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V: "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
Welcome Back The Spotlight 'O Terror
Green - Low: This setting is here just as a reference point. DHS will never use it because it would mean we didn’t need them anymore.
Blue - Guarded: This rarely used setting on the Stoplight ‘O Terror could indicate things like an undocumented worker within 3 square miles of the president.
Yellow - Elevated: This is the standard level of fear. Don’t expect to see anything lower than this as long as the Regressives are in office. Be scared, but not too scared to vote Republican.
Orange - High: Chertoff heard that someone in the CIA’s brother’s boss’ nephew’s sister-in-law heard about a plan to blow up Amish Country Popcorn Factory in Berne Indiana. It’s ok to pee your pants at this level.
Red - Severe: A terror attack was recently narrowly averted. We can’t release any details but just be thankful we saved your asses. Used frequently before midterm elections. See October Surprise. (Oh My God, Take Away My Freedoms and Protect Me From Them There Terrorists, Like Osama Hussein!!!)
Welcome to my Blog, enjoy your stay!
Congressman Ron Paul, MD - We've Been NeoConned
1984 radio broadcast:
Think Progress August 23, 2007
Yesterday, Raw Story pointed out that former CIA operative Bob Baer told Fox News that the Bush administration will likely attack Iran in the coming months . “Iran policy is on close hold, but the feeling is we will hit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard corps sometime next six months
Today, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton appeared on Fox News and responded. He said that while he couldn't confirm Baer's statements, he “absolutely” hoped they were true:
HEMMER: One final step here, too, that I want to take with you. You told one of our producers earlier today that you don't know if it's true — and you've made that clear in our interview here, that you don't know what the odds are or are not against that — but you hope it's true. Why do you hope it's true?
BOLTON: Absolutely. I hope Iran understands that we are very serious, that we are determined they are not going to get a nuclear weapon capability, and unless they change the strategic decision they've been pursuing for close to 20 years, that that's something they better factor into their calculations.
Watch it:
Bolton's calls for strikes against Iran mirror those of other neocons, such as Bill Kristol and Michael Rubin , who also pushed for the Iraq invasion. Bolton's claim that “Iran is interfering in Iraq and is posing a direct threat to our troops” is not a reason to strike the country. In reality, both Gen. Peter Pace and the National Intelligence Estimate have confirmed that Iran is “ not likely ” to be a major driver of violence in Iraq.
or so,” said Baer.
GM-Let them volunteer first then!!!
Top Republican urges Iraq pullout
An influential Republican senator has called for the withdrawal of some 5,000 US troops from Iraq by the year's end.
Senator John Warner, former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the US needed to show that its commitment to Iraq was not open-ended.
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US troops, he said, had enhanced security in Iraq but had been let down by the Iraqi government.
He spoke after the release of a US intelligence report which said Iraqi leaders could not govern effectively.
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) acknowledged some military successes since January, following the "surge" in US troop numbers.
But it also said Iraqi security forces were still not capable of operating without support from American forces, and divisions between Sunnis and Shias continued to drive political instability.
It predicted that the situation would only get more precarious over the next six to 12 months.
The BBC's James Coomarasamy in Washington says that with political and public support for the war finely balanced in America, the words of a senior senator from President George W Bush's own party could have an important effect.Senator Warner said initiating the first step in a withdrawal of US forces would send a clear message that Iraq's leaders should not take the presence of American troops for granted.
"We simply cannot, as a nation, stand and put our troops at continuous risk of loss of life and limb without beginning to take some decisive action which will get everybody's attention."
However the senator said that the president should establish a timetable for withdrawal, not the Congress.
The senator went on: "I say to the president, respectfully, pick whatever number you wish.
"You do not want to lose the momentum, but certainly in 160,000-plus, say, 5,000 could begin to redeploy and be home to their families and loved ones no later than Christmas of this year."
Vietnam comparison
The NIE report represents the judgements of all 16 American intelligence agencies.
It was released a day after President Bush offered Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki his support, describing him as "a good guy doing a difficult job".
It also comes amid growing calls by senior US Democrats for Mr Maliki to step down because of his failure to bridge sectarian divides.
The report expresses grave doubts that Mr Maliki will be able to overcome sectarian divisions in Iraq and meet political benchmarks on unity.
