EX-CLUSIVE: The State of Affairs in Cochise County

Yes, you read correctly.  I’ve been doing a little snooping and discovered that immigration isn’t even much of an issue in Cochise County.  In fact, I found people were probably less interested in it as a whole than they are in Lincoln County, where a few of my GOP colleagues are a little riled up about things. The answer I’m getting here from people I talk to is, “I don’t even think about it”.   Evidently, aside from FOX News and a the anti-immigration groups, it is a total and complete non-issue here in Cochise County.

One of the reasons I went to Tombstone a few weeks ago was to meet with a ‘source’ who has been emailing me for nearly six months.  We’ve been trying to arrive at a mutual time to meet, and this week turned out to be a good time for all.  I’m not sure how I am going to handle the interview information – all at once, or trickle down. It is from a security email issued at Ft. Huachuca.

(This occurred on March 3, 2008 in Sierra Vista, AZ)

It was never ascertained if the individuals in the attempt to force their way onto the airfield at Ft. Huachuca were illegal migrants, coyotes, or drug runners.  My source thinks they were drug runners.  Before you start alerting Hannity and Malkin about the fire-power it took to blast a way onto the base, you ought to know that aside from a security presence at the post entry, and a few other areas, it is basically unguarded and desert.  Remember that story about the “Arab terrorists” who were trying to tunnel their way onto the fort?  It isn’t necessary.  Much of the entry into Ft. Huachuca is unguarded and open desert.

The real story?

TERMS
I think one of the problems, and it is a serious one is nomenclature. We need to come up with some terms that define what is going on with traffic across the Mexican-US border.

1.  MIGRANTS
The largest group of people coming across the border are illegal migrants who are simply looking for a better deal in life.  The majority are decent people who just need a break.  My source brought up something that I agree with.  There needs to be some way we an differentiate between those who are looking for a better life, and are here to work, and others.


2.  COYOTES
We all know what they are.  They are moving people from Mexico, Central America, and North Korea.  No, they’re not moving “commies” but they are moving people who are trying to escape North Korea.  A few years ago these people would be welcomed with open arms.  Unfortunately with today’s nativists, and the anti-immigration activities, people who are trying to escape a communist country (and would be refugees) are considered illegals.

3.  GANGS
This is the 2nd most serious problem.  According to one of my sources, much of the violent activity where “Illegals” end up in emergency rooms comes from gang members. The gang members are stealing vehicles, running guns, etc. The get tough on criminal illegals and deport ‘em all position requires these people be deported.  From what I’ve been told many of the gang members are not serving out their sentences, but are immediately deported to cross the border again.

4.  DRUG RUNNERS
I have two sources here, both confirming the same story.
The highway that connects TX to AZ – basically NM #9 goes near the US/Mexico border, then intersects AZ 80 has become ground-zero in the drug movement.  If you take 80 west you will end up in Tombstone. Last week the police chief in Palomas basically defected over the border and asked for asylum in Columbus, NM.  It has become so violent that a friend of mine was told you do not travel this road unarmed or alone.  He was impressed with the presence of the border patrol in this area and started taking some photographs.  He and his son were immediately stopped.  After the usual pleasantries, they started visiting with the BP and learned a few things.

1.  This is one of the top drug conduits in the US.
2.  The road is probably the most dangerous in the US.
3.  There are some BP agents on the take from the drug lords.
4.  If you are traveling and see someone on the side of the road – no matter what – you do not stop.  They are attacking, kidnapping, robbing, etc. up and down the road.

If ever there was a need for a stronger police presence it is along this road. We all know Juarez has become the leading point of import for drugs.  Basically the entire border area from below Fort Huachuca to El Paso is extremely porous, not because of illegals but because of drugs.

My friend, a well respected historian dealing with the American west, compares it with the days of Wyatt Earp and the Cowboys.  In the 1880’s they were moving Mexican cattle over the border.  Now, they are moving Mexican drugs.

The BP collects a few pounds of pot and everyone looks good, while the had stuff keeps on moving. Things are now so bad in Cochise County that on the mountain tops of the Dragoons, where once noble Apaches like Geronimo and Cochise positioned their warriors to spy on the movements of the troops from Ft. Huachuca, today the drug lords position their watchers.  Only now they are fully loaded with sat phones, GPS, portable generators, and can stay out on the mountain tops the same way the Apache did 120 years ago. They watch the BP, Feds, DEA, and a whole alphabet soup of agencies, looking for the best way to get into the US and move their large cargos of drugs, unmolested.

In return, the drug runners acquire hot moving SUV’s and pick-up trucks on this side, all stolen.  They will fill them with stolen and ill-gotten high power guns, rifles, and the like.  They are taken back over the border and distributed to the cartels.  In Mexico a person can only own something like a .35 or so, and that must be purchased from the government.

Incidents that I mentioned earlier in the piece are a rather common occurrence.  It’s not terrorists that are ramming their way across the border.  It will be the migrant, but more often it is now the drug runner or the gang banger from Central America.

People who live along the border and in communities like Sierra Vista are well aware of the problems and the drug runners.  They are much less concerned with the movements of illegal migrants simply looking for a better way of life.  They are far more concerned about the drugs, the drug runners, and the things that go along with it.

