Surrender at the Border

Friday , July 09, 2010

By Col. Oliver North

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Georgetown, S.C. — My Fox News baseball hat and sunglasses no longer work as a disguise here in the Carolina low country. As I stepped out of the Kudzu Bakery this morning, a fellow early morning shopper accosted me with an accusation and an inquisition: "You're from Washington. What the devil are those people up there thinking?"

Unwilling to accept responsibility for what passes for governance in the Federal City and unsure what had raised the ire of my acquaintance, I conceded that we live in Virginia and am indeed "based" at our Fox News Washington bureau. Nonetheless, I demurred at being held accountable for the misdeeds or malfeasance of the potentates on the Potomac.

As it turned out, my interlocutor was a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, now a commercial airline pilot from Tennessee. He's here because his family's Florida vacation plans were wrecked by the as-yet unresolved Gulf oil spill.

But that wasn't the singular source of his frustration: "It's bad enough that these clowns can't figure out how to stop oil from flooding over a beach in Florida, but suing Arizona because they tried to stop illegal aliens from flooding into their state is just plain crazy."

And, just to make sure I got the point, he added: "Yesterday we took our kids to Charleston. We went to the Citadel and out to the point where they fired on Fort Sumter in 1861. I'm a 'Damned Yankee.' I believe slavery was evil. But the way our government is acting today, I think I understand why the South seceded."

That's strong stuff from an educated man who took an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic" and served our country in uniform. The April 12-13, 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter he referred to began the bloodiest confrontation in American history. Academics still debate whether Presidents James Buchanan and his successor, Abraham Lincoln, could have prevented the cataclysm over states rights. Sadly, the Obama administration, by ineptness or design seems intent on enflaming similar disputes through repeated assertions of federal "authority."

Last year, when the government took control of two-thirds of U.S. automobile manufacturing, dozens of banks and major insurance companies, only union "investments" were "protected." Millions of privately held shareholder claims — commonplace in free enterprise — were dismissed with impunity.

Since passage of its widely unpopular national health care legislation, the Obama administration has launched more than a half-dozen legal challenges to states seeking to "opt out" of the federal mandate requiring citizens to purchase government-approved health insurance. The O-Team pledges "vigorous enforcement" and "compliance" measures.

For more than 80 days, the O-Team has over-promised and under-delivered on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The administration has repeatedly rejected, delayed or deferred scores of mitigation proposals made by state and local officials in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Despite objections from Gulf state governors, President Obama has ordered his Department of Justice (DOJ) to fight a U.S. court decision reversing his arbitrary moratorium on offshore oil and natural gas exploration.

The federal lawsuit filed this week against Arizona's "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act" — the mainstream media call it "SB 1070" — is the latest affront to the 10th Amendment. The Obama DOJ claims that the law, passed by the Arizona Legislature and signed by Governor Jan Brewer is unconstitutional because it "preempts" federal responsibility in enforcing immigration laws.

In its 25-page legal brief — nine pages longer than SB 1070 — the administration asserts that the Arizona law "exceeds a state's role with respect to aliens, interferes with the federal government's balanced administration of the immigration laws and critically undermines U.S. foreign policy objectives." Attorney General Eric Holder, in a surreal statement defending the lawsuit, said "Arizonans are understandably frustrated with illegal immigration and the federal government has a responsibility to comprehensively address those concerns."

That of course is the issue. The federal government isn't fulfilling its responsibilities to the people of Arizona or the rest of us. Violent crime against American citizens by illegal aliens continues to climb. Drug cartels are shipping millions of pound of illegal drugs across our southern borders. Reports of terror organizations using illicit traffickers' crossing points and methods are on the rise.

The 1,200 National Guard troops promised by Obama to help secure our southern border — a fraction of the 6,000 requested — have yet to arrive. Although the president repeatedly calls for new "stimulus spending" on "shovel-ready projects," work on the "border fence" has all but halted. And despite the Obama administration's willingness to use federal courts to impose its will, the DOJ has taken no action to enforce laws already on the books against any of the 31 U.S. municipalities that are self-declared "sanctuary cities" for illegal immigrants.