"Levels of insurgent and sectarian violence will remain high and the Iraqi government will continue to struggle to achieve national-level political reconciliation and improved governance," it says.
Unless there is "a fundamental shift in factors driving Iraqi political and security developments," the political compromises needed for "sustained security, long-term political progress, and economic development are unlikely to emerge", it continues.
The report does say that "Sunni resistance to al-Qaeda has expanded in the last six to nine months, but has not yet translated into broad Sunni Arab support for the Iraq government, or widespread willingness to work with the Shia".
On Thursday, police reported that a Sunni religious leader in the province of Diyala who had encouraged his community to confront al-Qaeda had been killed in an attack by the militant group.
Mr Bush defended his Iraq policy on Wednesday, comparing current calls for withdrawal from Iraq with what happened at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
And following the release of the NIE report, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said: "Today's key judgements clearly show that the military's counter-insurgency strategy, fully operational since mid-summer, has begun to slow the rapidly increasing violence and patterns of the violence we have been seeing in Iraq.
"I don't think the president feels any differently about setting a specific timetable for withdrawal. I just think it's important that we wait right now to hear from our commanders on the ground about the way ahead."
A progress report is due in mid-September from General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, on the effectiveness of the recent surge in US troop numbers in tackling the violence there.
Bush 'Iraq Is Like Vietnam'
President George Bush has compared the Iraq war with Vietnam - admitting the price of US withdrawal was paid by "millions of innocent civilians".
In his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, Missouri, Mr Bush said the war on terror and the wars America has fought in the Far East were all ideological struggles.
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He said the US stands in the way of a harsh plan "for life that crushes all freedom, tolerance and dissent" and American troops will be given "everything they need" to succeed.
Mr Bush said: "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people', 're-education camps', and 'killing fields'.
"I recognise that history cannot predict the future with absolute certainty.
"But history does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time."
He added: "The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity."They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force this ideology on others.
"Today, the names and places have changed, but the fundamental character of the struggle has not.
"Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own - a harsh plan for life that crushes all freedom, tolerance, and dissent.
"Like our enemies in the past, they kill Americans because we stand in the way of their goal of imposing this ideology across a vital region of the world. This enemy is dangerous, this enemy is determined, and this enemy will be defeated."
He said the result of American sacrifices and perseverance over Japan and South Korea "is a freer, more prosperous and stable continent - whose people want to live in peace with America - not attack America".
He went on: "In Asia, we saw freedom triumph over violent ideologies after the sacrifice of tens of thousands of American lives - and that freedom has yielded peace for generations.
"The advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results we have seen in Asia - if we show the same perseverance and sense of purpose."
The president added: "Today the violent Islamic extremists who fight us in Iraq are as certain of their cause as the Nazis, Imperial Japanese, and Soviet communists were of theirs. And they are destined for the same fate.
"When that hard work is done and the critics of today recede from memory, the cause of freedom will be stronger, a vital region will be brighter, and America will be safer."
Online Journal August 24, 2007
Rodrigue Tremblay
"The U.S. government is on a 'burning platform' of unsustainable policies and practices." --David Walker, U.S. Comptroller General
"Modern society, based as it is on the division of labor, can be preserved only under conditions of lasting peace." --Ludwig von Mises, Austrian economist
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"People know that inflation erodes the real value of the government's debt and, therefore, that it is in the interest of the government to create some inflation." --Ben S. Bernanke, Fed Chairman
"Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again." --Ben S. Bernanke, Nov. 8, 2002 (Fed Chairman, talking to economist Milton Friedman)
Ordinary investors and people in general will have to get accustomed to hearing a lot about financial terms they never heard before, such as the subprime mortgage market, aggressive underwriting, asset securitization, repackaged loans, subprime loans, "no-doc" loans, adjustable rate mortgage interest rate adjustment (ARM) loans, collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), asset backed securities, mortgage-backed securities, closed-end second-lien loans, subprime second-lien loans, alternative-A (Alt-A) mortgage loans, piggyback loans, asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP), . . . etc.
As a general definition, "subprime" or "high-risk" loans" are those made to people with poor credit and at lax conditions. Second-lien loans are loans that are placed in second place for any potential recovery after the primary lender on a property. Residential mortgage-backed security (RMBS) are created when mortgage lenders sell their loans (and the risks associated with such loans) to banks, which package them together and slice them into different classes before selling them to (gullible) investors. This process, called "asset securitization" is the method whereby interests in mortgage loans and other receivables are packaged, underwritten, and sold in the form of "asset-backed securities". This is financial alchemy, through which subprime mortgage loans are transformed into AAA-rated paper for unsuspecting investors.
