By Jim Garamone
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, July 27, 2014 – Transnational criminal gangs
based in Mexico and Central America pose a threat to the region, Army Gen.
Charles H. Jacoby Jr., the commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North
American Aerospace Defense Command, said at the Aspen Security Forum in
Colorado yesterday.
The response to the threat has been increased cooperation
between the United States and Mexico, Jacoby said.
U.S. Northern Command is a post-9-11 creation dedicated to
protecting the homeland. It has geographic responsibility for North America and
the Bahamas.
Transnational criminal gangs and associated networks are
responsible for many of society’s ills, Jacoby said.
“If you are not worried about the drugs and the 40,000 dead
Americans and what they do to our youth” then people should worry about
organizations “so ruthless, so violent, so powerful” that they have virtual
freedom of movement on the U.S. southern border, he said.
Jacoby said such criminal gangs and organizations can
smuggle anything from drugs to guns to unaccompanied children.
“Children are just another product to them,” he said, noting
these organizations have undermined and threatened the governance of U.S.
partners throughout Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico.
And these gangs are a network, he said. They cooperate when
they need to. And the general said he personally believes there is plenty of
evidence of links between terrorists and criminal organizations.
“We have learned that the best way to fight a network is
with a network,” he said. “Counter-network tactics, techniques, procedures,
collection are called for in effective dealing with cartels and other criminal
organizations.”
DoD personnel play a role in interdicting drugs in what
professionals call the transit zone. There have been record numbers of drug
seizures, but officials really have little idea of the impact they are making.
“[The drug cartels] are more powerful, they are more
globally interconnected, they are making more money and they are more violent
than they ever have been,” Jacoby said.
Meanwhile, he said, efforts designed to shut down these
criminal networks continue.
“We know how to take a network apart,” Jacoby said. “We know
what the access targets are.” These, he said, are the financiers, logisticians,
and operators. All aspects of the network must have pressure placed on them.
The fear calculus in Mexico and Central America is
completely wrong, he said. “It’s the Mexican people and the Moms and Dads in
Honduras who are afraid, not the criminals,” Jacoby said. “We have to flip
that.”
U.S. and Mexican officials need to reevaluate their plans
and procedures used to deter international crime networks , he said. “How is
our cooperation between law enforcement and the intelligence community,” he
asked. The level of cooperation between intelligence and operatives in
Afghanistan and Iraq to take down terror networks, the general said, was much
closer than it is in the United States.
And the United States and Mexico are having these
conversations. In 2006, then-Mexican President Felipe Calderone put the
military on the street to combat the cartel violence. The Mexican military
turned to the United States to ask for assistance, cooperation and teaming.
This was a sea change in the military-to-military
relationship.
The cooperation continued when current Mexican President
Enrique Pena Nieto took office.
The military-to-military relationship is still growing, and
like any relationship there are fits and starts. “We trained with more than
5,000 Mexican soldiers this year,” Jacoby said.
Mexican military officials also worked with Northcom on
their strategy for their border with Guatemala.
And there’ve been some impressive results. Mexican
authorities removed the kingpins of the Sinaloa, Zeta and the Gulf cartels.
The U.S. and Mexican militaries learn together, Jacoby said.
“What we’ve cooperated on has helped the Mexican military
modernize and become more effective at all of the tasks that they’ve set out
for themselves,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment