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Laredo, Texas, on the border with Mexico.
LAREDO, Texas - This border area is one of the least publicized international crisis zones. More Americans have been kidnapped just in this area than in all of Iraq by Islamic terrorists.
Twenty-six Americans are now officially listed as missing in the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo region of the U.S.-Mexico border-in addition to the more than 400 Mexicans reported to be suffering a similar fate.
The number of American civilians missing or kidnapped in Iraq since the beginning of the war is 23 as of last September, the latest figure released by the State Department.
And then there are the executions.
Unlike Muslim jihadists, enforcers from the feuding Gulf and Sinaloa Mexican drug cartels favor off-camera basement executions and oil-drum burials.
"I've seen these barrels with bodies stuffed into them," said a U.S. law enforcement official, who, like most here, spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's horrible, but it is really happening."
..."The Mexican government has lost control along the border," fumes Rick Flores, the youthful Webb County sheriff.
"They had 176 murders in Nuevo Laredo last year, and none of them have been solved. In the first less than six weeks of this year, there were another 27 murders. Again, none solved. At the rate they are going, the death toll will be over 300 by year's end."
If anything, Mr. Flores said, the cartels have become more brazen, more willing to reach for their guns.
Fortunately, the U.S. government is not ignoring this. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas appears to among those taking the lead in addressing this subject:
U.S. Senators Tackle Border Security
Posted By: Lauren Jenkins
Miles away from the Texas-Mexico border a debate is underway that is crucial to South Texas and border security.
At the nation's Capital on Wednesday, senators began discussing the increase in border violence and how it can be stopped. To make sure the Senators understand just how big of a problem the violence and illegal immigration is, a group of Texas ranchers are in D.C. to speak out.
"We must now live with the constant possibility we could be attacked or killed on our own properties," Lavoyger Durham, testified today to the senate panel.
Durham, a rancher from Falfurrias County, knows that the violence isn't just on the Mexican side. New information shows assaults on U.S. Border agents have more than doubled in the last year. Assaults aren't the only thing that has increased; human and drug smuggling operations are a big business now and their methods are increasingly sophisticated.
"Smugglers are, on a daily basis, violently and ruthlessly exploiting human beings," says U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton. Durham says the smugglers are using technology similar to that of the Border Patrol.
"As inconceivable as it may be, coyotes are often equipped with technological devices that are equivalent or superior to those of our own border patrol," says Durham.
U.S. Senator John Cornyn, (R) Texas, says the nature of immigration has completely changed, and since Mexico has become a stopping point for human smuggling, it's time to provide more manpower and better resources at the border. Cornyn's point is all too familiar with Val Verde County Sheriff D'Wayne Jernigan. He says he's dealing with a whole new class of border crosser.
"They are determined, they're going north one way or the other, come hell or high water," says Jernigan. "They're going north."
It's not just Mexicans who are taking the chance and sneaking into Texas.
"The border patrol has told me that within 5 miles of my ranch, 200-300 illegal immigrants move thru every night," says Durham. "The trails and tracks are there."
What scares Durham and others who live, and work, along the border is who is exactly crossing the border. Of the millions stopped at least 10% have criminal records and many of them are not Mexican; known as OTM (Other Than Mexicans), many illegals are from Iraq, Iraq and North Korea.
Sharon Stark from Little Rock emails:
Whoops! What is missing out of my morning paper? No news about the Guestworker debate in Congress.
Google using all the keywords like, guestworker, amnesty, Congress bills, etc and find how many news stories there are. If it weren't for the online Immigration Organization, we wouldn't have a clue that debate is going on in Congress on the subject of illegals.
Sharon also observes:
Mexican government expressed anger toward the provision of H.R.4437 which provides for building a fence on the border. "Mexico is not going to bear, it is not going to permit, and it will not allow a stupid thing like this wall," said Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez. (Gee, we can't build a fence on our own land).
