. The Obama administration is proposing to spend $348 billion upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next ten years. It’s worth spending a tiny fraction of that money to prevent loose nukes.

All of these steps require that the United States end the linkage between nuclear security cooperation with Russia and the crisis in Ukraine. While the current political environment makes this difficult, not doing so is foolhardy.

*** Yet there is nuclear weapons and testing history that is important to understand and an example is the Marshall Islands and the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Fascinating read is here. A declassified video is below: