Border Lines

Drone Proliferation: The Curve and the Conjuncture

2012-01-20T16:38:00.002-07:00

(The following is a response by Tom Barry posted in the forum on drone warfare sponsored by the Cato Institute, and found here.)

Israeli Heron UAV

Although the United States has led the way in drone proliferation, Americans are not alone in addressing the issues and challenges associated with the new weapons, surveillance, and intelligence systems. This Cato Unbound forum is stirring “strong passions” and “vigorous debate” about the morality and strategic value of drones—passions and debate that Cortright contends are already spreading in America.

While the debate is certainly starting to simmer on this side of the Atlantic—although manifestly not in Congress or within the executive branch—the public policy discussions are fortunately more advanced in the United Kingdom. Our own discussion can benefit from the excellent European publications and forums about drone warfare and drone surveillance.

One reason for this more developed discussion in Europe, especially in the UK, is the convergence of concerns about the “surveillance society” and persisting questions about the British Army’s and NATO’s integration of drones into their overseas operations—along with Britain’s partnerships with Israel in drone manufacturing and testing.

Playing a key role in this debate is a nonprofit group called Drone Wars UK, which released in January 2012 a valuable overview of drone warfare issues in a special report titled Drone Wars Briefing. The briefing includes a helpful review of the noncombatant death reports in Pakistan, discussion of the expanding incidence of extrajudicial drone strikes by the CIA, and a summary of the UK’s program of Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS). The report makes a strong case that “we need a serious, public – and fully informed – debate on all these issues and to ensure there is full public accountability for their use.” Aside from the UK’s military intervention in South Asia, another connection, of course, is that its own drones are also piloted from the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The publication last year by Pax Christi/Netherlands of Does Unmanned Make Unacceptable? – Exploring the Debate on Using Drones and Robots in Warfare also points to the increasingly vibrant debate in Europe – one that can help inform the incipient public and policy debate at home.

What is striking, at least to me, about this forum is the deep divide that separates Cortright’s concerns, expressed in “License to Kill,” from the near-uncritical support of drone warfare expressed by the other responders.

Cortright’s concerns both about the morality of remotely controlled warfare and about the geographical distance and emotional disconnection from killing will contribute to increased military and CIA interventions contrast sharply—shockingly in my opinion—with enthusiasm for the potential of these high-tech systems not only to reduce civilian casualties by precise targeting but also to respond to humanitarian emergencies.

Caution and Skepticism versus Confidence and Enthusiasm

Obviously, the central problem is that the discussion brings together two distinct philosophical and strategic paradigms—which mostly clash, leaving little room for a bit of consensus and concordance.

To avoid this unfortunate breach, we would have benefited if Cortright had anticipated this communication problem by evaluating more forthrightly and dispassionately the strategic and tactical benefits of increased drone deployment across the range of missions—from intelligence gathering and reconnaissance to targeted missile strikes.

But the debate is further obstructed by type of facile dismissal by Wittes and Singh, and by Goure, of the proposition that the emergence of drone warfare changes little.

“Drones are a weapon like any other weapon,” write Wittes and Singh, pointing to a purported direct evolutionary line from spear to Predator. Goure asserts, “There is no evidence that armed drones have reduced the political inhibitions against the use of deadly force.” Such categorical and simplistic conclusions close the door to the kind of public policy debate that this forum should encourage and that is urgently needed in America. If the CIA can kill targets covertly by using drone-launched missiles rather than by initiating covert actions by infiltrating agents or special operations, political inhibitions fade.

The two security paradigms that are loggerheads in this forum were underscored by the concluding sentence of the Wittes and Singh essay: “Indeed, the question is not whether we will live in a world of highly proliferated technologies of robotic attack. It is whether the United States is going to be ahead of the curve or behind it.”

That’s the paradigm of militarism—persuasive if you believe that ever-increasing U.S. military development of new high-tech weaponry ensures our national security (and yet there is recent U.S. security history to assail this traditional assumption by militarists). Then there is another paradigm in which Cortright apparently situates himself, namely that U.S. security is best served when it aims to stay ahead of the curve with respect to arms-control agreements, international frameworks for just wars and interventions, international sanctions, and protection for noncombatants. This counter-security paradigm wouldn’t necessarily dismiss the need for a strong drone and anti-drone capacity within the U.S. security apparatus, although presumably it would place greater emphasis on seeking more diplomatic, economic, and social solutions to security and political tensions.

Thus far, however, the Obama administration has not stayed ahead of this curve in visionary international leadership—the place where the U.S. has historically often been in the vanguard, though in fits and starts.

Earlier this month the president announced a shift in U.S. military strategy, including the shedding of “outdated Cold War systems” in favor of the high-tech instruments and conflicts of the future—including the aptly denominated “shadow wars.” This evolution in military strategy, including the increased reliance on drones and special operations (and presumably a continuing pattern of extra-judicial killings by drone strikes around the globe) may, as its supporters contend, be exactly the course the U.S. military believes it needs to ensure national and global security.

Whether strategically right or not, this is a shift that clearly calls out for the kind of moral, ethical, and legal scrutiny that Cortright advocates. One can only hope that drone proponents will also recognize this need – although so far it’s not in evidence in this forum. Assertions that a weapon is a weapon is a weapon dismiss the evident truth of this new conjuncture in national and global security.

Meanwhile, we can confidently leave any “hand-wringing” about the fears of eroding U.S. military dominance to the busy hands and hearty handshakes of the still thriving military-industrial complex.

Relying on their capable lobbyists and on their congressional and Pentagon sympathizers, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and the other companies in the flourishing drone industry—flush with military and homeland security contracts for drones—will surely do their best, without our help, to keep from falling behind the high-tech weapons curve.

Drones Hunt Immigrants and Marijuana Backpackers -- and Wind-triggered Ground Sensors

2012-01-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

By Tom Barry, AlterNet
Posted on January 16, 2012, Printed on January 20, 2012

http://www.alternet.org/story/153735/the_numbers_game%3A_government_agencies_falsely_report_meaningless_deportations_and_drug_seizures_as_victories

The Department of Homeland Security says it needs a fleet of two-dozen Predator and Guardian drones to protect the homeland adequately. Designed for military use, 10 of these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are already patrolling U.S. borders in the hunt for unauthorized immigrants and illegal drugs.

DHS is building its drone fleet at a rapid pace despite its continuing inability to demonstrate their purported cost-effectiveness. The unarmed Predator and Guardians (the maritime variant) cost about $20 million each. Yet DHS has little to show for its UAV spending spree other than stacks of seized marijuana and several thousand immigrants who crossed the border without visas.

Aside from a continuing funding bonanza for border security, to pursue its drone strategy DHS is also counting on the Federal Aviation Administration to continue authorizing the use of more domestic airspace by the unarmed drones. And FAA seems set to comply, having approved 35 of the 36 requests by the department’s Customs and Protection agency from 2005 to mid-2010. In congressional testimony in July 2010, the FAA said it was streamlining its authorization process for drones, including the hiring of 12 additional staff to process drone airspace requests.

While DHS is leading the way, national and local law enforcement agencies, as well as private entities, are demanding that FAA open the American skies to drone surveillance. Yet neither the FAA nor the Department of Transportation has been forthcoming in informing the U.S. public about the new robotic presence in the already congested American airways. The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently filed a suit against the transportation department for allegedly withholding information about drones in our skies.

More Predators on Border

For decades, the Border Patrol has annually boasted of the millions of pounds of illegal drugs it has seized and the number of immigrants detained. It’s a practice that border scholar Peter Andreas aptly calls "the numbers game."

Since the creation of the DHS, illegal immigrants and drugs aren’t just illegal, they are now classified as “dangerous people and goods.”

In fiscal year 2011 CBP reports that it seized “nearly five million pounds of narcotics.” But it fails to note that the domestic consumption of illegal drugs, especially marijuana, is steadily increasing despite these monumental numbers or that most of these “narcotics” enter the country from Mexico despite a massive buildup in border security and U.S. support for the Mexican drug war.

In its latest Predator announcement, Office of Air and Marine (OAM) tried playing the numbers game, but raised questions about the integrity of the numbers in the process:

Since the inception of the UAS program, CBP has flown more than 12,000 UAS hours in support of border security operations and CBP partners in disaster relief and emergency response, including various state governments and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The efforts of this program has led to the total seizure of approximately 46,600 pounds of illicit drugs and the detention of approximately 7,500 individuals suspected in engaging in illegal activity along the Southwest border.

One problem is the low numbers of seizures and apprehensions attributed to drone surveillance.

Another is that all the “narcotics” seizures CBP/OAM attributes to drone surveillance consist of bundles of Mexican-grown marijuana. That’s understandable since marijuana constitutes almost 100 percent of the drug seizures between the ports of entry along the southwestern border – more than 99 percent along the Arizona border.

But is this small quantity of marijuana spotted by the Predators worth their $20 million price tag (including surveillance systems and support)? That’s not a question the congressional oversight committees have asked DHS. Nor has DHS asked itself questions about comparative costs and benefits of border control measures.

Instead, it has poured steadily increasing budgets for border security into all three of its defined instruments of border control, what it calls the “three pillars of border security,” namely personnel or “boots on the ground,” tactical infrastructure (border fence and other physical barriers) and technology including the “virtual fence” of ground-based electronic surveillance and aerial surveillance.

In CBP-think, all three pillars are equally important and all components of these border-security pillars are equally fundamental to protecting homeland security.

Unimpressive Numbers

Since 2005 the Border Patrol has seized 13.5 million pounds of cannabis. This does not include the border marijuana seizures by CBP agents working at the POEs or by other federal and local law enforcement officials.

Yet OAM, which first deployed in 2005, reports that drone surveillance has led to the seizure of a mere 46,600 pounds of marijuana.

Drones, then, played a role in seizing less than one percent of the Border Patrol’s total marijuana in the past six years – to be exact only 0.003 percent.

On the “dangerous people” front, CBP reports that in the six years of the UAV program, drones have contributed to the apprehension of 7,500 suspected criminals detained. That’s small potatoes when compared to CBP’s overall number of detentions since 2005 – 5.7 million immigrants, including the 327,000 detained in 2011.

Expressed as a percentage, amounts to only 0.001 percent.

Just as DHS eschews cost-benefit analysis, it also doesn’t apply risk analysis. All illegal border crossers and all contraband fall into the broad post-9/11 mission of protecting the homeland against “dangerous people and goods.” If all are dangerous, then DHS argues that all are targets, and the UAV numbers, while small, still demonstrate that these agencies are on target and on mission.

Typically, CBP frames its UAVs as a fundamental instrument in combatting terrorism, even though no terrorists have ever been spotted or captured.

CBP says that the Predators play a “lead role in CBP's critical anti-terrorism mission.”

Two Predators also patrol the northern border, and Candice Miller, the Republican from Michigan who chairs the House Subcommittee on Border and Marine Security, complains that CBP is slighting northern border security.

The northern border Predators, however, haven’t led to a single interception of an illegal border crosser in the past two years.

Dubious Numbers

Yet another problem with OAM is that its declared numbers are carelessly formulated by the agency. What is more, it’s unclear whether the number of apprehensions and seizures CBP/OAM does disseminate are entirely attributable to UAV surveillance. CBP and OAM officials have been ambiguous about this. Most agency media releases say that Predator surveillance “has led” to the reported drug seizures and immigrant apprehensions.

