There's going to be armed drone aircraft patrolling the Tijuana border area soon:
h**p://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2010/10/sprawling-drug-war-training-complex-planned-us-mexico-border
Massive Facility Would Serve Law Enforcers, Military and Their Drones
A company fronted by a former Navy SEAL is only a few weeks away from potentially gaining approval to develop a nearly 1,000-acre military and law enforcement training camp near the U.S. border in Southern California, less than a 20-minute drone flight from the sister border cities of San Diego and Tijuana.
The camp, which would be developed in three phases at a cost of up to $100 million (some $15 million for Phase 1), is being billed by its developer as a privately operated, state-of-the-art training center that would employ up to 200 people and serve as economic boon to the small California border town of Ocotillo, located in Imperial County.
But there appears to be a deeper agenda in play with this project that has far more to do with profiting off the drug war — and assuring its escalation along the border — than it does with benefiting the community of Ocotillo.
The camp, proposed by a San Diego-based company called Wind Zero Group Inc., would be located on a 944-acre patch of high-desert land (which happens to be in a flood and earthquake zone) just south of a major Interstate Highway {8} and less than a dozen miles north of the Mexican border.
The facility would include numerous shooting ranges allowing for some 57,000 rounds of ammunition to be fired off daily; a mock-up of an urban neighborhood for practices assaults; a 6-mile dual-use race track for teaching defensive and offensive driving (and for private-pay recreational use); enough housing and RV camper space (along with a 100-room hotel) to accommodate a small battalion of warriors; a 50-foot high, 28,000-square-foot “administrative” building; an 80-foot high observation and control tower; at least two heliports and a 4,000-foot airstrip.
A number of individual in Ocotillo, home to some 300 souls, aided by activists from the Sierra Club, are actively opposing the proposed Wind Zero development, arguing it poses a great risk to the health of the environment as well as the safety of the surrounding community — in the event of a flood or earthquake.
However, Wind Zero has marshaled the support of numerous law enforcement agencies in the region that would be able to make use of the facility for training purposes, as well as the Imperial County planning commission — which this past August gave an unanimous thumbs-up for the project.
The County’s board of supervisors is scheduled to meet in early November to consider providing the final go-ahead for the development.
h**p://www.icpds.com/?pid=2308
h**p://environment.change.org/petitions/view/no_to_wind_zero
Northern Command, With Help From State Department's Plan Mexico, Directs Attention Towards Mexico's Most Violent City
Last week a Narco News investigation revealed that a military unit created in 2002 for homeland defense missions called US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) had become more involved in assisting the Mexican military to wage the drug war. Now more information has come to light connecting the unit to a pilot program in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, which has become one of the deadliest cities in Mexico due to drug war related violence.
On Friday the Mexican daily Milenio published a story titled “US 'Intelligence Consultants' Arrive To Ciudad Juárez,” which earned a lot of media attention and was quickly spread around by wire services throughout the country. The article cites a document from the State Department that details a “joint pilot program in support of Mexico’s efforts to confront and reverse the violence that has plagued Ciudad Juárez,” with the hook that a least one “technical adviser” from the US government would be working on Mexican soil in the Juárez full time to assist in sharing intelligence between the two countries. This program came out of meetings held between both governments in January and February 2010, and it is a part of the State Department's Plan Mexico (also known as the Mérida Initiative), a 2008 security pact in which the United States provides training and equipment to Mexican law enforcement and the armed forces to wage the drug war.
What went unreported was NORTHCOM's involvement. According to the document cited by Milenio, which can be found online in English, a military group called the Joint Task Force North, a subordinate command of NORTHCOM located close to the US-Mexico border at Fort Bliss in Texas, helped give birth to the Juárez program. Through “a planning and coordinating mission established to support law enforcement agencies counter the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S along the Southwest border” the task force “hosted the Ciudad Juárez / El Paso Planning Initiative, a working group attended by members from U.S. local, state, and federal governments and Mexican federal and state government representatives, to establish the ways, ends, and means in developing a common assessment, approach, and execution structure to enhance public security.”
The military is also using Plan Mexico to fund encrypted communication methods for police forces in Juárez, and “cross border communications,” where radio links will be set up between law enforcement officials on both sides of the border, according to the document. The recent news of the military unit's involvement in this new Juárez program continues to add evidence to NORTHCOM's growing involvement in Mexico's drug war.
h**p://www.usembassy-mexico.gov/eng/merida/emerida_factsheet_ViolenceCJ.html&cd=1&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=mx
h**p://www.narconews.com/Issue67/article4241.html
The Military Command Behind Mexico's Violent Drug War
The US Northern Command's Work With Mexican Armed Forces Has 'Increased Dramatically' and May Be Expanded
By Erin Rosa
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
October 22, 2010
As drug war violence in Mexico continues to increase, the US military has taken a more active and stronger role inside the country, providing the Mexican armed forces with equipment, training, and classified intelligence to fight the narcotics trade. Behind all of this is the US Northern Command (NORTHCOM), a military unit created in 2002 for homeland defense missions.
