Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Are Drug Smugglers Getting A Pass From the U.S. Government?

U.S. Forces Unable to Seize Drug Shipments Due to Declining Resources -- Washington Free Beacon

Southern Command is lowest priority command region

U.S. maritime forces are unable to seize almost three-quarters of drug shipments smuggled into America due to declining resources, according to recent comments by the commander of U.S. Southern Command.

Marine Gen. John Kelly on Thursday told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and reporters at the Pentagon that his command does not have the assets to interdict 74 percent of “suspected maritime drug smuggling” into the United States. Kelly leads Southern Command (SouthCom), which covers Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

“I simply sit and watch it go by,” he said.

“I can see the flow,” he added, referring to U.S. surveillance and reconnaissance in the region. “I just don’t have end-game assets.”

Read more ....

My Comment: Another example that illustrates how Washington ignores the big issues at home .... but focuses on places like Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc..

2 comments:

James said...

The "big issues at home" for them is the keeping and increasing of political power, all else near and abroad is at best secondary.

Don Bacon said...

This is typical military grousing about not having more and more resources.

Trying to stop drugs en route is a fool's game. Rather there should be tighter US borders. Barry McCaffrey has said that CBP seizes approximately 5% of the cocaine and 10% of the marijuana smuggled across the Southwest border.

Of course CBP couldn't be in on it, could it.