Yet other media releases and CBP statements to congressional oversight committees fudge the role of the drones, saying only that drones “contributed to” or were “involved” in the actions that led to the seizures and arrests.

Second, CBP is careless in providing its numbers of arrests, seizures, and flight hours, raising questions about the veracity of the numbers.

The Dec. 27 media release refers to the seizures and arrests during so many drone flight hours – 12,000 hours of drone flight-time since 2005.

But CBP/OAM has over the past year given the media, Congress, and this writer the same arrest and seizure numbers (46,600 pounds of narcotics and 7,500 apprehensions) for varying numbers of reported hours flight-time – for 10,000, 11,500, and mostly recently 12,000 hours of drone air time.

CBP/OAM’s numbers game also includes variations of the numbers of arrests and seizures for the same number of flight hours. Celebrating reaching 10,000 hours of drone air time in June 2011, CBP/OAM released a press statement asserting that 10,000 hours of “UAS Predator operations have resulted in the apprehension of 4,865 undocumented aliens and 238 smugglers; the seizure of 33,773 pounds of contraband.”

Setting aside questions about why CBP/OAM can’t get its current numbers straight, the integrity and value of the drone program are also called into doubt by the unimpressive rate in the increased number of drug seizures and immigrant apprehensions reported by the agencies since 2006.

As more Predators are added to the CBP/OAM fleet, the rate of arrests and seizures has dropped dramatically.

Global Hawk used for Mexico surveillance.

Crash and Burn

CBP deployed its first Predator drone in October 2005. Manufactured by General Atomics in the San Diego area, the Predator drone also came with a General Atomics technical team and pilot to operate the drone.

If evaluated against the total numbers attributed to the border Predators since 2005, the quantity of marijuana seized and the number of immigrants apprehended during the first six months of border drone surveillance are outstanding.

When announcing that it was purchasing its second Predator, CBP said that “during its operational period” its first Predator flew 959 hours andsupported 2,309 arrests , contributed to the seizure of four vehicles, and the capture of 8,267 pounds of illegal drugs.

That operational period was from October 2005 to April 2006, when the Predator crashed in the Arizona desert near Nogales.

Crash investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board found that the contract pilot shut off the drone’s engine when he thought he was redirecting the drone’s camera. As Major General Michael Kostelnik, who directs OAM, explained to the Border and Marine Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee, “There was a momentary loss link that switched to the second control” -- and the Predator fell out of the sky.

The safety board issued CBP 17 safety recommendations to address deficiencies in OAM’s drone program.

CBP/OAM has not, however, estimated the cost of this strategy. Nor have the agencies reported on the cost of the program thus far. A review of DHS purchasing reveals that the department spent $242 million in drone contracts with General Atomics.

The crash didn’t deter CBP/OAM, which has steadily increased the homeland security drone fleet – which now includes seven Predators and two more expensive maritime variants called Guardians, also manufactured by General Atomics. By 2016 CBP hopes to deploy a fleet of 24 Predators and Reapers protecting the homeland.

A recent report by the Government Accounting Office on CBP’s high-tech border-security programs noted that the UAVs have “significant infrastructure costs with the highest cost risk.” Yet DHS continues to burn through its ever-expanding border security budget without apparent concern for cost-effectiveness or aptness in pursuing the DHS counterterrorism mission.

Declining Numbers as Predators Increase

Border state politicians like governors Jan Brewer and Rick Perry together with an array of congressional Democrats and Republicans – notably the leadership of the homeland security oversight committees (including Michael McCaul, Henry Cuellar, and Candice Miller) insist that the increased deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles is fundamental to securing the border.

But as Predator drones have increased, the number of marijuana seizures and arrests of illegal border crossers attributed to drone surveillance has dropped precipitously.

During the six months of operation of the ill-fated first border Predator (which crashed in the Arizona desert in April 2006), the drone accounted for nearly a third of the total 2005-2011 drone-related apprehensions and nearly one-fifth of total drug seizures.

At congressional hearings since 2005, OAM officials routinely report on the drone program with anecdotes and tributes to the wondrous technological capacities of the UAVs. Facts and figures, costs and benefits, and impact evaluations compared to other border security programs are, however, not routinely reported.

At the July 15, 2010 hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, then chairman Democrat Bennie Thompson insisted that OAM provide the committee with specific data.

CBP complied and later submitted that since the inception of the program in October 2005 through July 2010, OAM had flown drones 6,979 hours over the southwestern border, with 7,173 illegal immigrants apprehended and 39,049 pounds of narcotics (all marijuana, according to the July 2010 CBP report) seized.

In the four years since the crash of the first Predator, the border drone fleet had increased to five UAVs. Total UAV flight-time increased seven-fold the hours reported during the October 2005-April 2006 period, yet total drone-related apprehensions were only up three-fold while total drug seizures were up four-fold.

As the number of CBP/OAM drones rise, the productivity – measured by the traditional performance measures of immigrants detained and drugs seized – of the UAV program has dropped precipitously.

The most recent CBP numbers, cited in the agency’s Dec. 27 media release, raise new questions about the cost-benefit of the drone program.

Flight time rose to approximately 12,000 hours. Yet the roughly 5,000 recent hours (since July 2010) of drone surveillance contributed, according to CBP’s own reporting, to only 325 new apprehensions and 7,000 pounds of marijuana.

To give some perspective on the drug haul attributed to UAV surveillance, in Arizona alone CBP seizes on average 3,500 pounds of marijuana every day – making a marijuana seizure every 1.7 hours. In the past couple of years the Border Patrol has seized approximately 2.5 million pounds of marijuana along the southwestern border.

CBP/OAM hails its “eyes in the sky” drone program has being “cost effective” and a “force multiplier.”

Setting aside the up-front costs of the $20 million drones and the additional maintenance expenses and contractor services fees, and counting only the hourly operational costs, CPB/OAM has spent $17.5 million keeping its drones flying about 5,000 hours over the past year and a half.

In an October media release announcing the acquisition of another Predator for border-security duty in Texas, CBP declared that it “has continued to leverage the Predator B to unprecedented success.”

CBP routinely describes its various border security operations as “unprecedented” success stories. Yet the never agency never cites the precedents involved or even attempts to explain how these precedents in border control have been surpassed by its new initiatives and spending.

If evaluated, as none of the DHS agencies do, in terms of costs and benefits, then the CBP UAV program spent (only in flight costs) $54,846 for every illegal immigrant identified (and later apprehended by Border Patrol teams) on the drone cameras and $2,500 for every pound of marijuana.

That’s without factoring in the estimated $20 million that DHS spends for its Predators.

CBP Explains the Numbers Game

CBP has answers to the apparent inconsistencies and errors of its statistics for drone-related drug seizures and immigrant apprehensions.

In response to a request to clarify the confusing and ostensibly errant numbers, CBP warned “it would be unfair to categorize UAS [unmanned aerials systems] by only using drug interdiction or border crossing metrics.”

Yes, ideally CBP would measure progress in securing the homeland by achievements by other measures, such as its role in countering terrorism and keeping the homeland secure – whatever that means.

The border agency further explains that:

CBP deploys and operates the UAS only after careful examination where the UAS can be most responsibly aid in countering threats of our Nation's security. As threats change, CBP adjusts its enforcement posture accordingly and may consider moving the location of assets.

Then, the agency trots out the old force-multiplier assertion:

The UAS can stay in the air for up to 20 hours at a time-something no other aircraft in the federal inventory can do. In this manner it is a force multiplier, providing aerial surveillance support for border agents by investigating sensor activity in remote areas to distinguish between real or perceived threats, allowing the boots on the ground force to best allocate their resources and efforts.

That’s true. The Predators are called out when ground sensors signal movement. But as OAM’s Major General Michael Kostelnik explained at the July 15, 2010 Border and Marine Security subcommittee hearing:

At a standard 15 sensor activations, 12 of them might just be the wind. Two might be animals. One might be a group of migrants, and one might be a big group carrying drugs.

If there is a plausible explanation as to why there has been no increase in the number of drug seizures and immigrant apprehensions despite a jump from 10,000 to 12,000 hours of drone flights, it may be, as CBP wrote in response to the request to clarify its numbers, that:

UAS is not exclusive to the border security mission. CBP OAM leverages the Predator-B and Guardian UAS as a force multiplier during National Special Security Events and emergency and disaster response efforts, including those of the U.S. Secret Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, USCG, and other Department of Homeland Security partners.

In other words, the border Predators haven’t been on the border but have been deployed elsewhere on homeland security missions.

Which, would mean, that despite the increased number of Predators and Guardians assigned for border security duty, the drones aren’t patrolling the border and coasts – a scenario, if true, would likely upset all the border security hawks who insist that these drones are needed to secure the border.

It’s more likely, however, that CBP/OAM has from beginning been cooking the books and manipulating -- and that no one has called them on the inconsistencies.

Asked in the same query to show how CBP/OAM disaggregated the drone-related numbers from overall seizure and apprehension data and for the documentation to support its UAV flight-time declarations, CBP/OAM had no response.

The Larger Threat Picture

Asked at Border and Marine Security subcommittee hearing if the Predators were worth the expense, Major General (Ret.) Kostelnik redirected the question away from actual achievements to the larger threat picture of protecting the homeland against unknown future threats. Kostelnik told the congressional oversight committee:

I think the UAVs in their current deployment are very helpful in terms of the missions we apply it for. I believe we are building a force for a threat and an experience we really haven't seen yet. It is something that is in the future.

Major General Kostelnik summarized his support for DHS strategy to deploy two dozen drones, telling the oversight committee: “So not only are they ongoing force multipliers for the agents and troops on the ground, but they are unique capabilities in unique circumstances.”

Members of the DHS oversight committees also cite national security threats as the rationale for their drone boosterism, and like the major general are equally vague about the specific character of the threats that would justify the billions of dollars needed to continue the CBP/OAM drone strategy.

Henry Cuellar, former chairman and currently ranking member of the Border Security and Marine Subcommittee, has become one of the most prominent boosters of DHS drone acquisition. The Democrat from South Texas and co-chair of the House Unarmed Systems Caucus, explained his enthusiasm for the Predators on the border in his opening statement to the July 15, 2010 subcommittee hearing:

UAVs are one more tool for us to stay steps ahead and leaps above the threats that we face, and they can help deter and prevent illegal activity and threats to terrorism against the United States. In the event of a National crisis, they will provide critical eyes in the sky for what we can't see or do from the ground.

DHS does not measure the progress and achievements of the program by the number of terrorists seized, drug lords and lieutenants captured, or “transnational criminal organizations” broken by its border security operations.

Instead, border security programs -- whether traditional patrolling, the border fence, the “virtual wall” of SBInet, traditional air surveillance, or unmanned aerial surveillance -- continue to be measured by traditional border-control benchmarks: how many immigrants are captured and how many pounds of illegal drugs are seized.

It is a costly numbers game that has done little or nothing to resolve the country’s immigration policy challenges or the failures of its drug control policy.

Tom Barry is the author of Border Wars (MIT Press, 2011). He blogs at http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com.