A federal judge in Phoenix will now resolve much more than the outcome of an Arizona law. She will also determine whether our sovereign borders still matter. Hopefully she will also decide that surrender is not an option. (1 image)

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#1. To: HAPPY2BME-4UM (#0)

The best way to undermine any issue is to interject somebody like North into the fray. North should be in prison doing life.

The Oliver North File: National Security Archive

www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/#doc1

The National Security Archive obtained the hand-written notebooks of Oliver North, the National Security Council aide who helped run the contra war and other Reagan administration covert operations, through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in 1989 with Public Citizen Litigation Group.

In his entry for August 9, 1985, North summarizes a meeting with Robert Owen ("Rob"), his liaison with the contras. They discuss a plane used by Mario Calero, brother of Adolfo Calero, head of the FDN, to transport supplies from New Orleans to contras in Honduras. North writes: "Honduran DC-6 which is being used for runs out of New Orleans is probably being used for drug runs into U.S." As Lorraine Adams reported in the October 22, 1994 Washington Post, there are no records that corroborate North's later assertion that he passed this intelligence on drug trafficking to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

In a July 12, 1985 entry, North noted a call from retired Air Force general Richard Secord in which the two discussed a Honduran arms warehouse from which the contras planned to purchase weapons. (The contras did eventually buy the arms, using money the Reagan administration secretly raised from Saudi Arabia.) According to the notebook, Secord told North that "14 M to finance [the arms in the warehouse] came from drugs."

An April 1, 1985 memo from Robert Owen (code-name: "T.C." for "The Courier") to Oliver North (code-name: "The Hammer") describes contra operations on the Southern Front. Owen tells North that FDN leader Adolfo Calero (code-name: "Sparkplug") has picked a new Southern Front commander, one of the former captains to Eden Pastora who has been paid to defect to the FDN. Owen reports that the officials in the new Southern Front FDN units include "people who are questionable because of past indiscretions," such as José Robelo, who is believed to have "potential involvement with drug running" and Sebastian Gonzalez, who is "now involved in drug running out of Panama."

On February 10, 1986, Owen ("TC") wrote North (this time as "BG," for "Blood and Guts") regarding a plane being used to carry "humanitarian aid" to the contras that was previously used to transport drugs. The plane belongs to the Miami-based company Vortex, which is run by Michael Palmer, one of the largest marijuana traffickers in the United States. Despite Palmer's long history of drug smuggling, which would soon lead to a Michigan indictment on drug charges, Palmer receives over $300,000.00 from the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Aid Office (NHAO) -- an office overseen by Oliver North, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams, and CIA officer Alan Fiers -- to ferry supplies to the contras.

State Department contracts from February 1986 detail Palmer's work to transport material to the contras on behalf of the NHAO.

On July 28, 1988, two DEA agents testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime regarding a sting operation conducted against the Medellin Cartel. The two agents said that in 1985 Oliver North had wanted to take $1.5 million in Cartel bribe money that was carried by a DEA informant and give it to the contras. DEA officials rejected the idea.

In June, 1986, the New York Times published articles detailing years of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega's collaboration with Colombian drug traffickers. Reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that Noriega "is extensively involved in illicit money laundering and drug activities," and that an unnamed White House official "said the most significant drug running in Panama was being directed by General Noriega." In August, Noriega, a long-standing U.S. intelligence asset, sent an emissary to Washington to seek assistance from the Reagan administration in rehabilitating his drug-stained reputation.

Oliver North, who met with Noriega's representative, described the meeting in an August 23, 1986 e-mail message to Reagan national security advisor John Poindexter. "You will recall that over the years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I have developed a fairly good relationship," North writes before explaining Noriega's proposal. If U.S. officials can "help clean up his image" and lift the ban on arms sales to the Panamanian Defense Force, Noriega will "'take care of' the Sandinista leadership for us."