Some of these artificial or derivative securities are low-grade quality, and when their prices fall because borrowers cannot meet their interest or capital payments, such financial instruments become quickly "illiquid" or unsalable, since nobody wants to touch them. They become fictitious capital . Those who hold them, investors, banks or other types of lenders, are stuck with them: they cannot sell them and they cannot borrow while placing such shaky assets as collateral. These are the imprudent lenders and investors that central banks now are trying to bail out.
During the French Revolution (1789-1799) , the Jacobins (the neocons of the day) had the brilliant idea of issuing securities, called " assignats ," based on the properties (buildings and lands) the government had taken away from the Church and its religious orders. The new securities were quickly "monetized" into fiat money and transformed into readily available cash. This caused a massive hyperinflation and a subsequent deflation .
Mind you, this was not the first time that 18th-century France lived an experience of inflationary finance, since a similar incident took place three quarters of a century before, between 1716 and 1720, when Scottish banker and businessman John Law (1671-1729) led France into a fiat money fiasco and engineered a land-backed securities scheme known as the Mississippi Bubble . John Law's earlier experiment and the French Revolution assignats debacle should be clear reminders of the danger and folly of "monetizing" illiquid assets-based securities.
Like all Ponzi schemes , such pyramidings of debts with no liquid assets behind them are bound to implode sooner or later. And that is what we are witnessing today, i.e. the implosion of unfunded credit derivatives -based Ponzi schemes. In 1998-2000, we got an idea of what could happen when portfolios are highly leveraged and laden with derivative financial products with the collapse of one large hedge fund, Long-Term Capital Management .
This should have been a warning sign to regulators of financial markets. But hedge funds and other financial operators' greed -- and political corruption -- were too strong, and no one stopped the march to disaster. Now, things are getting worse, because central banks, led by the Fed, are following the assignats route and have been aggressively "monetizing" the unfunded derivative debts, lending new cash not for a day or two, and not against T-bills, but for months on end against illiquid and partly unsolvable and artificial derivative debts. Who knows where this could lead?
One possibility is the complete collapse of the U.S. dollar and an uncontrollable burst of inflation in the years ahead if the salvage operation were to increase money supply on a permanent basis. Indeed, if central banks continue to shore up the artificial financial houses of cards to prevent them from going bankrupt, they may end up monetizing mountains of worthless debts with the potential of creating monstrous inflation. A dollar panic may be just around the corner.
Thus, the cure for fighting a credit crisis could be a tremendous push of inflation in a few years, if the Fed cannot withdraw the new cash fast enough from the system. This surely can be the case, since it has announced that it is discounting non-government home mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, jumbo mortgages, and asset-backed commercial paper, and a broad range of collateral for discount-window loans, besides the typical Treasury and government agency paper. The problem is that some of these so-called "securities" may be worthless in a few months, thus making it difficult for the Fed to sell them back and retrieve its cash.
Over the past few weeks, central banks worldwide have supplied hundreds of billions of fresh loans to banks and other financial dealers, to make cash available for lending and they have lowered interest rates amid signs that credit was drying up. The privately-owned Fed , for example, has accepted billions in "repos", by which it bought billions in illiquid securities from dealers, who then deposited the money into commercial banks, thus "liquifying" the entire financial system. This is a short-term measure designed to alleviate the liquidity crisis , even if it is pursued for a few months.
It alleviates the liquidity crisis, for sure, but this does nothing to cure the underlying "solvency crisis" of institutions holding large chunks of non-performing mortgage-based assets. Sooner or later, such low valued derivatives will have to be written off, and this will necessarily lead to an erosion of these institutions' capital base. Bankruptcies of the most leveraged and imprudent institutions are to be expected. For a few weeks, the Fed's interventions and buying by the Treasury's special division, the Working Group on Financial Markets, also commonly known as the "Plunge Protection Team" (PPT) will sustain the financial markets. But come mid-September and early October, the law of gravity is likely to regain its importance.