Drone Proliferation Issues at Cato Institute

2012-01-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

What do Predators, Shadow Hawks, Tarantula Hawks, Reapers, Guardians, and Global Hawks have in common?

No, they are not all predator species. Yes, they are all flying the skies of North America. And yes they are all drones, or what their breeders call Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs.)

Although produced (mainly in the aviation-manufacturing complexes of Southern California) by military contractors, the drones in domestic airspace are unmanned but generally unarmed. For the most part, they are data-gathering “eyes in the sky” but lacking attack capabilities – although some smaller drones for law enforcement are being outfitted for possible taser strikes on criminals.

General Atomics, Honeywell, Vanguard Defense Industries, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin are turning out flocks of drones for the Pentagon – more than $20 billion in UAV contracts in this century’s first decade.

The U.S. military has been experimenting with remotely piloted drones for several decades. The operational concept guiding drone development was their role in what the military and the intelligence community calls ISR – Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. It wasn’t until the U.S. military stepped up its presence in Afghanistan after the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, 2001 that the Predator drones previously employed for ISR started carrying ordnance – largely missiles – payloads, thus opening up a form of air warfare.

It is commonly said that drones are especially well-suited for the so-called three Ds – dull, dirty, and dangerous missions. All three types of missions stem from the unmanned character of UAVs.

Although the drones require remote piloted and extensive crews to sift through data and to manage the launch-and-recovery operations of all UAV flights, the unmanned systems don’t directly put the lives of operators at risk in dirty (entering contaminated areas) or dangerous (entering conflict zones) missions.

At home and in the close abroad (Mexico), the drone proliferation seen in U.S. counterterrorism and war-fighting mission since 2001 is increasingly paralleled by the deployment of drones on “dull” missions that take advantage of the capacity of UAVs to loiter for long intervals – as part of border security, law enforcement, and drug war missions.

The surge of interest by law enforcement agencies -- the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Northern Command and the Justice Department, as well as by advocacy groups such as the House Unmanned Systems Caucus and the Association of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems International -- in drone deployment for these missions has not been accompanied by the congressional oversight and public debate necessary to ensure that drone operations don’t violate the civil rights, privacy, and human rights of all those subject to domestic ISR operations.

DHS insists, for example, that its Predator missions are fundamental to gaining “situational awareness” – the same terminology used by the U.S. military in “war-fighting” missions. If subject to proper oversight and regulations, UAVs could increase public safety and U.S. homeland security without putting constitutional and internationally stipulated rights at risk.

Thus far, however, these checks and balances are not in place. Nor are these safeguards even being properly considered by U.S. federal, state, and local authorities.

(As part of an initiative by the Cato Institute to spark more discussion about drone deployments, I am participating in a online forum in Cato Unbound, the institute’s monthly magazine.

Here is a link to the lead essay, “License to Kill” by David Cortright:

http://www.cato-unbound.org/?p=5591

I will publish the response in the next blog post.)

Big Government, Big Fence on Arizona Border

2012-01-11T16:56:00.001-07:00

CounterPunch, January 11, 2012 | Article

By Tom Barry

Time has worn down embossed lettering on the bronze plaque on the 6-ft. obelisk marking the U.S.-Mexico border.

My friend and I had stopped to look at the boundary monument, and were trying to decipher the lettering (English on north side of monument, Spanish on south side) when we hear a vehicle stop. Looking up we saw one of the green-and-white Border Patrol trucks that seem almost as common as cactus and mesquite in southeastern Arizona.

Leaning out her window, a friendly female face framed by an olive Border Patrol cap.

Seeing that we were just two gringos, she smiled, explaining: “I saw some people and came by to take a look.”

She was talking to us through the newly constructed border fence that runs six miles east from the Douglas port-of-entry. The border monument was on the south side of the massive steel border fence that stands, on the average, 18-ft high, making the iron and concrete monument seem puny and all the more dated.

It’s hard, though, to stay friendly on the border which in many areas have become an occupied zone on the northern side while new border fortifications make the Mexico borderland seem like a prison.

Irritated, I mutter back, “Yes, there are people over here.”

This border monument (No. 84) is one of several that stand along the “Internacional,” the road marks the northern edge of “AP” — as Agua Prieta residents commonly call their town of almost 200,000.

Looking out in Agua Prieta at new border fence/ Photo by Tom Barry

In erecting the border fence, the U.S. government has effectively ceded ground to Mexico. The old monuments establishing the dividing line between the two nations stand about three feet on the Mexican side of the fence.

East of El Paso, the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo defines the border east to where river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. But west of El Paso there are no natural boundaries marking which side of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts are in which country.

Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 and the Gadsen Treaty of 1853, U.S. territory grew by a third and Mexico ceded its northern territories – as a result of the U.S. conquests in the Mexican-American War and a purchased price of $25 million.

The federal government set about marking the new border in 1853 with a string of stone monuments extending from the Pacific coast to El Paso.

But the iron obelisk my friend and I were looking at was not the original marker but one of 276 stone and metal monuments erected every 8,000 meters or so along the border in 1895-96.

During the last half of the nineteenth century the border boomed with mining, ranching, and the coming of the railroad. With the earlier stone monuments in ruins, the U.S. and Mexican governments in 1892 created the International Boundary Commission (later renamed the International Boundary and Water Commission when water issues became contentious) to survey the border.

This monument was result of that survey work, and its bilingual signage a demonstration of the binational accord (for the most part) over course of the line in the sand separating the two nations.

That was before the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17 engulfed Mexico, and before the birth of a modern Mexican nationalism. Today, the relations between the two governments are generally close – brought together first with the North American Free Trade Agreement and most recently with U.S. support for the Mexican drug war.

Yet never before have the people and land of the United States and Mexico been so divided.

Memorial for Lamadrid, shot in back on fence/ Tom Barry.

Between the twin cities of Agua Prieta and Douglas, the divide is stark – and sometimes brutal.

Just down from the border monument is an altar dedicated to the memory of Carlos Lamadrid, a 19-year Agua Prieta resident who died on March 21, 2011 while attempting to climb the fence into Mexico. After a high-speed pursuit by the Border Patrol, Lamadrid, who was a U.S. citizen and was enrolled in the nearby Cochise College, abandoned his truck, and was shot four times in the back by a Border Patrol agent.

The Border Patrol had received a tip that Lamadrid was transporting marijuana – and 48 pounds of the substance were later found in his truck. In an attempt to divert the attention of the pursuing Border Patrol agents, cohorts of Lamadrid on the south side of the fence threw rocks at the agents and their vehicles – and one agent responded by shooting the youth in the back, killing him.

His family has filed a wrongful death suit. Family and friends had erected a similar memorial to Lamadrid on the Douglas side of the borderline on the spot that he fell to the ground from Border Patrol bullets. But they had to remove the memorial monument late last year to make way for the construction of the new border fence.

Bigger and Vastly More Expensive Fencing

In the past several months the Department of Homeland Security has replaced the 12-ft. high border fence that was erected in 1994 from metal aircraft "landing mats" discarded by the military.

The new fence, which extends six miles east from the port of entry, is a massive structure. It seems impenetrable, with closely spaced steel columns or bollards rising at least 18-ft above the ground and secured by a concrete foundation that is 6-8 ft. deep. Sheer metal plating, approximately 5-ft. high, spans the highest reaches of the fence on its Mexico side, further obstructing potential fence jumpers.

For the Border Patrol, another advantage of the new border fortification is that agents can now see through the fence to monitor activity on the Mexican side. The new fencing on the Douglas-Agua Prieta border is the same design used last year in Nogales.

Bigger and better, the new fencing costs $4.14 million to construct.

“This fence project is a critical component to enhancing the safety and security of not only Border Patrol agents, but the community as well,” said Tim Sullivan, Patrol Agent in Charge of the Douglas station.

Gustavo Lozano of the Nogales-based Fronteras Desiguales [Unequal Borders], advocates for the rights of border residents, said the new fencing sends a “very hostile message especially here in what we call ‘Ambos Nogales.’”

“We think of the two Nogaleses as very unified, as one community separated by a border. But when our government comes up with crazy and stupid ideas like a bigger fence, it’s clearly sending a message to regular people,” Lozano told the Nogales International newspaper.

Border Patrol watching "the line" in Douglas/ Tom Barry.

Driving back north along the Chiricahua Mountains up to Road Forks intersection on I-10, I saw more than a dozen Border Patrol vehicles and only a few private cars. Border security is not just a fortified borderline – complete with new steel fencing, stadium lights, and sensors – but also a U.S. borderland where the Border Patrol seems like an occupying force.

Illegal crossings have dropped dramatically as the number of Border Patrol agents in the adjoining Douglas, Arizona and Lordsburg, New Mexico districts have quadrupled, leaving agents with little to do. On the way north, I was followed two times by Border Patrol vehicles, one driving closely behind me at night without lights .

What the hell is the government doing with our money?

That sounds like a gripe of a right-wing populist. Traveling the border and seeing the massive waste associated with border security certainly makes you feel more sympathetic with the anti-big government right – except that anti-immigrant backlash and retrograde nationalism add up to calls by these same anti-big government rightists for more government spending for border fortifications, drug wars, and immigrant crackdowns.

No doubt, however, that there is something to the anti-big government politics, especially when security – national, homeland, border, etc. – is evoked.

Tom Barry directs the TransBorder Project at the Center for International Policy and is the author of Border Wars from MIT Press. See his work at http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/

Copyright 2012 CounterPunch. This article was originally published here.

Answers to the Border Drone Numbers Game

2012-01-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

CBP has answers to the apparent inconsistencies and errors that I have pointed out in previous postings. Here, here, and here.

Yes, ideally CBP would measure progress in securing the homeland by achievements by other measures, such as its role in countering terrorism and keeping the homeland secure – whatever that means.

The border agency further explains that:

CBP deploys and operates the UAS only after careful examination where the UAS can be most responsibly aid in countering threats of our Nation's security. As threats change, CBP adjusts its enforcement posture accordingly and may consider moving the location of assets.

Then, the agency trots out the old force-multiplier assertion:

The UAS can stay in the air for up to 20 hours at a time-something no other aircraft in the federal inventory can do. In this manner it is a force multiplier, providing aerial surveillance support for border agents by investigating sensor activity in remote areas to distinguish between real or perceived threats, allowing the boots on the ground force to best allocate their resources and efforts.

That’s true. The Predators are called out when ground sensors signal movement. But as OAM’s (Office of Air and Marine) Major General Michael Kostelnik explained at the July 15, 2010 Border and Marine Security subcommittee hearing:

At a standard 15 sensor activations, 12 of them might just be the wind. Two might be animals. One might be a group of migrants, and one might be a big group carrying drugs.

UAS is not exclusive to the border security mission. CBP OAM leverages the Predator-B and Guardian UAS as a force multiplier during National Special Security Events and emergency and disaster response efforts, including those of the U.S. Secret Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, USCG, and other Department of Homeland Security partners.

In other words, the border Predators haven’t been on the border but have been deployed elsewhere on homeland security missions.

It’s more likely, however, that CBP/OAM has from beginning been cooking the books and manipulating -- and that no one has called them on the inconsistencies.