The real problem is this isn’t something you hear about on the news.  We are fed a steady diet about the anti-immigration movement and all the organizations and all the  people who live along the border who are so strongly involved with the likes of the minutemen, etc.  From my investigations I’ve found indications that the role of the anti-immigration stalwart like the minuteman is abjectly miniscule.  People just aren’t interested.  They go about their daily lives, the only real “presence” being a few people living in Tombstone and those who migrate to the area to circle the wagons when the MSM comes to call.

I hope by now you are realizing we aren’t being told the real story of what is going on along the border.  The likes of Numbers USA, FAIR, and the Minutemen are more interested in population control.  We are being sold a bill of goods about terrorists from “Arab” countries coming across the border but there has YET to be one solid documentation of anyone like that coming across the border with Mexico.  The story about “Arab” style “terrorists” trying to take out Ft. Huachuca is, in Sierra Vista, something like an urban legend.  My source says it did not happen.

I’ve been told the big problem is the drug runner and the fact that more than a few members of the BP are on the take down along that part of the border.  A few years ago it was discovered that EVERY member of the Ft. Huachuca MP staff was just that – on the take, or were turning a blind eye to the corruption and the drug running.

Why are the anti-immigration groups ignoring the drug cartels?
Why isn’t something being done about it?

Our cannot hope to secure the border until the illicit movement of drugs from Mexico and the running of weapons from the United States.  Our voracious appetite for drugs and their demand for guns to insure the free movement of those drugs is the number one threat to the security of the southern border of the United States.

No one is talking about it.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Contrary to what you may see on Fox or hear Hannity hyper-ventilating about, the rank and file person in Cochise County “Ground Zero” for the alleged war against illegal immigrants crossing into the United States from Mexico, is not an issue.  Yes, there are people who are interested in it.  People are aware of the situation.  But – the movement of migratory workers through this region of the country has been going on for well over 100 years.  Before that, the region was no man’s land, occupied by the Apache who jealously guarded their territory.  It was through the determination of one prospector, who went off to find his “tombstone” that the region was literally blasted wide open for settlement.  Since the early 1800’s men had tried to settle in the region around “Goose Flats” and the fertile soil of the San Pedro. It was to no avail.

Then, in just a few short months in 1877  Ed Schieffelin’s discovery of very high grade mining ore in Goose Flats forever changed the landscape of that desolate part of the desert. The ore deposits were so vast, so rich, and so easily available, adventurous men and women ignored the hardships and in just a few months turned the region around Goose Flats, now christened Tombstone, into a metropolitan area that was larger than Los Angeles.  And – the illicit movement of goods, cattle, and outlaws across the border from the United States into Mexico had begun.

Wealth attracts a criminal element.  Tombstone was no exception.  By the summer of 1880, a group of loosely organized criminals, known in Lincoln County (the Lincoln County War) as The Boys, moved into the Arizona Territory when NM Governor Lew Wallace presented John Slaughter with an ultimatum.  Prison or get out of New Mexico.  Slaughter chose the later.  As he traveled what is now known as Highway 70 in New Mexico from near Three Rivers, through Roswell and up into the Hondo Valley, he accumulated drovers and unbranded cattle.  In Glencoe and San Patricio he hired some of the outlaws who rode with Billy the Kid.  He also appropriated the late John Tunstall’s cattle as his own.  He stopped at his ranch in Tularosa long enough to marry a beautiful young woman, and collect her family.  The continued through Las Cruces and traveled along the Butterfield Stage Route, which is now I-10 into the Arizona Territory.

Slaughter’s arrival in the region around Tombstone turned permanent when he purchased rich San Pedro bottom land from both the Clantons and the McLaurys.  Slaughter’s drovers:  John Ringo, Curly Bill Brocious, Billy Claibourn, Charley Snow, Frank Stilwell, etc. made the little community of Charleston, now a ghost town, their headquarters.  They then proceeded to rob stages, cross the border into Mexico where they killed, robbed, stole cattle, and drove them back into the US. Their atrocities in Mexico reached the point where Mexico threatened the United States with military action if something was not done to stop them.

The beginning of the end occurred on October 26, 1881 at 2:30PM in Tombstone at the OK Corral when the Earps and the Clantons and McLaurys met in the most famous shoot-out in American history.  Six months later, to avenge the death of his brother, Wyatt Earp, under the auspices of the US government, proceeded to wipe out as many leaders of the Cowboys as possible.  Contrary to what Earp detractors might say, most of the problems with the outlaws ended with Wyatt’s Vendetta Posse.

The movement of both the migrants and the criminal elements across the border from Mexico into the US is no different than it was during the era of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday.  The names have changed.  The vehicles have changed.  The promise of a huge cash-payoff has not.

It’s all about the money.  It always has been.  It always will be.  No matter how many anti-immigration activists move into Cochise County and preen in front of the MSM, no matter how many far right bloggers rant and rave, no matter how many Republican politicians fall in defeat over the issue, it will never change.

Cochise County is about money.  As long as it is about the money nothing is going to change.  No minutemen, no Hannity, no Malkin, no Tancredo, no John Tanton is going to put a stop to it.

Now – want to know the punch line – as goes Cochise County, so goes the border lands from there to El Paso.

M – O – N – E – Y