Transnational Backpackers; Drone Debate

[Tom Barry]

I am continually struck at the way all the agencies of the drug-war bureaucracy have latched on to the “transnational criminal” lexicon.  No “war on drugs,” no longer any “drug trafficking organizations” or DTOs in the new dogma that comes down from the White House with its Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime.

 

Clearly, many of what were formerly called DTOs are not such informal bands but highly “organized.” And certainly their trade transcends borders, as does their organization, although to such varying degrees that the term TCOs loses operative meaning when applied to the presence of Mexican DTOs in the United States compared to their operations in Central America.

 

The TCO dogma is now so entrenched that the Border Patrol is asserting that most folks who cross the border illegally are “transnational criminals” – especially those carrying marijuana.

 

There is an undeniable logic to these assertions, since most illegal border crossers, whether carrying marijuana or simply looking for work and traveling to reunite with their families, are in some way associated with criminal bands whose main function is to violate U.S. sovereignty by organizing the crossing of illegal drugs and immigrants without visas.

 

But it’s a logic based on a simplistic, undifferentiated analysis of transnational crime.  It leads to bad politics and bad strategies, and to nonsense, such as racking up arrests of marijuana backpackers as blows to the purported U.S. security threat posed by Mexican DTOs.  And I find it intellectually objectionable, among other things.

 

I’ve written about this previously, here, here, and here, and this is more of the same – venting about a flurry of recent CBP media releases about their successful operations combatting TCOs.

 

Also below an excerpt from a response piece I wrote for the Cato Institute about drones.

 

“Transnational Criminals” Who Backpack

 

Online at: http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/backpacking-transnational-criminals.html 

 

“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.”

 

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.

 

The Curve and the Conjuncture

 

Online at: http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/drone-proliferation-curve-and.html

 

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.

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.