As I explained in my blog of last October 16 (2006), Headwinds for the US Economy , macroeconomic conditions made it a " matter of months, not years, " before the U.S. economy and the U.S. dollar begin to experience some downward pressures. And, as I repeated on May 5 (2007), A Slowdown or a Recession in the U.S. in 2008? , we are " approaching [the] point of reckoning . "
As I said in May, we could expect "the collapse of one and possibly several major financial institutions under the pressures of bad loans and record foreclosures. Particularly at risk is the some $2.5 trillion mountain of debt concentrated in subprimes and Alt-A loans. Already, one major subprime lender (New Century Financial) has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection . Others are likely to follow, because 2007 is the year when a large number of subprime real estate loans have to be renegotiated at higher interest rates. The rate of foreclosure is bound to spike in the coming months, possibly culminating in the next two years into a financial hurricane."
The practice of subprime loans and the creation of even more creative and artificial "derivative financial products" is much more widespread in the USA than in other countries. For example, such risky loans represent as much as 20 percent of mortgage loans in the U.S., while the incidence is only 5 percent in neighboring Canada. (Indeed, out of the U.S. $10 trillion mortgage market, about $2 trillion constitute the subprime mortgage market.) But where was the Fed under Alan Greenspan and Ben S. Bernanke, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) under former congressman and venture capitalist Christopher Cox, and the Bush-Cheney Treasury Department when this mountain of shaky real estate debt was being built by unscrupulous and ruthless financial operators?
Why did they not intervene, first, to protect mortgage borrowers by putting a stop to mortgage loans that require no or not much documentation about a borrower's income (so-called "no doc" or "low doc" loans), second, to prevent a solvency dilution of the capital base of American financial institutions and, third, to prevent an unsustainable real estate bubble that sooner or later was going to burst and drag down the rest of the economy? It is indeed the duty of a lifeguard to prevent people from jumping into a swimming pool that is without water. But when you have a Treasury secretary who is a former president of deal-making and hedge-funds-famous Goldman Sacks, a SEC chairman who is a former venture capitalist and a chairman of the Fed who is on record as saying he favors inflationary policies, you may have part of the answer. When the fox is put in charge of the chicken coop, you cannot expect the chickens to be safe. One has to remember that President Herbert Hoover's secretary of the Treasury, in 1929, was financier Andrew W. Mellon , with his far right economic policies of lowering taxes for the rich. We have the uneasy feeling that history repeats itself.
Since the Bush-Cheney White House wanted the economy to keep bubbling before the 2004 and 2006 elections, there was nobody to whistle the end of the recreation. As the French King Louis XIV said, " Après moi, le déluge ! " ("When I am gone, I don't care what happens!). In fact, U.S. regulators not only did not intervene to stop the madness of no-interest, no questions asked, no down payment loans, but they encouraged unbridled speculation by abolishing the Roosevelt era crash-preventing "uptick rule" designed to force short sellers to wait for an uptick in the price of a stock before they could complete their short trade. Indeed, it will be an historic irony that on July 6 (2007), the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) removed the protection in order to allow hedge fund operators to short stocks on down ticks, thus making sure that market volatility would increase tremendously.
It is said that London financiers, greedy speculators and incompetent central bankers were responsible for the 1929-1939 worldwide financial crisis and economic depression. This came after a domino effect of financial collapses, starting with the failure in September 1931, of the big Austrian CreditAnstalt bank , owned by the Rothschild family. The crisis spread throughout the German, the British and the global financial system. This time, the financial infection has started in the United States. If the current financial collapse in the U.S. were to stall the real economy, as it has already begun to do in many sectors, the Bush-Cheney administration would have to carry a lot of blame because of its lax regulatory policies.
Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that three of their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.
"At no time did the police of the Sûreté du Québec act as instigators or commit criminal acts," the police force said in French in a news release. "It is not in the police force's policies, nor in its strategies, to act in that manner.
"At all times, they responded within their mandate to keep order and security."
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Police said the three undercover officers were only at the protest to locate and identify non-peaceful protesters in order to prevent any incidents.
Police came under fire Tuesday, when a video surfaced on YouTube that appeared to show three plainclothes police officers at the protest with bandanas across their faces. One of the men was carrying a rock.
In the video, protest organizers in suits order the men to put the rock down, call them police instigators and try unsuccessfully to unmask them.