North tells Poindexter that Noriega can assist with sabotage against the Sandinistas, and suggests paying Noriega a million dollars -- from "Project Democracy" funds raised from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran -- for the Panamanian leader's help in destroying Nicaraguan economic installations.

The same day Poindexter responds with an e-mail message authorizing North to meet secretly with Noriega. "I have nothing against him other than his illegal activities," Poindexter writes.

On the following day, August 24, North's notebook records a meeting with CIA official Duane "Dewey" Clarridge on Noriega's overture. They decided, according to this entry, to "send word back to Noriega to meet in Europe or Israel."

The CIA's Alan Fiers later recalls North's involvement with the Noriega sabotage proposal. In testimony at the 1992 trial of former CIA official Clair George, Fiers describes North's plan as it was discussed at a meeting of the Reagan administration's Restricted Interagency Group: "[North] made a very strong suggestion that . . . there needed to be a resistance presence in the western part of Nicaragua, where the resistance did not operate. And he said, 'I can arrange to have General Noriega execute some insurgent -- some operations there -- sabotage operations in that area. It will cost us about $1 million. Do we want to do it?' And there was significant silence at the table. And then I recall I said, 'No. We don't want to do that.'"

Senior officials ignored Fiers' opinion. On September 20, North informed Poindexter via e-mail that "Noriega wants to meet me in London" and that both Elliott Abrams and Secretary of State George Shultz support the initiative. Two days later, Poindexter authorized the North/Noriega meeting.

North's notebook lists details of his meeting with Noriega, which took place in a London hotel on September 22. According to the notes, the two discussed developing a commando training program in Panama, with Israeli support, for the contras and Afghani rebels. They also spoke of sabotaging major economic targets in the Managua area, including an airport, an oil refinery, and electric and telephone systems. (These plans were apparently aborted when the Iran-Contra scandal broke in November 1986.)

Reagan administration officials interceded on behalf of José Bueso Rosa, a Honduran general who was heavily involved with the CIA's contra operations and faced trial for his role in a massive drug shipment to the United States. In 1984 Bueso and co-conspirators hatched a plan to assassinate Honduran President Roberto Suazo Córdoba; the plot was to be financed with a $40 million cocaine shipment to the United States, which the FBI intercepted in Florida.

Declassified e-mail messages indicate that Oliver North led the behind-the-scenes effort to seek leniency for Bueso . The messages record the efforts of U.S. officials to "cabal quietly" to get Bueso off the hook, be it by "pardon, clemency, deportation, [or] reduced sentence." Eventually they succeeded in getting Bueso a short sentence in "Club Fed," a white collar prison in Florida.

Committee report reviewed the case, and noted that the man Reagan officials aided was involved in a conspiracy that the Justice Department deemed the "most significant case of narco-terrorism yet discovered."

bush_is_a_moonie posted on 2010-07-10 13:11:58 ET Reply Trace Private Reply

#2. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#1)

Couldn't agree more---I find it preposterous that some alledged "religious" shows have him as a guest. Hannitys' concept of a great American.

Rube Goldberg posted on 2010-07-10 16:27:42 ET Reply Trace Private Reply

#3. To: Rube Goldberg (#2) (Edited)

Hannity's nearly as a big a crook as North. He skims mightily off the foundation he promotes that is supposed to help disabled vets. Gulfstream flights for him and the family plus vittles and accomodations all over the nation. Vets don't get much from what I've heard.

That cretin in the White House, whom I will not name, is the greatest thing to come down the pike in quite a while for punks like Hannity and North. 'Pubbies have to make hay while the sun shines, and that goof of a Chief Resident will be providing them with stand-up material well into November.

There is no long form.

randge posted on 2010-07-10 16:42:19 ET Reply Trace Private Reply

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