Bill to Add 6 Mexican Cartels to FTO List on the House Floor

Congress is presently considering a Bill, HR 1270, to put Mexico's six biggest cartels on the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations  (FTO), a move that I think is long overdue.  I've been personally lobbying and pushing for this for the last 3 years, mentioning it at every speech and writing about it in two articles in the Counter Terrorist Magazine and this blog many times.  Of course the problem with designation is the diplomatic entanglement with the host nation - designation basically says they are harboring a terrorist group and complicit in their activity by the mere fact they aren't engaging enough to eliminate the activity.  All of which is true. 

The political wrangling started with a letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News on Tuesday, Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's Ambassador to the U.S. basically says the cartel members are businessmen.  According to the Ambassador: They pursue a single goal. They want to maximize their profits and do what most business do: hostile takeovers and pursue mergers and acquisitions. They use violence to protect their business from other competitors as well as from our two governments' efforts to roll them back. There is no political motivation or agenda whatsoever beyond their attempt to defend their illegal business. 
Letter to the Editor, 11 Apr 

I completely disagree.  Does defending their business including the rampant assassination of mayors and police chiefs? The cartels are not just violent criminal organizations - they are clearly a threat to Mexico's national security and ours, as well.  They have a political agenda - to take control of a city through the systematic elimination of its leadership and law enforcement.  They seek to infiltrate a government and corrupt its leaders and terrorize the citizens.  They have a complete disregard for the law and law enforcement.  Even worse - they step up, they don't run.  We have no criminal faction in the U.S. in present day or history to compare.  The cartels represent a new, modern type of threat known as 5th Generation Warfare. 

Consider that members of the Los Zetas have paramilitary training.  They operate in small fire teams, with high tech military equipment.  They are brutal in their tactics - putting police officers into tanks of acid and watching them die;  participating in the decapitation of government leaders, then displaying their heads at  kid's soccer fields or birthday parties; dousing police chiefs and mayors with gasoline and setting them on fire; killing a mayor and hanging him in effigy from a bridge in a major metropolitan city a stone's throw from our border.

Americans have never seen this level of violence and brutality, they are clearly not prepared . With some preemptive strikes such as this Bill, they may be spared.

H.R. 1270:  Republican Representative Michael McCaul of Texas introduced this bill which directs Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to declare the following Mexican Drug Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

(1) The Arellano Feliz Organization.

(2) The Los Zetas Cartel.

(3) The Beltran Leyva Organization.

(4) La Familia Michoacana.

(5) The Sinaloa Cartel.

(6) The Gulf Cartel/New Federation.

This bill is in response to the overflow of Cartel violence from Mexico into states along the southern border.

It is imperative that we are proactive and designate at least the Los Zetas cartel now.   Designation will allow us to pursue and prosecute Americans who are complicit in providing material assistance to the cartels, whether money, housing, logistics, medical assistance or weapons.  Zetas are already living and operating in our country.  Designation would help harness and focus all the powers of the State against them and dissuade our citizens from assisting.  We also need to consider changes to our laws to expand the powers of the military to fight this asymmetric threat to our national security. 

Consider it took the Times Square Bomb attempt to get the Pakistani Taliban on the list, when it was clear they threatened the U.S. and were recruiting American citizens to become operatives and terrorists within our country.  Let's not wait until the Zetas or another cartel strike within our borders - we need to get this Bill passed now.

Links to two magazine articles I've written on cartel violence crossing the border, the Zetas and other terrorist groups on/at the border:
June 2009
Oct 2010

Unsealed Indictment: 9/11 Conspirators

Click here to read:

KSM Unsealed Indictment

Reading this document, we learn nothing new until page 14, when the extent of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's leadership in the 9/11 plot is discussed.  The document states he was originator of idea to hijack aircraft and fly them into key buildings in the U.S.  He was the key trainer of the 9/11 hijackers, using sheep and camels to illustrate how to properly stab a human with short blade knife.  He gave direction on how to slip the knives past airport security, and obtain documents in the U.S. such as driver's licenses. His guiding hand was on the entire operation. 


The money trail is explained in detail, as are the movements of the hijackers throughout the world as they received various training.  Their purchases and meetings are covered, including activities with the Hamburg cell and a meeting in Las Vegas prior to 9/11.

Page 43 links KSM to the shoe bombing attempt.  There is a comment regarding defendant Walid bin Attash, the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing and other al Qaeda terrorist attacks.  When captured in 2003, he was apparently traveling in Pakistan with 400-500 kilograms of explosives that were to be used to kill Americans, no further info available on that plot.

The names of all 2,796 people killed in the 9/11 attacks are listed at the end of the document.  This trial will seek justice for the victims and their families, as well as the many first responders injured during the rescue attempts and all Americans who were traumatized by the violent attacks.  Let's hope the military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay proceeds swiftly and justly,  and that media coverage is low to nonexistent, so as not to give any further publicity, recruitment or morale-boosting opportunities for jihadists.