Declining Immigrant and Marijuana Numbers as Border Predators Increase

2012-01-06T20:07:00.000-07:00

Border state politicians like Governors Jan Brewer and Rick Perry together with an array of congressional Democrats and Republicans – notably the leadership of the homeland security oversight committees (including Michael McCaul, Henry Cuellar, and Candice Miller) insist that the increased deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is fundamental to securing the border.

But as Predator drones have increased, the number of marijuana seizures and arrests of illegal border crossers attributed to drone surveillance has dropped precipitously.

At the July 15, 2010 hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, then chairman Democrat Bennie Thompson insisted that OAM provide the committee with specific data. Frustrated by CBP’s hyping its high-tech programs without offering any continuing failure to provide Congress with

As the number of CBP/OAM drones rise, the productivity – measured by the traditional performance measures of immigrants detained and drugs seized – of the UAV program has dropped precipitously.

The most recent CBP numbers, cited in the agency’s Dec. 27 media release, raise new questions about the cost-benefit of the drone program.

CBP/OAM hails its “eyes in the sky” drone program has being “cost effective” and a “force multiplier.”

The Larger Threat Picture

I think the UAVs in their current deployment are very helpful in terms of the missions we apply it for. I believe we are building a force for a threat and an experience we really haven't seen yet. It is something that is in the future.

UAVs are one more tool for us to stay steps ahead and leaps

above the threats that we face, and they can help deter and

prevent illegal activity and threats to terrorism against the United States. In the event of a National crisis, they will provide critical eyes in the sky for what we can't see or do from the ground.

It is a costly numbers game that has done little or nothing to resolve the country’s immigration policy challenges or the failures of its drug control policy.

Marijuana Backpacking Transnational Criminals

2012-01-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

Border Patrol early days/Arizona Historical Society

“Transnational criminal organizations.” That’s one of my Google Alerts, and in the past several months I’ve been continually alerted to instances of successful operations against TCOs by agencies of the Department of Homeland Security.

One might assume from the flurry of media releases from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that the Obama administration’s new Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime is working.

But most of the reported strikes against TCOs involve Mexican illegal border crossers carrying 50-60 pound burlap bags packed with marijuana.

One recent release reported the arrest of six Mexican nationals, including three juveniles, from Sinaloa packing in 400 pounds of marijuana across the remote Quijotoa Mountain southwest of Tucson.

Another recent purported TCO-arrest also involved six Mexicans carrying similar loads of pot through the Sonoran desert near Gila Bend southwest of Phoenix.

All those arrested – identified by CBP as “suspected smugglers” -- eventually will face deportation, but first they will, if convicted, face jail or prison time.

Border Patrol agents caught another group of three marijuana backpackers the same day carrying 25 pounds of marijuana, and seized an AK-47 from the group.

In its media releases, CBP states that it “is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.”

Border Patrol in Douglas, Arizona/Photo by Tom Barry

That language dates from the post-9/11 creation of the Department of Homeland Security.

And the following language dates from the Obama administration’s new strategy to combat transnational criminal organizations and its reframing of the “war on drugs” and drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs):

The Border Patrol uses a combination of proven technology, intelligence, and specialty units to target transnational criminal organizations. By impacting their ability to transport contraband throughout the United States, Border Patrol agents have made significant progress toward establishing a secure and safe border environment.

Clearly border security operations and infrastructure have made it more difficult, costly, and dangerous to import illegal drugs into the United States. But it is not at all clear that the border security buildup has brought significant progress toward creating a secure and safe border.

Instead of making the border safer and more secure, the increased border security operations and the associated combat against TCOs have transformed traditional activities of the U.S.-Mexico border – the crossing of illegal immigrants and drugs – into activities that routinely involve high crossing fees and weapons.

No doubt that U.S. border security operations are “impacting their ability to transport contraband,” but the drug trafficking organizations continue to supply the expanding U.S. drug market. Border Patrol agents continue to catch backpacking marijuana smugglers, but this doesn’t mean that these apprehensions “target transnational criminal organizations,” as CBP falsely claims.

Dubious Border Drone Numbers

2012-01-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

The overall low number of apprehensions and drug seizures attributed to drone surveillance on the border raise new questions about the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the unmanned Predator drones deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Even if the numbers of pounds of seized marijuana and of illegal immigrant border crossers were much higher, the same questions might be asked given the failure of DHS to make a strong case that cannabis and immigrants threaten the security of the homeland.

Yet another problem with the border drone program is that the declared numbers are carelessly formulated by Customs and Border Protection and by its Office of Air and Marine. What is more, it’s unclear whether the number of apprehensions and seizures CBP/OAM does disseminate are entirely attributable to UAV surveillance.

First, it’s not clear whether the cited seizures and arrests are solely attributable to drone surveillance. CBP and OAM officials have been ambiguous about this. Most agency media releases say that Predator surveillance “has led” to the reported drug seizures and immigrant apprehensions.

Second, CBP is careless in providing its numbers of arrests, seizures, and flight hours, raising questions about the veracity of the numbers.

The Dec. 27 media release refers to the seizures and arrests during so many drone flight hours – 12,000 hours of drone flight-time since 2005.

CBP/OAM’s numbers game also includes variations of the numbers of arrests and seizures for the same number of flight hours. Celebrating reaching 10,000 hours of drone air time in June 2011, CBP/OAM released a press statement asserting that the those 10,000 hours of “UAS Predator operations have resulted in the apprehension of 4,865 undocumented aliens and 238 smugglers; the seizure of 33,773 pounds of contraband.”

As more Predators are added to the CBP/OAM fleet, the rate of arrests and seizures has dropped dramatically.

Crash and Burn

When announcing that it was purchasing its second Predator, CBP said that “during its operational period” its first Predator flew 959 hours and supported 2,309 arrests, contributed to the seizure of four vehicles, and the capture of 8,267 pounds of illegal drugs.

That operational period was from October 2005 to April 2006, when the Predator crashed in the Arizona desert near Nogales.

The safety board issued CBP 17 safety recommendations to address deficiencies in OAM’s drone program.

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Playing the Numbers Game with Border Drones

2012-01-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

For decades, the Border Patrol has annually boasted of the millions of pounds of illegal drugs it has seized and the number of immigrants detained.

It’s a practice that border scholar Peter Andreas aptly calls “the numbers game.”

Since the creation of the DHS illegal immigrants and drugs aren’t just illegal, they are now classified as “dangerous people and goods.”

In its latest Predator announcement, OAM tried playing the numbers game, but raised questions about the integrity of the numbers in the process. According to OAM:

Since the inception of the UAS program, CBP has flown more than 12,000 UAS hours in support of border security operations and CBP partners in disaster relief and emergency response, including various state governments and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The efforts of this program has led to the total seizure of approximately 46,600 pounds of illicit drugs and the detention of approximately 7,500 individuals suspected in engaging in illegal activity along the Southwest border [author highlighting].

One problem is the low numbers of seizures and apprehensions attributed to drone surveillance.

Another is that all the “narcotics” seizures CBP/OAM attributes to drone surveillance consist of bundles of Mexican-grown marijuana. That’s understandable since marijuana constitutes almost 100% of the drug seizures between the ports of entry along the southwestern border – more than 99% along the Arizona border.

But is this small quantity of marijuana spotted by the Predators worth their $20 million price tag (including surveillance systems and support)? That’s not a question that the congressional oversight committees have asked DHS.

Nor has DHS asked itself questions about comparative costs and benefits of border control measures.

Instead, it has poured steadily increasing budgets for border security into all three of its defined instruments of border control, what it calls the “three pillars of border security,” namely personnel or “boots on the ground,” tactical infrastructure (border fence and other physical barriers,” and technology including the “virtual fence” of ground-based electronic surveillance and aerial surveillance.

In CBP-think, all three pillars are equally important and all components of these border-security pillars are equally fundamental to protecting homeland security.

Unimpressive Numbers

Since 2005 the Border Patrol has seized 13.5 pounds of cannabis. This does not include the border marijuana seizures by CBP agents working at the POEs or by other federal and local law enforcement officials.

Yet OAM, which first deployed in 2005, reports that drone surveillance has led to the seizure of a mere 46,600 pounds of marijuana. Drones, then, played a role in seizing less than one percent of the Border Patrol’s total marijuana in the past six years – to be exact only 0.003%.

Typically, CBP frames its UAVs as a fundamental instrument in combatting terrorism, even though no terrorists have ever been spotted or captured.

CBP says that the Predators play a “lead role in CBP’s critical anti-terrorism mission.”

Two Predators also patrol the northern border, and Cong. Candice Miller, the Republican from Michigan who chairs the House Subcommittee on Border and Marine Security, complains that CBP is slighting northern border security.

The northern border Predators, however, haven’t led to a single interception of an illegal border crosser in the past two years.

Deceptive Advertising for Border Drone Toys

2011-12-27T15:01:00.002-07:00

Candice Miller, the Republican chair of the House Border and Marine Security Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee, is effusive in her praise of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), referring to the drones at a March 15, 2011 hearing on Capitol Hill as “fantastic technology” that have proved “incredibly, incredibly successful in theater.”

As the new chair of the subcommittee that oversees the air operations of Customs and Border Protection, Miller has become one of the leading congressional advocates of increased domestic drone deployment. Miller is a member of the House Unmanned Systems Caucus, which works to increase drone use and open U.S. airspace to UAVs.

Over the past few years Texas Republicans – most prominently Gov. Rick Perry, Senator John Cornyn, and Cong. Michael McCaul – have been the among the leading high-profile proponents of drones for border security. Democratic Party politicians also generally share the mounting enthusiasm in Congress for this high-tech fix for border security.

Neither the high price tag for the Predator and Reaper drones –$20 million apiece – nor the inability of CBP to offer any substantive documentation of their successful deployment deters congressional drone boosters.

In support of the department’s use of drones for border security DHS officials routinely assert that drones are a “force multiplier” and that UAVs form an essential part of the “technological pillar” of border security. Congressional drone boosters commonly echo and amplify these DHS claims.

Yet DHS assertions about the success, value, and worth of drones in border security operations suffer a widening credibility gap six years after Predator drones first started patrolling the southwest border. UAVs may, as Miller states, be fantastic technology.

The purported achievements fall more into the realm of pure fantasy.

DHS has steadily expanded its drone fleet, and Congress has offered more cheerleading for drones than oversight. Due diligence and accountability are nowhere to be found.

What makes this absence of proper oversight and good management especially shocking is that the waste, inefficiency, and strategic blunders of the drone escalation mirror the monumental failures of the SBInet “virtual fence” project – the other major DHS venture into high-tech border security.

Customs and Border Protection, which has eight drones in its UAV fleet with another two projected to be delivered by early 2012, projects a 24-drone fleet according to its strategic plan. Congressional members, alarmed about an array of perceived border threats, have pressured CBP to quickly increase its drone fleet and patrol areas despite CBP acknowledgements that it lacks the capacity and personnel to deploy the drones it already has.

Multiplying the Border Force

Since the inclusion in 2003 of immigration and border security agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, CBP has increasingly adopted a military lexicon to describe its operations. That makes sense since CBP since for the first time CBP had an explicit security mission – as evident in the wholesale adoption of the term “border security.”

Over the past six years CBP has spent more than $2 billion to create a “technological pillar” for border security. The other two border security pillars are personnel (Border Patrol and CBP agents) and infrastructure (mainly the border fence).

