US spy drones flown over Mexico since 2009

US spy drones flown over Mexico since 2009

MEXICO CITY (AP) - U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been surreptitiously flying Predator drones into Mexico for two years, helping Mexican authorities spy on suspected drug traffickers, The Associated Press has learned.

The border security agency’s surveillance flights, approved by Mexico but never announced by either country, predate occasional flights into Mexico by the U.S. Air Force’s $38 million Global Hawk drone that began last month.

Mexico’s National Security Council said in a statement Wednesday that unmanned aircraft have flown over Mexico on specific occasions, mainly along the border with the U.S., to gather information at the request of the Mexican government.

The flights expand the U.S. role in the drug war, in which Americans already have been training Mexican soldiers and police as well as cooperating on other intelligence.

Full Story Here:
AP: US spy drones flown over Mexico since 2009

For 2 years? Wait…that can’t be right, can it? Wouldn’t that make the Obama administration complicit in the drug war since Obama was sworn into office?

That would be the same Obama administration that sends ICE Agents into Mexico unarmed, right? And the same Obama administration that arms U.S. Border Patrolmen with beanbags?

Border Patrol agents shot beanbags at a group of suspected bandits before the men returned fire during a confrontation in a remote canyon, killing agent Brian Terry with a single gunshot, records show. SOURCE

Yeah, our guys were armed with beanbags.

“When these operations are carried out, they are always done with the authorization, oversight and supervision of national agencies, including the Mexican Air Force,” the council said.

It said Mexico always defines the objectives, the information to be gathered and the specific tasks in which the drones will be used and insisted the operations respected Mexican law, civil and human rights.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan the U.S. government is using Predator drones as a platform to load and transport Hellfire missiles. Once the drone operators spot their target(s), they launch a few Hellfires here and there and take out the intended target(s).

These Predators flying over Mexico, are they armed with beanbags too? We don’t want to offend the delicate sensitivities of the Mexican government, their less than effective police and military or the Mexican people, and God help us all if we launched a Hellfire up some cartel convoys ass. Calderon might get mad and attack the Texas…

Oh how I wish…

The drones “have been particularly useful in achieving various objectives of combating crime and have significantly increased Mexican authorities’ capabilities and technological superiority in its fight against crime,” the council said.

Sure, their effectiveness is obvious, and the fight against crime is working out so well and all. Just ask the most recent victims that have had their heads chopped off and have been dismembered. Oh, wait, sorry, you can’t ask them. My bad …

Maybe you could ask the citizens of Juarez and Tijuana, surely they can attest to the fact that OUR $10 million a copy drones are helping them to avoid being shot down in the streets. Right?

The drones, which cost more than $10 million each, are equipped with cameras that can identify an object the size of a milk carton, provide real-time images to ground control operators and can fly for more than 30 hours without having to refuel, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

Just out of curiosity, WHO is paying for the fuel these drones run on? And who is paying the salaries of the drone operators? How about the satellite time needed to bring this real time show to the big screen? Who is footing that bill? Mexico? Yeah, gotta be Mexico…

The Global Hawk drone operations were first reported Wednesday by The New York Times, which said they began last month under an agreement between President Barack Obama and Mexico’s leader, Felipe Calderon. AP’s reporting found that similar operations using a different kind of drone have been going on since 2009.

A drone is a drone is a drone. You say toMAYto, I say toMAHto… Obama has been in bed with Calderon since the beginning. And we STILL have no definitive resolution in sight. In fact, the cartels have only grown stronger during the last 2 years.

The flights were quickly criticized by some Mexican politicians, who have often been sensitive to the involvement of U.S. agencies on Mexican soil.

Yeah, kinda like some of us are sensitive to Mexican incursions onto U.S. soil by armed Mexican army troops that are escorting and protecting the drug cartels. Yeah, a lot like that.

Sen. Ricardo Monreal of the leftist Labor Party said having U.S. drones flying over Mexico is “unconstitutional and it violates national sovereignty.”

OK, I find that statement to be incredibly funny, downright hilarious actually.

Not that I am in favor of OUR drones flying over Mexico in order to HELP Mexico, but the fact that this Mexican senator finds those flights to be “unconstitutional” and in violation of Mexico’s national sovereignty? That is truly hilarious.

But when we say the same things about the 18/20 MILLION Mexicans that are in the United States ILLEGALLY, we are called rednecks and racists…why is that I wonder?

He issued a statement accusing Calderon’s government of being “too submissive to the neighbor to the north” and said Mexico’s Senate was never informed of either drone operation.

I would be curious to know who gave that authorization on THIS side of the border, and to know WHO in Washington knew of this from its original inception.

Last week, the Mexican Senate voted to summon Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., Arturo Sarukhan, to talk about allegations that U.S. agents allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico as part of investigations into drug trafficking.

More than 35,000 people have died since Calderon launched a stepped-up offensive against the cartels upon taking office in late 2006.

And what do you know? Our very own BATFE is implicated in the gun running, or, as some have called it, Operation Gunwalker, or Project Gunwalker, depending on where you look.

More than 35,000 people have died since Calderon launched his offensive against the cartels after taking office in 2006. So far, there doesn’t seem to be a helluva lot of progress being made, but there are sure a lot of stories coming out about how the DHS, BATFE and God only knows who else within the Obama regime are up to their necks in this failure too.

And once again I ask, WHO is footing the bill for OUR involvement in Mexico? Anyone?