With an alliance of the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, NORTHCOM “consolidates under a single unified command of existing missions that were previously executed by other Department of Defense organizations,” according to the unit’s website. Despite being created shortly after the September 11 attacks with a focus on homeland security, in the last few years NORTHCOM has taken a specific interest in Mexico and the drug war, and may be looking to expand it operations.
Last May, at NORTHCOM headquarters on Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen compared the challenges facing Mexico with what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that “I also think there are wonderful opportunities to strengthen the relationship between our countries and between our militaries.”
Photo: DR 2006 Courtesy of Northcom.mil
A few months before that in March, ex-commander of NORTHCOM Gen. Victor Renuart told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “our military-to-military relationship with Mexico is growing stronger.” Renuart cited “a shared responsibility for countering the transnational illicit trafficking activity affecting our nations” and stated that “the level of communication, interchange, cooperation, and training exchanges between U.S. and Mexican armed forces has increased dramatically over the last two years and represents a historic opportunity for long-term strategic improvement of the U.S.-Mexico security partnership.”
The State Department, which works with NORTHCOM in Mexico, has said the same thing about the unit. US Embassy Mexico City spokesman Alexander Featherstone told Narco News this month that “The level of communication and cooperation between U.S. and Mexican armed forces has increased dramatically over the past two years and represents an historic high.”
NORTHCOM’s fourth and current commander Adm. James Winnefeld took his position in May, and since that time he has began conducting an informal assessment to determine a possible expansion of future operations into the counter narcotics fight, according to John Cornelio with NORTHCOM public relations, who when asked about the Mexico assessment said:
It is not a “formal” assessment where a written report is planned as much as it is an ongoing process by which the new commander is gathering information to uncover ways the command can more effectively work with our many partners. Admiral Winnefeld is inspired (instead of very encouraged) by the commitment of the Mexican government and its security forces to this important struggle for the future of Mexico, as well as by the level and quality of cooperation between Mexico and the United States. He and the rest of his team have also been impressed by the capability and courage of the Mexican military.
There's going to be a lot more bloodshed, that much is certain
h**p://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2010/10/sprawling-drug-war-training-complex-planned-us-mexico-border
Massive Facility Would Serve Law Enforcers, Military and Their Drones
A company fronted by a former Navy SEAL is only a few weeks away from potentially gaining approval to develop a nearly 1,000-acre military and law enforcement training camp near the U.S. border in Southern California, less than a 20-minute drone flight from the sister border cities of San Diego and Tijuana.
The camp, which would be developed in three phases at a cost of up to $100 million (some $15 million for Phase 1), is being billed by its developer as a privately operated, state-of-the-art training center that would employ up to 200 people and serve as economic boon to the small California border town of Ocotillo, located in Imperial County.
But there appears to be a deeper agenda in play with this project that has far more to do with profiting off the drug war — and assuring its escalation along the border — than it does with benefiting the community of Ocotillo.
The camp, proposed by a San Diego-based company called Wind Zero Group Inc., would be located on a 944-acre patch of high-desert land (which happens to be in a flood and earthquake zone) just south of a major Interstate Highway {8} and less than a dozen miles north of the Mexican border.
The facility would include numerous shooting ranges allowing for some 57,000 rounds of ammunition to be fired off daily; a mock-up of an urban neighborhood for practices assaults; a 6-mile dual-use race track for teaching defensive and offensive driving (and for private-pay recreational use); enough housing and RV camper space (along with a 100-room hotel) to accommodate a small battalion of warriors; a 50-foot high, 28,000-square-foot “administrative” building; an 80-foot high observation and control tower; at least two heliports and a 4,000-foot airstrip.
A number of individual in Ocotillo, home to some 300 souls, aided by activists from the Sierra Club, are actively opposing the proposed Wind Zero development, arguing it poses a great risk to the health of the environment as well as the safety of the surrounding community — in the event of a flood or earthquake.
However, Wind Zero has marshaled the support of numerous law enforcement agencies in the region that would be able to make use of the facility for training purposes, as well as the Imperial County planning commission — which this past August gave an unanimous thumbs-up for the project.
The County’s board of supervisors is scheduled to meet in early November to consider providing the final go-ahead for the development.
h**p://www.icpds.com/?pid=2308
h**p://environment.change.org/petitions/view/no_to_wind_zero
Northern Command, With Help From State Department's Plan Mexico, Directs Attention Towards Mexico's Most Violent City
Last week a Narco News investigation revealed that a military unit created in 2002 for homeland defense missions called US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) had become more involved in assisting the Mexican military to wage the drug war. Now more information has come to light connecting the unit to a pilot program in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, which has become one of the deadliest cities in Mexico due to drug war related violence.
