INTERVIEWER: For that ailment [altitude sickness], you appear onscreen chewing coca leaves. Is that high much different than having caffeine?

STONE: No, it’s a mild, mild stimulus. You’re at 12,000 feet, so you’re nauseous and it’s really hard to breathe. This opens the cells, you get better oxygen and you feel more relaxed. I was nauseous, and then I ended up playing soccer, that was sort of the point. They’ve been doing it for centuries down there. It’s a normal thing to do. By the way, I brought coca leaves back. It’s illegal in this country to have a coca leaf, but put it in a cup of tea and it’s better for your health than coffee. But of course, there’s more money for us in coffee as well as tobacco, so we’d rather do that for stimulation.

As a narco-journalist and documentary filmmaker myself, I too have been given the opportunity to smuggle contraband in and out of the United States. I’ve even been offered large sums of money to do it and can’t think of a single reason as to what would motivate me to agree. Putting coca leaves in your tea is like putting Crystal Meth in your orange juice — not a real smart move.

I guess Stone will get a pass on that. But I would hope that if anyone ever publicly bragged about smuggling illegal substances into the United States for whatever reason, that they would at least earn a cursory investigation by ICE or the DEA.

And naturally the American media Stone accuses of being so horribly biased isn’t interested in this story, either.

The Hollywood director is about to release a documentary entitled “South of the Border” that stars the leaders of South American countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and the island of Cuba. Let me be clear, I have not seen this film and therefore this is not criticism aimed at the actual production. But in the aforementioned article Stone says he was given high level access to the likes of Chavez and Castro because he agreed to “tell the truth” from their perspective.

Hey, Ollie—you found out they were human beings. Congratulations.

In my work, I’ve interviewed some of the most wanted drug lords in the Western Hemisphere and had unprecedented access to a couple of them. I’ve been to their homes, met their families and attended their children’s weddings and baptisms. I’ve seen the “human” side of a drug lord and I can tell you without hesitation that doesn’t make these men “misunderstood good guys.”

They are still pedaling death and destruction to my countrymen as well as their own and hardly a day goes by that they don’t send someone to their grave. Yes, they are husbands, sons and brothers, but that’s only one aspect of their persona—they’re also ruthless, cold-blooded killers with little or no regard for human life outside that inner circle.

Hugo Chavez wishes nothing but ill-will for the United States of America. He is out for the destruction of our nation and will aid anyone with similar motives in doing the same. He sponsors terrorists from Middle Eastern nations to come to Venezuela to learn the Spanish language and Latino customs so they can then be issued Venezuelan passports and enter into the U.S. from Mexico.

With all due respect, my advice to you Mr. Stone is to stick to what you know. Scripting your films allows you flexibility to make the outcome the way you want it and as you say in the article, “It’s more important to tell a story that people can enjoy.”

However, “based on a true story” does not mean it’s the truth.

Oh and one more thing: Stop smuggling!

Just as we all sat down around the conference table, my cell phone rang. Given the importance of the meeting, I normally would have let the call go to voice mail, but when I looked at the number I knew I had to pick it up. This person would not be calling unless it was an absolute emergency. I opened the phone and didn’t even get the “Hello” out of my mouth before a shaken and somewhat scared voice said, “Rusty when can you be here?”

The caller was my most trusted source in Mexico. Slightly stunned by the abrupt nature of the call, I responded inquisitively, “Pretty soon, I should wrap up here in New York in a couple of days, why?”

“We have to talk right away, we have a huge problem down here and you’re in the middle of it,” he exclaimed.

When I returned to Texas a few days later, I called my source and we arranged to meet at a public place. He got in my truck and we drove away. As I found a place for us to park we quickly disposed of the normal chit-chat about family and business; I could clearly see he was rattled about something, so we got down to what was on his mind.

He looked outside the window, took a deep breath, looked me square in the eyes and said, “Kidnap orders have been issued for a long list of people along the border and one of the names on that list is yours.”

“Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” Before I could answer he added, “Rusty they have the cops, customs agents and the military looking for you down here, if you cross that bridge into Mexico tonight, you won’t make it a block down the street before they’ll grab you and take you away.”

