A Real War on the Homefront

SO YOU THINK AN OPEN BORDER IS OKAY?

AFTER ALL ITS ONLY POOR PEOPLE SEEKING A 'BETTER LIFE" RIGHT?



TEXAS IS UNDER SIEGE.

WE NO LONGER  HAVE THE LUXURY OF DENIAL.

IF THE CARTELS GO UNCHECKED, HOW LONG UNTIL SEVERED HEADS AND PILES OF CORPSES ARE OUR REALITY AS WELL ?



A successful sanctuary permits insurgents to move freely and operate on whichever side

offers greater security. In a curious twist of irony, the more successful the Mexican military

becomes in confronting the cartels, the greater likelihood that cartels will take the active

fight into Texas as they compete against each other in the battle to control distribution

territories and corridors

Federal authorities are reluctant to admit to the increasing cross-border campaign by narcoterrorists.

Until lately, denial has been facilitated by a dearth of evidence that an organized

and substantial campaign exists inside Texas. Evidence collected for this report, principally

from Texas border counties, reveals a palpable sense of frustration concerning the

effectiveness of U.S. federal border operations.

Accounts of this violence, both data driven and anecdotal, compiled by federal agencies,

Congressional testimony and the Texas Department of Agriculture underscores the daily

activity and constant threat of a larger presence of narco-terrorists than previously thought.

The Federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not attribute many narco-crimes

to the cartels. Many cross-border crimes are routinely not reported by border farmers and

ranchers due to fear of retribution from cartels.

The cartel’s foot soldiers who fight the tactical battle in Texas are "transnational gang"

members many of whom are drawn from prison gangs such as the Mexican Mafia, Texas

Syndicate, Tango Blast, Barrio Azteca and others that formed in U.S. prisons for selfpreservation

and protection from other gangs. These transnational gangs not only have

continued to expand in Texas and the nation but constitute a very tightly knit network of

cooperation and connectivity that has been growing between prison gangs and Mexican

cartels.

Fear and anxiety levels among Texas farmers and ranchers have grown enormously during

the past two years. Farmers, ranchers and other citizens in border communities are caught

in the crossfire of escalating cross-border violence resulting in large part from conflicts

between cartels, paramilitary enforcement groups and transnational gangs struggling for

control of key drug and illegal alien smuggling routes into the U.S. from El Paso to

Brownsville. Some Texas farmers and ranchers have even abandoned their livelihoods to

move their families to safer ground.

Living and conducting business in a Texas border county is tantamount to living in a war

zone in which civil authorities, law enforcement agencies as well as citizens are under attack

around the clock. The Rio Grande River offers little solace to the echoes of gunshots and

explosions. News of shootings, murders, kidnappings, beheadings, mass graves and other

acts of violence coming across the border go far beyond any definition of “spillover

violence.”

CALL YOUR CONGRESSMEN RIGHT NOW

At the tactical level of war the cartels seek to gain advantage by exploiting the creases

between U.S. federal and state border agencies, and the separation that exists between

Mexican and American crime-fighting agencies. Border law enforcement and political

officials are the tactical focal point. Sadly, the tactical level is poorly resourced and the most

vulnerable to corruption by cartels. To win the tactical fight the counties must have

augmentation, oversight and close support from operational and strategic forces.

History has shown that a common border offers an enemy sanctuary zone and the

opportunity to expand his battlespace in depth and complexity. Our border with Mexico is

no exception. Criminality spawned in Mexico is spilling over into the United States. Texas is

the tactical close combat zone and frontline in this conflict. Texans have been assaulted by

cross-border gangs and narco-terrorist activities. In response, Texas has been the most

aggressive and creative in confronting the threat of what has come to be a narco-terrorist

military-style campaign being waged against them.

In the United States the operational level of the campaign against cartel terrorism is

manifested at the state. Texas has become critical terrain and operational ground zero in

the cartel’s effort to expand into the United States. Texas has an expansive border with

drug cartels controlling multiple shipping lanes into the state. Texas’ location as the

geographic center of the U.S. allows for easier distribution of drugs and people. In effect,

the fight for control of the border counties along the Rio Grande has become the

operational center of gravity for the cartels and federal, state and local forces that oppose

them.

America’s fight against narco-terrorism, when viewed at the strategic level, takes on the

classic trappings of a real war. Crime, gangs and terrorism have converged in such a way

that they form a collective threat to the national security of the United States. America is

being assaulted not just from across our southern border but from across the hemisphere

and beyond. All of Central and South America have become an interconnected source of

violence and terrorism. Drug cartels exploit porous borders using all the traditional

elements of military force, including command and control, logistics, intelligence,

information operations and the application of increasingly deadly firepower. The intention

is to increasingly bring governments at all levels throughout the Americas under the

influence of international cartels.

During the past two years the state of Texas has become increasingly threatened by the

spread of Mexican cartel organized crime. The threat reflects a change in the strategic

intent of the cartels to move their operations into the United States. In effect, the cartels

seek to create a “sanitary zone” inside the Texas border -- one county deep -- that will

provide sanctuary from Mexican law enforcement and, at the same time, enable the cartels

to transform Texas’ border counties into narcotics transshipment points for continued

transport and distribution into the continental United States. To achieve their objectives the

cartels are relying increasingly on organized gangs to provide expendable and

unaccountable manpower to do their dirty work. These gangs are recruited on the streets of

Texas cities and inside Texas prisons by top-tier gangs who work in conjunction with the

cartels.