The two main components of CBP’s new technological border security are the “virtual fence” project (first known as SBInet and now called the Alternative Technology Plan) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In both cases, one from the ground and the other from the air, surveillance technology monitors stretches of the border and intelligence analysts attempt to determine if the received data includes evidence of illegal border crossings.

In both cases, CBP promotes these high-tech surveillance programs as “force multipliers.” That’s a Department of Defense term meaning a “capability that, when added to and employed by a combat force, significantly increases the combat potential of that force and thus enhances the probability of successful mission accomplishment.”

The claim, then, is that UAVs increase the capability of the Border Patrol by increasing the effective scope of their patrols.

The ostensible logic of the force-multiplying effect of UAVs is persuasive, just as the CBP assertion that the virtual fence functions as a force-multiplier has been presented as common sense – that technology enhances productivity.

One problem with the “force multiplier” argument for border drone deployment is that DHS has never provided any data to support the assertion. The other main problem is that DHS probably cannot supply this supporting data because it is simply not true.

UAVs might be better described as being manpower-intensive rather than force-multipliers.

At any time, it is more likely that CBP drones are sitting on U.S. military bases along the border rather than serving as the Border Patrol’s “eyes in the skies.”

Why is that? Numerous reasons.

Bad weather, including cloudy conditions and winds, is a common explanation. Another is that CBP and its Office of Air and Marine lacks the personnel to operate the drones.

Attempting to explain why it is so challenging to get drones in the air, Gen. Kostelnik, who as OAM chief directs CBP’s drone program expressed his frustration with preconceived notions that the unmanned character of UAVs:

We're not flying to the full potential, not because of aircraft or airspace limitations, but because we're still building the force. We're still growing the crews….

We are all here talking about unmanned. The real issues have nothing to do with the unmanned part. The real issues are all about the manned piece, and this is a manpower-intensive system.

The manpower-intensive character of UAVs, observed Kostelnik, is especially true for “the remotely piloted ones like the Predator.” As the retired general explained, the Predators require two pilots for any one mission, but also large teams to handle launching and grounding. The manpower crunch obstructing more Predator patrols is also due to all the analysts required to do the “intel kind of things” with the steady stream of images transmitted by the drones.

Despite all the emphasis by CBP on the force multiplying advantages of UAVs, neither Kostelnik nor anyone else at CBP has offered any public description of exactly how much “manpower” drone missions require.

Although UAVs have the capability of flying as much as 20 hours, most missions apparently average about 10 hours, while the many training missions are still shorter.

During the same subcommittee meeting, Kostelnik was asked to give members some idea of the number of crew members required for a drone mission. According to Kostelnik, a typical drone mission requires three crews in addition to the two pilots – one handling navigation and the other directing the sensors -- to handle launching, landing, and recovery.

But what makes UAV missions so “manpower-intensive” is the data management and analysis associated with the stream of images flowing into the control centers. “Taking the data takes more people,” explained Kostelnik, and the “data that comes out of our aircraft is now sent to processing, exportation, and dissemination cells.”

This complex data input component of UAV surveillance is what Kostelnik, using military jargon, called a “distributed infrastructure” that complements the command control centers on military bases where the pilots and aviation crews work. Another five full-time people are necessary, noted Kostelnik, to “tell the sensor operator where to look and the pilot where to fly.”

The OAM chief estimates that there could be 50 people involved in a typical drone mission.

Without even taking into account the number of Border Patrol agents deployed in planes, helicopters, and ground vehicles, the OAM chief estimated that UAVs depend on teams of fifty or more. Counting those agents that hunt down suspected illegal border crossers, it’s likely that more than a hundred Border Patrol agents and other support staff be involved in any one UAV surveillance incident.

Although CBP officials have repeatedly testified in Congress about the progress and success of the drone program, the CBP has not produced any hard information about the numbers of men and women involved in a typical UAV-driven border arrest or drug seizure.

Drones may be, as Cong. Miller says, a “fantastic technology.” But that doesn’t mean that they are a “force multiplier” as DHS repeatedly asserts.

Even if DHS could demonstrate that the Predators reduce the number of Border Patrol agents needed to effectively patrol U.S. borders, the homeland security department should still be required to justify the $20 million it spends for a Predator and its control system. If it were a responsible steward of government revenues, it should provide data showing that drone surveillance is at least as effective as surveillance by manned light aircraft or by Border Patrol officers on the ground.

Yet none of the numerous congressional DHS oversight committees have demanded such an accounting from DHS and CBP, and DHS has ramped up the border drone program without undertaking such a cost-benefit evaluation.

One reason for this lack of due diligence is the boyish enthusiasm in Congress and among border politicians for this new technological toy in their border security playground.

Reporting for the Washington Post, William Booth brought attention to this this uncritical drone boosterism.

“In his trips to testify on Capitol Hill,” wrote Booth, “Michael Kostelnik, the retired Air Force general and former test pilot who runs the Office of Air and Marine for the CBP, said he has never been challenged in Congress about the appropriate use of domestic drones. “Instead, the question is: Why can’t we have more of them in my district?” Kostelnik said.”

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More Predators on the Border

2011-12-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to a Dec. 21 Washington Post story on border drones, where I am quoted.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/more-predator-drones-fly-us-mexico-border/2011/12/01/gIQANSZz8O_story.html

The lack of diligent congressional oversight -- really, it's more cheerleading and boosterism -- over DHS is one of the main reasons that Homeland Security is so bloated and unfocused. It's big government at its worst. No, that would be the Pentagon, but one would think (or hope) that a new federal bureaucracy would be expected to meet some standards of accountability.

WaPo's William Booth captures this problem by quoting CBP's Kostelnik, who runs the drone program:

In his trips to testify on Capitol Hill, Michael Kostelnik, the retired Air Force general and former test pilot who runs the Office of Air and Marine for the CBP, said he has never been challenged in Congress about the appropriate use of domestic drones. “Instead, the question is: Why can’t we have more of them in my district?” Kostelnik said.

Booth gave me the last word:

“Congress and the taxpayers ought to demand some kind of real cost-benefit analysis of drones,” said Tom Barry, director of the TransBorder Project at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank, who has studied the domestic Predator program. “My sense is that they would conclude these aircraft aren’t worth the money.”

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Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency -- Review of El Narco

2011-12-26T12:37:00.001-07:00

What’s going on in Mexico is not a “war on drugs.”

No doubt that the drug-related violence and crime are products of drug- prohibition and counternarcotics policies instituted by the United States and later give international legitimacy by the United Nations. Yet the essence of the turmoil and terror in Mexico is the product of a drug war.

If the only contribution of El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency (Bloomsbury Press, November 2011) were to succeed in getting us to understand this difference, the book would be regarded as one of the best on the origins and evolution of the drug trade in Mexico.

As British journalist Ioan Grillo explains in his new book, the

“war on drugs” dates back many decades in Mexico and has been largely coincident with U.S., ever since President Nixon announced the new war four decades ago -- marked by both the failed U.S. interdiction plan called Operation Intercept in 1969 and by the U.S. –supported drug eradication campaigns in the early 1970s (using highly toxic defoliants like paraquat, also deployed in the still raging Vietnam War).

What Grillo calls the Mexican Drug War is distinguished from the rhetorical “war on drugs” both because it has become more like an actual war and because the objective of drug control has been subsumed into a combat for territorial, social, economic, and to some degree political control by warring factions – including the various and evolving cartels, the Mexican military, and the Mexico police.

But it is less clear cut and more worrisome than simply a battle for the supremacy among legal and illegal warlords. That’s because we learn from Grillo – in his superbly organized and narrated exposition of the Mexican Drug War – that the Mexican state and its instruments of law enforcement and security are no longer simply corrupt and compromised, as has been a fundamental truth in Mexican governance historically, but that they are often no longer representatives of a corrupted state but father functionaries of criminal factions.

Grillo makes as a strong case that the Mexican Drug War, as we now know it, began not with President Calderón’s declaration of war on Dec. 11, 2006 shortly after moving into Los Pinos but rather two years previously when Los Zetas, a grouping of former-special force soldiers, “militarized the conflict” in their campaign to institute control over sections of northeast Mexico, mostly notably in Nuevo Laredo.

“Suddenly,” as Grillo describes the transition, “the public saw captured criminals in combat fatigues with heavy weaponry.” The Zetas,” writes Grillo, “were not thinking like gangsters, but like a paramilitary group controlling territory.”

One of the many standout contributions of El Narco is Grillo’s success in helping us understand that the evolution of the drug war in Mexico is not simply a matter of more deaths and more horrific ways of killings. Not just a matter of scope and scale, the Mexican Drug War has become a new phenomenon that defies easy definition.

Grillo mounts a strong case that the Mexican Drug War is a “criminal insurgency,” arguing convincingly that the security of the Mexican state is at risk from insurgent cartels, which are not just defending themselves from the official security forces but contesting state power to govern.

Insurgency is typically met with counterinsurgency and often outside military intervention – which an increasing band of U.S. hawks are saying is all but inevitable – but Grillo contends that the solution should “not come from the barrel of a gun.”

The author presents a cogent plea for a pragmatic and long-overdue reform of drug prohibition laws that have fostered a shadow and increasingly violent economy of drug trafficking and consumption. “People kill over street corners because they are fighting over the wealth of the black-market trade, not because they smoked spliffs.”

El Narco is the best overview book on the Mexican Drug War. While the book’s subtitle “Inside the Criminal Insurgency” exaggerates the extent that Grillo managed to penetrate the drug industry in Mexico, the book is less valuable for its bit of investigative reporting but more for the author’s admirable ability to assemble a great deal of material – past and present – about the drug trade into an engaging and highly illuminating briefing about what’s going on in Mexico and what both countries may face if more sensible policies are not adopted by the international community, particularly the U.S. government.

Grillo’s writing is consistently accessible and pleasing – and refreshingly direct. He writes, for example, that, “The Obama administration stumbled on with a befuddled agenda on Mexico,” noting that its mixed messages – hailing Calderón’s courage and achievements while also speaking frankly, as Hillary Clinton did, about the emerging insurgent character of the evolving Mexican Drug War – illustrate that it has been “increasingly confused on Mexico and shaky in its support for the current strategy.”

The chapters on narco “Culture” and narco “Faith add little new to our understanding of Mexican drug trafficking, and simply recount the usual tales of the narcocorridas and Santa Muerte.

Grillo’s “Diversification” chapter is mostly descriptive and the analysis that the drug cartels have become diversified criminal organizations falls short. Could the major cartels or associated bands survive without the immense profits of drug trafficking? Unlikely, unless they assumed control over entire legal industries. But Grillo makes a strong point when supporting his argument about the evolved character of the cartels when he describes the new business of extortion and protection payments, which is eroding the traditional financial base of Mexican politics and law enforcement.

Grillo deserves special credit for supporting the groundbreaking investigative journalism of Gary Webb in his1996 series Dark Alliance that highlighted how U.S. political goals, such as the CIA and White House support of the Nicaraguan contras, overrode the drug war goals of the DEA. Your appreciation of Grillo grows as he takes the American media to task for failing to take up the investigation the Webb began: "The Los Angeles Times and New York Times should have followed these leads rather than just looking for holes."

