Posts Tagged ‘Mexico’

Foreign Aid On the Chopping Block

February 8th, 2011 by John Feehery

According to a Gallup poll released right before the President’s State of the Union Address, a majority of Americans said they favor cutting U.S. foreign aid, but more than 6 in 10 opposed cuts to education, Social Security, and Medicare.

That is not that surprising. Nobody wants their Social Security touched. Let’s cut spending on all those foreigners.

Another survey, released in 2010 and conducted by The WorldPublicOpinion.org project at the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes, asked the question: “What percentage of the federal budget goes to foreign aid?” The median answer was roughly 25 percent, according to the poll of 848 Americans. In reality, about 1 percent of the budget is allotted to foreign aid.

In fact, we spend about $37 billion each year on foreign aid, out of a budget of more than 1.3 trillion.

The foreign aid budget has gone up in the last decade. President Bush spent a lot on foreign aid, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and in programs aimed at stopping the spread of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East and of narco-terrorists in Central and South America.

President Obama has continued spending a lot on foreign aid, although he emphasizes environmental assistance much more than Bush did.  Read more...

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Posted in Economy, Foreign Relations, Government, History, Theory, spending | 1 Comment »

Mexico

December 27th, 2010 by John Feehery

The headlines coming from Mexico are almost all uniformly bad.

Notre Dame and Miami, two college football programs who are competing against one another in the Sun Bowl in San Antonio during the New Year’s weekend, have banned their students from visiting Mexico during Bowl week. Too dangerous.

And there is some reason for concern. In fact, a great deal of concern.

A drug war has consumed our friends south of the border, causing mayhem, death, destruction, and grisly murder.

The Washington Post reported earlier today, that according to leaked diplomatic cables, getting the top drug lords in Mexico is no easy task: “ The leader of the Mexican military told U.S. authorities last year that the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel moves among 10 to 15 known locations but that capturing Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was “difficult” because the most wanted man in Mexico surrounds himself with hundreds of armed men and a sophisticated web of snitches, according to a leaked diplomatic cable. Mexico’s defense secretary, Gen. Guillermo Galvan, told Adm. Dennis C. Blair, then the Obama administration’s director of national intelligence, that the Mexican army was implementing plans to capture Guzman, but that “Chapo commands the support of a large network of informers and has security circles of up to 300 men that make launching capture operations difficult,” according to a report sent by U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual on Oct 26, 2009, and released by WikiLeaks to news organizations.”  Read more...

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Posted in Drugs in America, Economy, Foreign Relations, Government, Immigration, Politics, Theory, corruption, national security, war | No Comments »

Plan Colombia

September 9th, 2010 by John Feehery

The Colombian Ambassador Carolina Barco held a reception in honor of my old boss, former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.  Barco was effusive in her praise of Denny, who in the mid-1990’s took a keen interest her country.

Back then, Colombia was teetering on the edge of complete chaos.  Drug cartels and then narco-terrorists, had the upper hand in their battle for control.  Brutal murders, kidnapping, and overall mayhem constantly terrorized Colombian citizens.  Because the drug merchants had so much money, they were well equipped and well armed, and they gave the Colombian military a run for its money.  Because the cartels had so much money, they were also able to buy off many in the justice system and in the police force.

Hastert initially started looking into Colombia from his perch as Chairman of a Government Oversight Committee that focused on the war on drugs.  He saw that what happened in Colombia had a direct impact on the national security of the American people.  He saw that drugs from Colombia were making their way to street corners in the big cities, the suburbs, and in rural America.  He saw that kids were being killed in drug conflicts because of drugs that were being produced in Colombia.  Read more...

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Posted in Drugs in America, Foreign Relations, Government, Politics, Theory | No Comments »

Immigration Reform Compromise

April 29th, 2010 by John Feehery

The new law in Arizona should be seen less through the prism of politics or constitutional law and more through the lens of national psychology.  It really is a cri de coeur, or a cry from the heart.

The law may seem punitive or intrusive from the ACLU’s perspective.  But as I have said before, desperate times require desperate measures.

You only need to glance over the border and see the situation that is unfolding in Mexico to understand that the people of Arizona are panicking that the drug war, like a swarm of killer bees, is coming to a location near them.

Arizonans read stories like this and it makes them rightfully concerned:  “Gunmen killed more than 20 people — eight in one slaying — on Wednesday in one of the bloodiest days of the year. There were multiple shootings outside a nightclub, outside a convenience store and outside an elementary school as the violence flared up with fury. Juárez police reported shootings as the night wore on, but it was not immediately known how many were dead. One news outlet dubbed the event ‘Black Wednesday.’ More than 40 homicides have occurred since Monday despite a heavy presence of federal police and soldiers in the city.”  Read more...

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Posted in Foreign Relations, Government, Immigration, Theory | No Comments »

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

April 26th, 2010 by John Feehery

The Mexican drug war has spilled out over the border in the Southwest and has helped precipitate the new immigration law that just was signed into law in Arizona.

Washington activists can cry out about the unfairness of the law all they want, but until the President and his Administration take seriously the threat posed by the Mexican drug gangs, the people of Arizona will have no choice but to take extreme measures.

70 percent of the people of Arizona support the law just enacted.  That tells you something right there.

Both Arizona and New Mexico were in the top eight most violent states in the union last year.  Most of that can be attributed to the fact that the drug war has spilled out over the border.

I was listening to NPR (the voice of communism as my friends used to call it) and the story I heard was chilling.  The drug gangs now control the illegal passage ways into the United States, and if someone wants to come to America to find their version of the American dream, they can come illegally, which is very unlikely (given the cost and the time involved) or they can cut a deal with the drug lords.  Most cut a deal with the drug lords, and they become a mule for illegal narcotics.  Read more...

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Posted in Drugs in America, Foreign Relations, Immigration, Laws, Politics, Theory, war | 1 Comment »