Police-issued boots identified fake protesters
Protest organizers on Wednesday played the video for the media at a news conference in Ottawa. One of the organizers, union leader Dave Coles, explained that one reason protesters knew the men's true identities was because they were wearing the same boots as other police officers.
Coles said on Wednesday that the only thing he didn't know was whether the men were Quebec police, RCMP or hired security officers.
"[Our union] believes that the security force at Montebello were ordered to infiltrate our peaceful assembly and provoke incidents," said Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.
Police said the three were told to monitor protesters who were not peacefully demonstrating to prevent any violent incidents, but they were called out as undercover agents when they refused to throw objects.
Concern Canada losing control of its energy
The protest at Montebello occurred outside the Fairmont Le Château Montebello hotel, near Ottawa, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The summit about border security, free trade and other issues began Monday and finished Tuesday.
Protesters said they gathered to voice their concern about Canada losing control of its energy and water resources and borders. Others decried what they called a high level of secrecy at the summit.
The Quebec provincial police will not comment any further on the affair, a spokeswoman in Montreal said.
Quebec Justice Minister Jacques Dupuis was made aware of the news, but a spokesman from his office said he will not comment on the matter either.
Pro War Ads Falsely Link 9/11 To Iraq
Neocon riddled "Nonprofit corporation" Pumps out misleading propaganda
A newly formed non-profit organisation made up of former Bush administration officials is to spend $15 million to run pro-war television and radio ads in more than 20 states which falsely link the 9/11 attacks to the war in Iraq in an effort to strong arm Congress into withdrawing support for a de-escalation.
According to its own press release the group, Freedom's Watch , will run the ads as of today and feature an 800-number for the public to call their representatives and urge them "not to surrender to terror".
One of the founding board members for the group is former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. In addition Freedom's Watch chairman Bradley A. Blakeman was a member of the White House senior staff during President Bush's first term. According to the Politico , the group's board is also riddled with former Bush officials, as is its list of major donors.
According to its website the organisation is "dedicated to educating individuals about and advancing public policies that protect America's interests at home and abroad, foster economic prosperity, and strengthen families."
Through outreach and education, communications to key members of Congress, and bold public awareness initiatives, Freedom's Watch is fighting for what's right in America. We welcome all those who share our values to join our efforts." The diatribe continues.
Though it claims to be "fighting for what is right", the group seems to have no problem producing intentionally misleading propaganda.
The first ad to be aired by the group features Sgt. John Kriesel, a veteran who lost both legs in the war, relating to viewers that he "re-enlisted after 9/11" because "They attacked us, and they will again."
As Kriesel describes his story, a picture of the burning World Trade Center with United Airlines Flight 175 approaching its target appears. "They won't stop in Iraq. We are winning on the ground. ... It's no time to quit; it's no time for politics." Kriesel concludes.
Watch the propaganda:
The fact that there has never at any point been any intelligence whatsoever supporting any links between 9/11, Al Qaeda and Iraq seems not to matter to Freedom's Watch .
As reported by the NY Times in 2003, "The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track Al Qaeda told reporters that his team had found no evidence linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein" [6/27/03]. Similarly, even the 9/11 commission report undercuts claims before the war that Hussein had links to Al Qaeda.
Fast forward to April 2007 and even the Pentagon dismissed any link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.
Maybe this is just one man's story though and the next ad will steer clear of the tenuous link.
Not on your life.
The second ad features Laura Youngblood, widow to Travis Youngblood, a Navy petty officer, who died in Iraq in 2005 as the result of a roadside bombing. Why was Mrs Youngblood chosen for the ad? See for yourself:
"I lost two family members to al Qaeda," she says, "my uncle, a firefighter, on 9/11, and my husband, Travis, in Iraq."
Again this represents a blatant and untruthful attempt to conflate 9/11 with the war in Iraq.
A third Freedom's Watch ad which also draws on 9/11 and confirms beyond doubt this agenda:
The blatant attempt to use 9/11 as an excuse to prolong the war in Iraq and link the two is shameful and it comes as no surprise to see former Neocon stalwarts pumping money into such propaganda.
Indeed it was during Bush's re-election campaign in 2004 that some families of the victims of the attacks were furious with commercials using images from 9/11 which were used to advertise Bush administration public policy and the war on terror.