El Narco is also refreshing in its analysis of Calderón’s naïve and moralistic view of governance in the era of the Mexican Drug War. Upon taking office, the president “spoke repeatedly about the need to restore order and reassert the power of the state,” writes Grillo,” observing too that the “message applied as much to street blockades and riots [by political dissidents] as drug decapitations.”

In this context, El Narco also talks straight about the repression of the indigenous and student protesters and dissidents in Chiapas and Oaxaca by the military and police, as in recalling “the murder of American Indymedia journalist Brad Will.”

In El Narco Grillo asserts, “Mexico is becoming the new point of comparison for a criminal insurgency.”

While his definition of a criminal insurgency is fuzzy, there is little doubt that the threats to Mexico’s national security and public safety need to be met with a more enlightened strategy – and that Mexicans deserve more from the Obama administration than another five years of befuddlement.

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Fuentes Pessimistic about Mexican Politics, No Hope for Drug War Solution without U.S.

2011-12-26T07:26:00.000-07:00

Marina Mendez Ransanz

In a recent BBC Mundo interview, noted Mexican writer and intellectual Carlos Fuentes discussed the current tumultuous political situation in Mexico. He showed a clear lack of enthusiasm for the candidates to the presidency, who will run in the incoming presidential elections of 2012.

Fuentes stated that the traditional parties in Mexico –PRI, PAN and PRD -- offer no solutions for the grave crisis affecting the country, and that their proposals to address the power of organized crime lack clarity and have attracted little public enthusiasm.

“The problems are too big, and the politics are too small,” the writer said with regard to the situation in Mexico.

Carlos Fuentes belongs to the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which is a group that includes several former presidents, including Fernando Henrique Cardoso from Brazil, César Gaviria from Colombia, and Ernesto Zedillo from Mexico, international leaders, intellectuals, and businessmen.

In a report published by the Commission last June, the Group warned about the failure of the war that has been waged against the drug cartels under the frame currently used by several governments, such as Mexico and the United States.

Fuentes expressed his disagreement with President Calderón’s drug war strategy, which is characterized by its apparent frontal attack against the cartels. But he credits Calderón for bringing the drug-trafficking and organized crime threats to the forefront of the political agenda.

Fuentes is a longtime advocate of drug legalization. By 2007 he had already proposed the legalization of drugs as a measure to reduce the violence caused by their distribution and the criminal activities surrounding this market. Illegal drugs should be legalized, he concluded, but for this to be effective will require joint action by the entire international community.

On numerous previous occasions, Fuentes has also observed that all efforts directed toward fighting drug trafficking in Mexico will be useless unless the United States addresses the demand for drugs in its territory.

In 2010, through a live chat with readers of the Spanish newspaper El Pais, Fuentes said that drugs are largely bought in the United States and it is there that decriminalization should begin. He expressed hope about the marijuana decriminalization initiative (defeated in 2010) in California, and was hopeful too that other states would follow the California example.

Fuentes, a prominent Mexican intellectual and internationally acclaimed novelist,

advocates for gradual policy reforms that will result in drug decriminalization. It’s a pragmatic and peaceful solution, which, he says, recognizes the reality of a large and long-lived demand for drugs in the U.S. market.

Fuentes believes that the scourge of drug-related violence in Mexico and the threat of the cartels to Mexican national security stand little chance of being resolved without more direct U.S. involvement.

He told BBC that eventually -- for both national and international reasons – the U.S. government will be obliged to take a more active role in addressing the criminal crisis in Mexico and to act together with the Mexican government to confront the power and violence of the drug-trafficking organizations.

Fuentes had choice words to describe the PRI and PRD presidential candidates, while observing that PAN, the party that currently holds Los Pinos, stands little chance of achieving electoral success given their perceived poor performance during the last two presidential terms.

The PAN was able to gain access to power in the year 2000 after more than 70 years of undisputed ruling by the PRI, and the Mexico’s population welcomed this transition great hope and high expectations. Now, these past 11 years of PAN governments are widely regarded as a huge missed opportunity.

About Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the PRD candidate, Fuentes mentioned with some regret that he represents an outdated Left.

Enrique Peña Nieto, the current PRI candidate, was recently the protagonist of an embarrassing incident in the Guadalajara Book Fair when he was not able to mention 3 books that had made an impact on his life. Furthermore, while answering the question Peña Nieto misattributed a famous book written by Fuentes to Enrique Krauze, another Mexican writer.

Referring to Peña Nieto, Fuentes said that the PRI candidate has every right not to have read Fuentes’s books. However, the writer added “he has no right to be the president of Mexico out of ignorance.”

“Problems demand a man capable of talking to Obama, Angela Merkel or Sarkozy on the same level, and this is not the man capable to do so,” Fuentes said of Peña Nieto.

(Marina Mendez Ransanz is a Latin American Rights & Security intern at the Center for International Policy, working with the TransBorder Project)

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Border Security Enhanced, Drug War Transformed

2011-12-23T16:17:00.000-07:00

U.S. border from Sasabe, Sonora/Photo by Tom Barry

Published in CounterPunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/21/the-drug-war-transformed/

DECEMBER 21, 2011

Connie Mack and the "Terrorist Insurgency" in the Americas

The Drug War Transformed

by TOM BARRY

“This is a terrorist insurgency,” says Connie Mack, the Republican who chairs the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mack, who introduced the Enhanced Border Security Act in mid-December, believes that the Merida Initiative has failed and that the administration needs to revamp the counterdrug assistance program to include a “counterinsurgency plan.”

Explaining why his Enhanced Border Security bill is needed, Mack said: “The Mexican drug cartels have evolved into what some call the greatest national security threat faced by the United States with the ability to severely damage the U.S. economy.”

Adopting the language of the Obama administration’s new strategy to “combat transnational organized crime,” Mack warns that both Mexico and the United States are facing a “terrorist insurgency” waged by transnational criminal
organizations “along our southern border, with operations across Mexico and Central America as well as in over 1,000 U.S. cities.”

Five years after President Felipe Calderón launched Mexico’s drug war in December 2006 and three years into the Merida Initiative counterdrug assistance program, there is widespread anxiety in Mexico that the government is not gaining the upper hand on the drug cartels and that the drug-related violence, which has left a toll of 50,000 dead, will continue into the nextsexenio, the six-year presidential term.

Whatever their politics, most close observers of the drug war in Mexico would agree with the Republican firebrand from Florida that the last five years of Mexico’s drug war have done little to increase governmental security and social stability. Most assessments of the Merida Initiative’s impact on Mexico and Central America are similarly negative.

The basic facts of the drug-related crisis in Mexico are clear enough, but what’s not so evident is its character and identity.

As President Calderón’s sexenio draws to an end and as the U.S. government evaluates its involvement in Mexico’s drug war and its border policy, new questions are being asked about drug threat and about the proper response.

Mack insists that traditional counternarcotics strategies are insufficient and out of step with the changing character of the drug trade in Mexico and in Central America.

What we are seeing in the region is not simply the business and violence of drug-related crime, says Mack. Instead, Mexico and the drug transit countries of Central America are facing insurgency and terrorism that threatens the security of region and of the United States.

Mexico has vociferously rejected Mack’s contention that the drug cartels represent an existential threat to state power.

But the basic facts of the drug war – widespread territorial loss of effective governing power, the involvement of local drug bosses in politics, the massive deployment of the military, the increasing firepower of the cartels, the war-level loss of life, and the use of horrific violence to make statements – seem to support Mack’s contention that Mexico is facing what he variously calls a “terrorist insurgency” and a “criminal insurgency.”

The inability of the Obama administration’s expanded border-security operations to significantly obstruct the crossborder flow of drugs from Mexico also points to the inadequacy of the U.S. response, whether at home or in Mexico.

Mack is, of course, not alone in his characterization of the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) as insurgents and narcoterrorists. Nor is he the only major public figure who is raising alarm about an increased threat to U.S. national security.

Two retired U.S. generals, including the former chief of the U.S. Southern Command, came to similar conclusions in a recent report commissioned by the Texas state government alarmingly titled Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment.

There’s no disputing the severity of the drug-related violence in Mexico and Central America. Yet the increasing discussion of the security implications of illegal drug trade also relates to the Obama administration’s own attempt to redefine the domestic and international drug problem as a battle against transnational criminal organizations.

The Transformed Drug Threat

The U.S. government has traditionally referred to Mexican and other Latin American drug cartels as drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). But the Obama administration has altered the nomenclature of the drug trade, and the DTOs are now routinely categorized as transnational criminal organizations (TCOs).

By newly designating the Mexican DTOs as transnational criminal organizations, the Obama administration has opened new political room for foreign policy hawks and anti-drug hardliners like Connie Mack to credibly argue that the U.S. needs to respond differently and more aggressively to the evolving drug trade scenario in the hemisphere.

Obama counternarcotics officials have dropped the term “war on drugs.” Instead, the four-decade war has been superseded by the newly organized “combat against transnational crime” and transnational organized criminal organizations – as spelled out this year by the White House in the Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime.

The shift in the terminology to describe the U.S. national and international enforcement of its drug control laws – shedding an embarrassing military metaphor and adopting a more appropriate law-enforcement one – was long overdue.

Wars, after all, are fought to win not to flounder — with nary a sign of victory after four decades of drug war-fighting. In contrast, crime-fighting is accepted as a constant slog where no final victory is ever expected.

President Obama, however, insists, that the combat against the drug-trafficking TCOs is a matter of urgent national security, promising to prioritize the targeting of TCOs that represent a “high national security risk.”

In keeping with new parlance of the administration, Connie Mack, who chairs the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, contends that the U.S. and Mexican governments no longer simply confront drug trafficking organizations but now face powerful transnational criminal organizations that threaten not only the region’s security but also U.S. national security.

In contrast to Mack, other critics, apart from those of the right wing, lambast the Merida Initiative for contributing to widespread human rights violations by the Mexican military and for continuing drug war strategies that are based on failed drug prohibition policies.

Counting on Connie Mack

During his seven years in Congress, Mack has won strong support from his conservative constituency for his hardline positions on U.S. Latin America policy, particularly with his shrill anti-communist critiques of Castro in Cuba, Chávez in Venezuela, and Zelaya (removed by military-backed coup) in Honduras.

As chairman of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee, Mack has won a larger megaphone for a view of hemispheric relations in which U.S. hegemony persists. In language reminiscent of the imperial era politics in Latin America, Mack states: “You can count on me to challenge these tyrants wherever they are and always stand on the side of freedom, security and prosperity.”

Mack’s hawkish views on Mexico represent an ideological continuity in that he regards the TCOs as insurgents who challenge the established order. Yet his new focus on Mexico and the border security also have more immediate political origins – including an opportunity to bash the Obama administration and an attempt to assuage anti-immigrant constituents outraged over Mack’s criticisms of the repressive Arizona immigration law as threat to “freedom-loving conservatives.”

Mack may see his hawkish stances on border security and on the Mexico drug war as restoring the trust of his conservative constituents and helping him in his likely bid to to unseat Democratic Senator Bill Nelson.

In a Sept. 16 letter to the State Department complaining about the failures of the Merida Initiative, Mack wrote that “the transformation of drug cartels into TCOs and their attempts to undermine the Mexican government through tactics labeled as characteristics of an insurgency” required an overhaul of the Merida Initiative to address the new security environment.