On Friday the Mexican daily Milenio published a story titled “US 'Intelligence Consultants' Arrive To Ciudad Juárez,” which earned a lot of media attention and was quickly spread around by wire services throughout the country. The article cites a document from the State Department that details a “joint pilot program in support of Mexico’s efforts to confront and reverse the violence that has plagued Ciudad Juárez,” with the hook that a least one “technical adviser” from the US government would be working on Mexican soil in the Juárez full time to assist in sharing intelligence between the two countries. This program came out of meetings held between both governments in January and February 2010, and it is a part of the State Department's Plan Mexico (also known as the Mérida Initiative), a 2008 security pact in which the United States provides training and equipment to Mexican law enforcement and the armed forces to wage the drug war.
What went unreported was NORTHCOM's involvement. According to the document cited by Milenio, which can be found online in English, a military group called the Joint Task Force North, a subordinate command of NORTHCOM located close to the US-Mexico border at Fort Bliss in Texas, helped give birth to the Juárez program. Through “a planning and coordinating mission established to support law enforcement agencies counter the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S along the Southwest border” the task force “hosted the Ciudad Juárez / El Paso Planning Initiative, a working group attended by members from U.S. local, state, and federal governments and Mexican federal and state government representatives, to establish the ways, ends, and means in developing a common assessment, approach, and execution structure to enhance public security.”
The military is also using Plan Mexico to fund encrypted communication methods for police forces in Juárez, and “cross border communications,” where radio links will be set up between law enforcement officials on both sides of the border, according to the document. The recent news of the military unit's involvement in this new Juárez program continues to add evidence to NORTHCOM's growing involvement in Mexico's drug war.
h**p://www.usembassy-mexico.gov/eng/merida/emerida_factsheet_ViolenceCJ.html&cd=1&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=mx
h**p://www.narconews.com/Issue67/article4241.html
The Military Command Behind Mexico's Violent Drug War
The US Northern Command's Work With Mexican Armed Forces Has 'Increased Dramatically' and May Be Expanded
By Erin Rosa
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
October 22, 2010
As drug war violence in Mexico continues to increase, the US military has taken a more active and stronger role inside the country, providing the Mexican armed forces with equipment, training, and classified intelligence to fight the narcotics trade. Behind all of this is the US Northern Command (NORTHCOM), a military unit created in 2002 for homeland defense missions.
With an alliance of the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, NORTHCOM “consolidates under a single unified command of existing missions that were previously executed by other Department of Defense organizations,” according to the unit’s website. Despite being created shortly after the September 11 attacks with a focus on homeland security, in the last few years NORTHCOM has taken a specific interest in Mexico and the drug war, and may be looking to expand it operations.
Last May, at NORTHCOM headquarters on Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen compared the challenges facing Mexico with what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that “I also think there are wonderful opportunities to strengthen the relationship between our countries and between our militaries.”
Photo: DR 2006 Courtesy of Northcom.mil
A few months before that in March, ex-commander of NORTHCOM Gen. Victor Renuart told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “our military-to-military relationship with Mexico is growing stronger.” Renuart cited “a shared responsibility for countering the transnational illicit trafficking activity affecting our nations” and stated that “the level of communication, interchange, cooperation, and training exchanges between U.S. and Mexican armed forces has increased dramatically over the last two years and represents a historic opportunity for long-term strategic improvement of the U.S.-Mexico security partnership.”
The State Department, which works with NORTHCOM in Mexico, has said the same thing about the unit. US Embassy Mexico City spokesman Alexander Featherstone told Narco News this month that “The level of communication and cooperation between U.S. and Mexican armed forces has increased dramatically over the past two years and represents an historic high.”
NORTHCOM’s fourth and current commander Adm. James Winnefeld took his position in May, and since that time he has began conducting an informal assessment to determine a possible expansion of future operations into the counter narcotics fight, according to John Cornelio with NORTHCOM public relations, who when asked about the Mexico assessment said:
It is not a “formal” assessment where a written report is planned as much as it is an ongoing process by which the new commander is gathering information to uncover ways the command can more effectively work with our many partners. Admiral Winnefeld is inspired (instead of very encouraged) by the commitment of the Mexican government and its security forces to this important struggle for the future of Mexico, as well as by the level and quality of cooperation between Mexico and the United States. He and the rest of his team have also been impressed by the capability and courage of the Mexican military.
There's going to be a lot more bloodshed, that much is certain
Wet Dreams Restored's transition continues, it's what is called a work in progress 
There are gigabytes of data being moved