The Freedom's Watch advertisements are extremely misleading and constitute a disgraceful insult to the victims of both 9/11 and the war in Iraq and should be withdrawn from the air with immediate effect.
When I hear racist Latino groups complain about our inhumane immigration laws, let us look at Mexico’s.
Mexico
's Immigration Law: Let's Try It Here at Homeby J. Michael Waller
Posted: 05/08/2006
Mexico
has a radical idea for a rational immigration policy that most Americans would love. However, Mexican officials haven’t been sharing that idea with us as they press for our Congress to adopt the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill.in the country legally;
have the means to sustain themselves economically;
not destined to be burdens on society;
of economic and social benefit to society;
of good character and have no criminal records; and
contributors to the general well-being of the nation.
The law also ensures that:
immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.
Who could disagree with such a law? It makes perfect sense. The Mexican constitution strictly defines the rights of citizens -- and the denial of many fundamental rights to non-citizens, illegal and illegal. Under the constitution, the Ley General de Población, or
General Law on Population, spells out specifically the country's immigration policy.Foreigners are admitted into Mexico "according to their possibilities of contributing to national progress." (Article 32)
Immigration officials must "ensure" that "immigrants will be useful elements for the country and that they have the necessary funds for their sustenance" and for their dependents. (Article 34)
Foreigners may be barred from the country if their presence upsets "the equilibrium of the national demographics," when foreigners are deemed detrimental to "economic or national interests," when they do not behave like good citizens in their own country, when they have broken Mexican laws, and when "they are not found to be physically or mentally healthy." (Article 37)
The Secretary of Governance may "suspend or prohibit the admission of foreigners when he determines it to be in the national interest." (Article 3
Mexican authorities must keep track of every single person in the country:
Federal, local and municipal police must cooperate with federal immigration authorities upon request, i.e., to assist in the arrests of illegal immigrants. (Article 73)
A National Population Registry keeps track of "every single individual who comprises the population of the country," and verifies each individual's identity. (Articles 85 and 86)
A national Catalog of Foreigners tracks foreign tourists and immigrants (Article 87), and assigns each individual with a unique tracking number (Article 91).
Foreigners with fake papers, or who enter the country under false pretenses, may be imprisoned:
Foreigners with fake immigration papers may be fined or imprisoned. (Article 116)
Foreigners who sign government documents "with a signature that is false or different from that which he normally uses" are subject to fine and imprisonment. (Article 116)
Foreigners who fail to obey the rules will be fined, deported, and/or imprisoned as felons:
Foreigners who fail to obey a deportation order are to be punished. (Article 117)
Foreigners who are deported from Mexico and attempt to re-enter the country without authorization can be imprisoned for up to 10 years. (Article 11
Foreigners who violate the terms of their visa may be sentenced to up to six years in prison (Articles 119, 120 and 121). Foreigners who misrepresent the terms of their visa while in Mexico -- such as working with out a permit -- can also be imprisoned.
Under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony. The General Law on Population says,
"A penalty of up to two years in prison and a fine of three hundred to five thousand pesos will be imposed on the foreigner who enters the country illegally." (Article 123)
Foreigners with legal immigration problems may be deported from Mexico instead of being imprisoned. (Article 125)
Foreigners who "attempt against national sovereignty or security" will be deported. (Article 126)
Mexicans who help illegal aliens enter the country are themselves considered criminals under the law:
A Mexican who marries a foreigner with the sole objective of helping the foreigner live in the country is subject to up to five years in prison. (Article 127)
Shipping and airline companies that bring undocumented foreigners into Mexico will be fined. (Article 132)
All of the above runs contrary to what Mexican leaders are demanding of the United States. The stark contrast between Mexico's immigration practices versus its American immigration preaching is telling. It gives a clear picture of the Mexican government's agenda: to have a one-way immigration relationship with the United States.
Let's call Mexico's bluff on its unwarranted interference in U.S. immigration policy. Let's propose, just to make a point, that the
1. "Mexico's Glass House," Center for Security Policy Occasional Paper, April 3, 2006.
Dr. Waller is vice president for Information Operations at the
Center for Security Policy. A journalist and author, he brings expertise in terrorism, intelligence, the former Soviet Union and the Americas. He previously served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of StateI await your change in your illegal alien position.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=14632Sent to you by:
Frank Livingston, EFO
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