Mack told the State Department:

The failure of this Administration to set performance measures, target dates or tangible goals to measure the success of U.S. programs has made it impossible to claim ‘success’ on the initiative itself. Meanwhile, the Mexican drug cartels have capitalized on the United States’ sluggish assistance to actively undermine the Mexican state through insurgent activities such as violence, corruption, and propaganda.

Both the Calderón and Obama administrations insist that the battle against the cartels – called drug war in Mexico and combat against transnational crime in the U .S. – is making steady progress toward the goal of reducing the threat of the drug-trafficking organizations.

Responding to Mack’s letter, the State Department wrote:

We believe the [Merida] Initiative is already having a positive impact. Through its bold efforts, with U.S. support, the Mexican government has successfully dismantled drug smuggling routes, seized major amounts of illicit drugs and jailed drug kingpins.

Critiquing the Merida Initiative, Mack says, “If we are unable or unwilling to identify the problem correctly, then we are unable to properly put a policy forward to combat the issue at hand. The security and safety of the American people depend on it.”

That’s exactly right. But it is not a problem that began with the Merida Initiative or with the Obama administration. Mack only compounds the problem of incorrectly identifying the issue at hand in Mexico and at the border by introducing new identifiers such as “terrorist insurgency” and “criminal insurgency.” Such terms confuse tactics and methods with objectives and goals, while leading both countries down the path of increased militarization.

The Obama administration also confiscates the drug-related crisis in Mexico by raising the specter of transnational crime as a national security threat and by identifying the Mexican drug trafficking organizations as the cause of the crisis rather than as largely a product of America’s own drug war and drug prohibition policies.

Join Border Wars Policy Group to follow/discuss border security, immigrant imprisonment, and drug policy issues at:

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Tom Barry directs the TransBorder Project at the Center for International Policy and is the author of Border Wars from MIT Press. See his work at http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/

Raising Alarm about Terrorist Insurgency in Mexico

2011-12-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

(Second and final part of an article on the identification problem in Mexico's drug war crisis.)

Wars, after all, are fought to win not to flounder -- with nary a sign of victory after four decades of drug war-fighting. In contrast, crime-fighting is accepted as a constant slog where no final victory is ever expected.

Counting on Connie Mack

Mack told the State Department:

The failure of this Administration to set performance measures, target dates or tangible goals to measure the success of U.S. programs has made it impossible to claim ‘success’ on the initiative itself. Meanwhile, the Mexican drug cartels have capitalized on the United States’ sluggish assistance to actively undermine the Mexican state through insurgent activities such as violence, corruption, and propaganda.

Responding to Mack’s letter, the State Department wrote:

We believe the [Merida] Initiative is already having a positive impact. Through its bold efforts, with U.S. support, the Mexican government has successfully dismantled drug smuggling routes, seized major amounts of illicit drugs and jailed drug kingpins.

Drug War to Combatting Terrorist Insurgency

2011-12-20T23:22:00.000-07:00

Mexican military burning marijuana in drug-war public relations event.

“This is a terrorist insurgency,” says Connie Mack, the Republican who chairs the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Adopting the language of the Obama administration’s new strategy to “combat transnational organized crime,” Mack warns that both Mexico and the United States are facing a “terrorist insurgency” waged by transnational criminal organizations “along our southern border, with operations across Mexico and Central America as well as in over 1,000 U.S. cities.”

Whatever their politics, most close observers of the drug war in Mexico would agree with the Republican firebrand from Florida congressman that the last five years of Mexico’s drug war have done little to increase governmental security and social stability. Most assessments of the Merida Initiative’s impact on Mexico and Central America are similarly negative.

The basic facts of the drug-related crisis in Mexico are clear enough, but what’s not so evident is its character and identity.

Mack insists that traditional counternarcotics strategies are insufficient and out of step with the changing character of the drug trade in Mexico and in Central America.

Mexico has vociferously rejected Mack’s contention that the drug cartels represent an existential threat to state power.

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Drone Fantasies in the Borderlands

2011-12-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

Homeland Security's High Tech Vision of Border Security

Candice Miller, the Republican chair of the House Border and Marine Security Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee, is effusive in her praise of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), referring to the drones as “fantastic technology” that have proved “incredibly, incredibly successful in theater.”

Neither the high price tag for the Predator and Reaper drones – more than $15 million apiece – nor the inability of CBP to offer any substantive documentation of their successful deployment deters congressional drone boosters.

The purported achievements fall more into the realm of pure fantasy.

DHS has steadily expanded its drone fleet, and Congress has offered more cheerleading for drones than oversight. Due diligence and accountability are nowhere to be found.

Multiplying the Border Force

The claim, then, is that UAVs increase the capability of the Border Patrol by increasing the effective scope of their patrols.

UAVs might be better described as being manpower-intensive rather than force-multipliers.

At any time, it is more likely that CBP drones are sitting on U.S. military bases along the border rather than serving as the Border Patrol’s “eyes in the skies.”

Why is that? Numerous reasons.

Bad weather, including cloudy conditions and winds, is a common explanation. Another is that CBP and its Office of Air and Marine lacks the personnel to operate the drones.

We're not flying to the full potential, not because of aircraft or airspace limitations, but because we're still building the force. We're still growing the crews….

We are all here talking about unmanned. The real issues have nothing to do with the unmanned part. The real issues are all about the manned piece, and this is a manpower-intensive system.

Although UAVs have the capability of flying as much as 20 hours, most missions apparently average about 10 hours, while the many training missions are still shorter.

The OAM chief estimates that there could be 50 people involved in a typical drone mission.

(Next: Drones Down on Border -- More Time on Ground and Accident Rates)

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The Decline and Possible (albeit doubtful) Rise of Phoenix

2011-12-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago when entering Metro Phoenix from the east, dropping down from the old mining town of Globe with the ever-alluring Superstitions rising ragged to the north, the same questions kept nagging me.

How is this possible? How long can it last?

The sea of red-tiled roofed mini-mansions spreading inexorably across the desert? The sudden rush of traffic on eight-lane speedways where not long ago there wasn’t anything but the breath-taking expanse of the northern reaches of the Sonoran Desert. The profane climb of progress and development up the Superstition foothills.

At least, part of the modern miracle of the Valley of the Sun wasn’t a mystery. It’s likely that most Phoenicians don’t know where the water for their pools and showers come from. That’s because the massive water-diversion projects that channel the drainage of mountain watersheds and allotments of the Colorado River to their home were built before the population boom of the last few decades.

But as the city kept booming, would the water keep flowing.

The more perplexing question was the source of the money for all the luxury home construction, for all the consumption at all the new malls, for all the SUVs that race down Buckeye, Camelback, Baseline, and all the major streets of the metro grid.

That was a mystery. Could it possibly be that growth did beget growth endlessly? If that were indeed true, it constituted an assault on reason, common sense, and my own belief system. Yet each time I drove through Phoenix, the sprawl kept pushing out the boundaries of the city. In the nineties and into the new century, the pace of development intensified.

How was this possible? Phoenix was a money machine that magically produced wealth without any productive base.

Could it be that the valley’s “Real Estate Industrial Complex” (coined by journalist Jon Talton) was right that growth could build upon growth as part of a virtuous new capitalist cycle – skirting the rules of traditional capitalist accumulation and sustainability?

Finally, in 2007 this speculative development burst, and all those of us who were repulsed and mystified by the Phoenix boom were vindicated.

Nearly five years into the bust, Andrew Ross has written a book, Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City, that’s a delight for those who abhor the model of progress and consumption that Phoenix embodies.

Ross explores why Phoenix may be the least sustainable city in the world, and why it too may fade back into the desert just as the Hohokam civilization, which occupied the same valley, did when it too became unsustainable.

Yet Phoenix is not alone in its unsustainability. At least in part, what made its rise out of the dust of the Native American civilization so frightening was that, while exaggerated, its patterns of development were not so different from those seen throughout America – the mall civilization, the resource gluttony, and the headlong pursuit of growth.

Ross describes Phoenix as “a horizontal hymn to unsustainable development.” He went to Phoenix not just to reveal the fallacies of the Phoenix development model but also to explore the citizen activism, policy advocacy, and alternative planning that is attempting to reconfigure the development model.

“If urbanization is an open-ended process, as Jane Jacobs so firmly believed, then the greening of cities is a grand act of improvisation, maybe the last heroic effort in places where it can still make an appreciable difference,” writes Ross, adding that Bird on Fire “is beguiled by that hope, even when there is little reason for it.”

No doubt that the sustainability activism and environmental justice movements that he describes in this instructive book are inspiring. Yet, in the end, Phoenix will undoubtedly remain model of unsustainability and a portent of the future that awaits not only the Valley of the Sun but for the entire American way of life.

In his concluding chapter, Ross makes a case for a new environmentalism and new sustainable development philosophy that stresses equity. “What if the key to sustainability,” asks the author, “lies in innovating healthy pathways out of poverty for populations at risk, rather than marketing green gizmos to those who already have many options to choose from?”

Ross writes that his research in Phoenix led him to conclude that “the key to addressing biophysical damage and eco-depletion lies as much in the drive for equity as in the kinds of technical improvements that show up in the manager’s metrics.”

Hate or love Phoenix, Bird of Fire is the book for you.

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Immigration Crackdown Successful, Drug War Not So Much

2011-12-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

Dispatches From Obama's Other Wars — on Immigrants and Drugs

By Tom Barry, AlterNet
Posted on December 6, 2011, Printed on December 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153323/dispatches_from_obama%27s_other_wars_%E2%80%94_on_immigrants_and_drugs

President Obama came to office promising immigration reform in his first term. As a candidate and as president, Obama also made it clear that he stood firmly in supporting the “rule of law,” even if the law was overdue for reform.

Nearly three years into his administration, Obama has failed to make good on his promise of immigration reform.

But that’s not surprising to close observers of immigration politics. Since Republican opposition blocked comprehensive immigration reform mid-2007, there’s been no clear legislative path for an immigration reform bill.

The anti-immigrant constituency of the Republican Party adamantly opposes any reform that would include legalization of the immigration status of the estimated 11 million immigrants lacking visas, green cards, or working permits.

Within the Democratic Party, support for comprehensive immigration reform has steadily eroded over the past decade. Even with a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, an immigration reform bill that included legalization provisions would have little chance of moving forward absent strong presidential leadership.

The president has repeatedly affirmed his continuing support for immigration reform. But the president never — despite all his expressions of support and all his promises — made immigration reform a real goal of his administration. There’s been no leadership or even an attempt to set forth a new vision of immigration reform that could transcend the divides of the current debate.

This too can be readily explained. No one could have expected the president to put immigration reform — whose main prospective beneficiaries aren’t even voters — ahead of the economic stimulus program, medical care reform, and other pressing issues, such as financial regulation reform, extension of unemployment benefits, and passing the budget.

Nonetheless, the failure of President Obama to chart a new path toward pragmatic immigration reform has deeply disappointed reform advocates and the immigrant community. After all, this is an issue that acutely affects the lives of millions and its lack of resolution creates tragic divides in families and roils the stability of thousands of communities.

But even for many who can excuse Obama, citing the constraints of politics in a badly divided America or for those who skeptically viewed Obama’s promises as political manipulation, the administration’s harsh enforcement of immigration laws and its wholehearted embrace of border security have surprised and shocked.

