Blackwater and Mexico

Just think of Blackwater's heavy hand dealing with Mexico. Will they respect human rights, borders, and a nation's laws? Or would we see callous shootings of illegal immigrants, invasion into Mexico in pursuit of quarry, indifference to Mexican or U.S. laws, harrassment of U.S. citizens of Mexican descent? I mean, what could go wrong?

If and when private security contractor Blackwater USA and its heavily-armed operatives are forced to pull out of Iraq as the result of the September 16th rampage in downtown Baghdad when its employees massacred up to 28 Iraqis, Mexico could be a profitable option for the North Carolina-based company.

Actually, Blackwater is almost in Mexico already. For months, the North Carolina-based corporation has been pressuring local San Diego officials to grant it an operating license for an 824-acre training site to be known as Blackwater West in Potrero California 45 miles east of that bustling port city but only six miles from the Tecate Mexico border crossing. The site, some of which snakes through the Cleveland National Forest, is a favored transit route for undocumented Mexican workers heading north and has been recently scorched by out-of-control wildfires.

[snip]

Blackwater USA is attracted to the San Diego area because of the heavy concentration of military bases such as Camp Pendleton in the environs that could produce a windfall of security and training contracts from its pals in the Pentagon. Blackwater USA was founded by ex-Navy Seal Eric Prince who cultivates close ties with the military.

One of Blackwater's most rah-rah backers in the Potrero venture is local congressman Duncan Hunter, ranking republican on the House Armed Services Committee and a dark horse candidate for his party's presidential nomination. Hunter is considered one of the most virulent anti-Mexican immigration voices in congress and is a political architect of the separation wall that now lines California's border with Mexico.

The dispute over Blackwater's proposed Potrero training camp is not just a NIMBY-type confrontation. Siting the facility a stone's throw from the Mexican border internationalizes the proposition. By any stretch of the imagination, Mexican president Felipe Calderon ought to be nervous about the encampment of the world's largest private army on his conflictive northern border, particularly one that is not accountable to either the Geneva Convention or U.S. and Mexican military and civil law. Yet Calderon has not publically protested the proposal.

We're invading Mexico?

With what army, Blackwater? Via GottaLaff at Cliff Schecter, McClatchy: (my bold)

For Washington, the stakes in Calderon’s anti-drug push go beyond law and order issues.

“If Calderon loses this battle,” says Noriega, “then there will be no wall high enough to keep out Mexicans who are displaced by violence and by the security threat that undermines Mexico’s growth.”

Bush and Calderon hinted at an aid package when they met in Merida, Mexico, on March 14. Bush praised Calderon for his tough stand against organized crime and drugs and recognized that as a consumer nation, “the United States has a responsibility in the fight against drugs.”

“Mexico’s obviously a sovereign nation,” Bush said, “and if (Calderon) so chooses, like he has, will lay out an agenda where the United States can be a constructive partner.”

People familiar with the talks say Mexico drew up a list that included equipment, training and technology, including Black Hawk helicopters, which are difficult to come by given the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but are considered the transport of choice for security forces.

The price tag on the more ambitious aspiration is $1.2 billion, but a more modest proposal has emerged in recent weeks in the area of $700 million, said one person familiar with the talks.

It is not clear how the administration will request the funds from Congress, since the foreign operations spending bill for the coming year already has been approved by the House.

[snip]

The aid package under consideration inevitably will spark comparisons to the similar program under way with Colombia since 2000. Under that program, the U.S. government has poured more than $5 billion to combat armed groups as well as to eradicate coca and heroin crops. Colombian authorities praise the program for helping reduce violence there, though the country continues to produce vast quantities of cocaine.

Mexican officials bristle at any comparisons with the Colombian operation, which they view as too ambitious and an infringement on Colombian sovereignty, given the heavy scrutiny by the U.S. Congress and direct involvement of U.S. personnel and equipment.

“Any type of a package called Plan Mexico,” said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, a Mexico specialist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “would be dead on arrival.”

The Mexico package more likely will be cast as an effort to improve Mexico’s judicial system and its security forces. “The U.S. can play a role in bolstering that reform process,” he said.