The Mexican government appears to be so strongly in favor of illegal incursions by its civilians into the U.S., that it not only opposes a fence, but also doesn't seem to be seeking to control the criminal activities of drug gangs operating along our border.
Fortunately, Derbez is in no position to dictate to the U.S. regarding potential U.S. actions to control the border.
Last night the United American Committee, and the College Republicans of University of California Irvine, held a panel discussion regarding the Danish Cartoons, including an unveiling of the cartoons themselves.
My friend Laura Wallick and I went in order to support free speech in America, and to support our friend, UAC founder Jesse Petrilla.
It turned out the event was so packed (capacity of the UC Irvine auditorium was 450) that we couldn't get in, which left us free to document the very interesting behavior of the crowd of Islamists protesting the event outside. One police officer we spoke to estimated the Islamist protesters as numbering about 1,000.
This image is merged from two smaller photos.
They had evidently decided that their PR approach was to accuse the College Republicans of "hate speech."
A very clever ploy. But how dare they, when all over the world, Islamists are cutting off people's heads, killing women and children, taking people hostage and murdering them, threatening genocide against Jews and carrying out genocide against Muslims in Darfur, and regularly broadcasting hate speech on TV in various Arabic countries? These protesters could easily have condemned those actions; then their pretense that they were in favor of peace, and against hate speech, might mean something.
Not one of the Islamist speakers I heard, said a single word against any of the actions I have just itemized. What was particularly shocking was that not one speaker I heard condemned the burning of embassies or the killing of people which took place during the cartoon riots.
On the contrary -- at least one speaker supported those riots as making her point. Bear in mind that the speaker was a college-age girl, who sounded very nice, until one listened to what she was saying. She said (from my handwritten notes):
They've seen what happened all over the world. What would make a group even show these cartoons except to stir up hate?
This speaker did not condemn the violence, the embassy-burnings, the deaths, which appeared to be intended to threaten the free world with violence unless we abandoned our free speech. Instead, she considered the cartoon riots a useful thing that should persuade the free world to abandon free speech; her view was that free speech should be surrendered in favor of speech deemed acceptable by Islam.
Look at those signs. "Islam -- The Religion of Peace" -- pretending ignorance of the worldwide jihadist murders. And right next to that a sign saying, "College Republicans The New KKK" -- comparing College Republicans to actual terrorists, the KKK. Another sign reads, "Unveiling Discrimination" -- when it is part of Sharia law that all non-Muslims must pay a special tax, have reduced legal rights, and be second-class citizens, or be killed, or convert to Islam. Who are they kidding with these hypocritical signs?
Or the fourth sign pictured above -- "Free Speech [does not equal] Hate Speech" -- when hate speech is broadcast daily in Islamic nations. And note that the sign opposes free speech of which Islam disapproves and defines as "Hate Speech" -- in this case, even the cartoons. In other words, you can say anything you want, as long as Islamists approve of it.
Make no mistake, this protest is against free speech, and against the U.S. Constitution which guarantees it.
Want to know what some of the other speakers said? Again, bear in mind that the speakers are for the most part college students attending U.C. Irvine.
They frame it as freedom of speech, but we have evolved above freedom of speech, beyond hate speech.
In other words, speech unacceptable to Muslims, say these protesters, is not to be permitted in America.
This is the same anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism that they're propagating in there, that has given rise to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and the anti-immigrant racism that is spreading all across the U.S.
Of course, it isn't racism, because it has nothing to do with genetics. The event they protested was about defending our rights to free speech as guaranteed by our Constitution.
An event in support of free speech, these Islamists attack as "racism." It's as violent as they can get short of physical violence. The hate speech is theirs. These protesters want to see happen here, what the Islamists have done so successfully in England and France.
Laura and I walked to a Chinese restaurant and had dinner. When we came back, this is what we saw:
Given what appears to be the tacit approval by their speakers of Islamist violence in the cartoon riots, I don't think they were praying for world peace, or for peace, love and understanding.