Drug War Continues Under New Name

The first three years of the Obama presidency have also left drug policy reformers reeling.

As a candidate, Barack Obama distanced himself from the illegal drug issue, but he did indicate that his administration would end the four-decades-old “war on drugs” and shift U.S. drug policy to a more balanced, less militarized framework. Candidate Obama also indicated that he didn’t oppose the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

At the same, though, Obama scoffed at questions about drug legalization as if this were not a serious issue and only a concern of the social fringe.

As promised, the Obama administration has dropped the drug war rhetoric that has framed U.S. drug policy over the past four decades. Instead, the administration has reframed the drug war as part of a combat against transnational organized crime. Within the White House’s Office on National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), there is, as promised, more emphasis on the need to treat drug users, not simply incarcerate them.

However, in all but name, the drug war under Obama has escalated, both abroad and at home, particularly along the southwestern border.

Under the new rubric of “combating transnational organized crime,” the Obama administration has increased U.S. support for the drug war in Mexico, increased federal support for state and local drug task forces, and mounted a coordinated crackdown on illegal drug use and trafficking in the Southwest.

This summer the administration released its National Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, whose main focus is international drug trafficking. All the federal departments and agencies — DOD, DHS, DOJ, DEA, FBI, AFT, and ONDCP — previously involved in the “war on drugs” have adopted the new official language about transnational crime.

Foreign drug war ventures, like those in Mexico and Colombia, are now designated as fronts in the combat against “transnational threats” and “transnational criminal organizations.”

Under this administration, the Department of Homeland Security has become more of a drug warrior agency, launching an array of counternarcotics initiatives that are closely tied to new border security and immigration enforcement operations.

Along the border, the administration has made Arizona the forefront of its new combat operations. DHS selected Arizona in 2009 as the location of the Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats — with other similar counterdrug alliances planned for three other sections of the border.

The Justice Department, the traditional home of most of the federal government’s domestic drug control operations, has also elevated its profile as a committed combatant against illegal drugs, with an array of new border-related initiatives aimed at transnational crime and criminal aliens.

With respect to immigration, DOJ has challenged the rights of states like Arizona and Alabama to institute their own immigration-enforcement policies. Similarly, DOJ is asserting federal supremacy in drug law enforcement over new state initiatives, particularly with respect to medical marijuana.

Immigration and Drug Policy Joined

Immigration enforcement and drug enforcement are not disassociated issues.

There is, of course, the common denominator that violators of immigration and drug laws are committing nonviolent infractions that don’t endanger public safety or security except in rare cases. Immigration and drug possession infractions, too, are both victimless “crimes.”

In both cases, the immigrants and drugs targeted by law enforcement illegally cross the border into the United States. The border security operations mounted by the U.S. government over the past decade — the border fence, the electronic virtual fence, the doubling of Border Patrol officers, and drone patrols — aim to stop both illegal immigrants and illegal drugs.

Policy reform advocates and activists in both camps have been careful to keep the two issues separate. Immigration policy reformers and immigrant-rights advocates are rightly concerned that immigrants, both legal and unauthorized, are being increasingly categorized as “criminal aliens.”

The Obama administration has reinforced and expanded the “criminal alien” programs at both DHS and DOJ. The large numbers of the immigrants labeled as “criminal aliens” it deports each year reinforces currents of public opinion that conflate immigrants and criminals as public safety threats.

Most immigrants categorized as criminal aliens have criminal records only because of new government policies that create criminal consequences (jail and prison time) as well as immigration consequences for illegal entry or reentry.

But many are indeed criminals in the more traditional sense, having violated federal or state laws. Of these crime-committing criminal aliens, however, only a small number have been convicted of major crimes that do threaten public safety. It shouldn’t be a surprise that many immigrants, like tens of millions of U.S. citizens, are involved in the illegal drug market, mostly as consumers but also as smalltime dealers.

There is a difference, though, a major difference between immigrants and citizens. According to changes in the immigration statutes instituted under Republican congressional leadership in the mid-1990s, drug control violations are considered felonies under immigration law and result in deportations – not just for immigrants here illegally but for legal immigrant residents as well.

In DOJ’s immigration courts, streams of immigrants, legal and illegal, come before immigration judges with records of drug possession or minor cases of drug dealing. As the crackdown ensues, the U.S. justice and immigration systems are tracking down these cases – and immigrants, usually in their twenties and thirties, are being ordered removed, often to countries they barely remember, where they have no remaining relatives, and where the language is now foreign.

Purging Criminal Aliens

Attempting to demonstrate that it is focusing on ridding the country of “criminal aliens,” the Obama administration had ramped up programs such as Secure Communities and others that target immigrants with a criminal record and those who have been arrested but not convicted. In doing so, it can count on widespread public support on the assumption that few Americans, even among immigration reform supporters, would object to removing criminal immigrants from the country.

Nowhere is the intersection and overlap between immigration enforcement and drug control so pronounced as along the border. Illegal border crossers and illegal drugs have long been the central concerns of the Border Patrol.

However, as the Mexican government’s drug war has escalated (counting on increased support by the Obama administration) and as border security hawks have stoked fears of spillover violence, the border security buildup under this administration has led to an unprecedented merger of drug control, border control, and drug control.

Drug-sniffing canine teams at Border Patrol now routinely check travelers in the U.S. borderlands. Only rarely are illegal border crossers now caught at these checkpoints. Instead, drugs are the main focus, and the main victims are U.S. citizens and legal residents caught with small stashes of drugs for personal use.

As the drug war intensifies and the border becomes more fortified, drug gangs and cartels are exploiting, extorting, and terrorizing immigrants heading to the United States.

No doubt that the U.S.-Mexico drug trade, Mexico-U.S. immigration flows, and the U.S.-Mexico border have all become more violent. All have become the province and territory of criminal organizations and gangs.

Absent the deeply flawed legal and policy frameworks for immigration and drugs, these traditional patterns of human behavior are nonviolent and victimless activities. Yet, bad laws and the righteous enforcement of these laws have bred the violence and transnational crime that the Obama administration so tragically battles.

Three Years, and How Many More?

During the past three years, the immigration and drug issues have become increasingly interrelated. As the 2012 general election approaches, the Obama administration offers us this dismal policy panorama:

Immigration incarcerations, detentions, and deportations have risen to record highs in recent history.
Border security operations and infrastructure buildup continue to expand.
The post-9/11 escalation of border control measures (now under the policy framework of border “security”), which was initially driven by a determination to stop illegal immigrant flows (based at first on fears of foreign terrorists), is now more focused on drug interdiction.
Apprehensions of illegal border crossers have steadily declined, and population of unauthorized immigrants is also declining.
Fewer immigrants are illegal crossing the border, but illegal drug flows continue to meet rising U.S. demands despite the billions of dollars spent on border security and drug war assistance to Mexico.
The administration’s policy of targeting “criminal aliens” for imprisonment and deportation has put immigrants with drug violations increasingly at risk of both immigration and criminal enforcement.
With respect to policy reform, the prospects for immigration reform have steadily diminished, given the hostile political climate and the failure of the Obama administration to articulate a persuasive new vision of immigration and border policies.
With respect to drug reform, the administration has routinely defended drug prohibition, rejected legality of medical marijuana sales, and under the new policy framework of combatting transnational criminal organizations has beefed up the drug crackdown on the border and in Mexico.

Overall, when measured by apprehensions, removals, and population counts, the crackdown on immigrants (with immigration or criminal violations) is making steady progress.

Strictly considered without normative considerations, this new enforcement regimen could correctly be assessed as a success – with regard to upholding the “rule of law” and to restoring respect for the much-criticized ability of the government to enforce immigration law and control the border.

In contrast, the combat against transnational organized crime and illegal drugs, when measured by levels of drug consumption, drug prices, and drug flows, has utterly failed, at least thus far. Arrests and drug seizures are higher, yet the U.S. drug market is thriving. Drug production in Mexico is increasing, and drug flows through and from Mexico have also increased despite the escalation of combats and wars on both sides of the border.

Never before have so many Americans consumed marijuana, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center. Meanwhile, drug-related crimes have declined, paralleling the general decreased in crime rates.

Any evaluation of the administration’s drug combat strategy must also include its contribution to the horror of drug-war related murders in Mexico. Failing to summon up the courage and conviction to call an end to drug prohibition, the Obama administration bears direct responsibility for this continuing scourge.

Nearly three years into his administration, President Obama would be hard put to explain how the immigration-enforcement, border-security, and drug-control operations of his administration differ substantively from those of the Bush administration.

Obama can rightly say he has ended the “war on drugs” since he declared it over. But instead we get a combat against transnational crime that is just as militaristic across the border and just as intolerant and punitive at home.

Obama can also correctly observe that he has ended workplace immigration raids and allowed immigration authorities to weigh humanitarian impacts in making deportation decisions. Yet more immigrants than ever are being deported, and the administration has extended its immigration enforcement apparatus into most communities through the Secure Communities program — all in the name of homeland security.

Going into the electoral season, the immigration and drug policy crises have worsened. As in the past, the Obama administration has justified these flawed and counterproductive policies by citing the threats to border security, homeland security, and even national security.

Tom Barry is the author of Border Wars (Boston Review Books). He directs the TransBorder Project at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C. He blogs at http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com.

Join Border Wars Policy Group to follow/discuss border security, immigrant imprisonment, and drug policy issues at:

http://groups.google.com/group/border-wars

Border Lines

Drone Proliferation: The Curve and the Conjuncture

Drones Hunt Immigrants and Marijuana Backpackers -- and Wind-triggered Ground Sensors

By Tom Barry, AlterNetPosted on January 16, 2012, Printed on January 20, 2012

http://www.alternet.org/story/153735/the_numbers_game%3A_government_agencies_falsely_report_meaningless_deportations_and_drug_seizures_as_victories

Drone Proliferation Issues at Cato Institute

Big Government, Big Fence on Arizona Border

Answers to the Border Drone Numbers Game

Declining Immigrant and Marijuana Numbers as Border Predators Increase

Marijuana Backpacking Transnational Criminals

Dubious Border Drone Numbers

Playing the Numbers Game with Border Drones

Deceptive Advertising for Border Drone Toys

More Predators on the Border

Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency -- Review of El Narco

Fuentes Pessimistic about Mexican Politics, No Hope for Drug War Solution without U.S.

Border Security Enhanced, Drug War Transformed

Raising Alarm about Terrorist Insurgency in Mexico

Drug War to Combatting Terrorist Insurgency

Drone Fantasies in the Borderlands

The Decline and Possible (albeit doubtful) Rise of Phoenix

Immigration Crackdown Successful, Drug War Not So Much

Dispatches From Obama's Other Wars — on Immigrants and Drugs

By Tom Barry, AlterNet Posted on December 6, 2011, Printed on December 13, 2011 http://www.alternet.org/story/153323/dispatches_from_obama%27s_other_wars_%E2%80%94_on_immigrants_and_drugs

By Tom Barry, AlterNet
Posted on January 16, 2012, Printed on January 20, 2012

By Tom Barry, AlterNet
Posted on December 6, 2011, Printed on December 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153323/dispatches_from_obama%27s_other_wars_%E2%80%94_on_immigrants_and_drugs