I fully understood the point my friend was making. This was not the first time a threat had been made on my life. You don’t report on the cartels in Mexico without getting the attention of the individuals you document on film and write about. They are going to come after you sooner or later and I’m no exception to these rules.

The head of Mexico’s National Human Rights commission reported recently that 52 journalists and media workers have been killed in the last decade in Mexico. Most of the slayings remain unsolved. Seven other reporters went missing and six newspaper offices were attacked with explosives over the same period. The president of that same commission was quoted as saying “Impunity has become the hallmark of the aggressions against journalists in Mexico.”

I’ve had a front row seat to the attacks made on the journalists all over Mexico and the United States for the past five years. The bombing of numerous newspapers and television stations combined with the assassinations of reporters has constrained the free press in what is supposed to be the strongest democracy in Latin America.

The armed attacks and threats by drug traffickers against media organizations have made Mexico the world’s most dangerous country after Iraq for journalists, according to the French media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders.

Freedom of the press is one of the most sacred institutions in this country and it too is under attack. In July 2007 several newspapers in Texas received notification of specific threats made by Los Zetas to kill an American reporter in Laredo. The San Antonio Express News published the story about the threat on its reporter and decided to pull him from the paper’s Laredo bureau.

That same year a local television station in McAllen, Texas, was set to broadcast a series of reports and interviews showing that the Zetas had ramped up its army of mercenaries and was preparing for all-out war. The station received a credible death threat from the Zetas shortly after airing the first part of their series, making them pull the stories.

To many people this is an invisible war zone. But to those who live and report in this war zone, these threats are real.

I’ve spent nearly five years documenting the Mexican drug cartels, including the Zetas. After I made the documentary Drug Wars: Silver or Lead, the threats we received were for the most part, directed simply to get us to give up. And they came close to achieving that goal. I had cast and crew members quit in fear of their lives because of these threats, I had sources back out, and I had people in my own government back away from me.

There is one axiomatic truth that’s worth repeating. If you go after the narcos or the corrupt police who do their bidding, they will go after you. It matters not who or where you are—these guys are not going to walk away quietly from $40 billion a year.

According to the 2009 National Drug Threat Assessment report, Mexican and Colombian drug trafficking organizations generate, remove and launder between $18 billion and $39 billion in wholesale drug proceeds annually. This is just the dollars they are laundering and taking home and does not include the profits that they leave here in the U.S., such as  real-estate businesses or other tangible assets. They also use drug profits to trade for weapons.

But now I recognize this as probably the most credible threat directed at me. Part of me has known all along this was inevitable but I was still taken aback. I’ve obviously struck a nerve with these guys. And now I’m confronted with a choice.

Getting all the facts is of paramount importance to the men and women who practice good journalism in this country. Indeed, exposing the truth in a free press has done more for positive change and government and corporate accountability in our nation than perhaps any other single component, but that simply does not fit in the world of terror that the narcos create and perpetuate. Needless to say, a threat by narco-terrorists from Mexico to kill or kidnap American reporters on U.S. soil should send a chill down the spine of anyone who values democracy and freedom.

Every time I think about backing off, tucking tail or going to a new line of work in my field, I think of those brave souls that are down in Mexico risking life and limb every day to report just slivers of the truth. Take William Slemaker, for instance, whose daughter was kidnapped by these same terrorists in 2004 and she has yet to be found. Still, Slemaker continues to speak out against these criminals every chance he gets. I think about the law enforcement officials like the Border Patrol agents, the county sheriff’s and their deputies that live along that border and are under constant threat by these narco-insurgencies.

So, in all humility, I have to say, the fear of what these narco-terrorists are doing and are continuing to do to our two countries., exceeds the fear of what they’ll do to me for reporting it.

This wasn’t all that unusual-most of the investigative journalists in Mexico work under intense circumstances given that they often come into information relating to the drug cartels that they either can not, or will not, report on because it would be a death sentence for them, so they give the information to someone like me who will get it aired or published in way that does not connect them.

I arrived early to the restaurant and since the weather was so pleasant, I decided to take a seat on the patio and have a glass of tea. I sat there for a few minutes when my source arrived and sat down, ordered a drink and handed me a large white envelope. He told me this was everything I had been asking his editor about the day before and that I should be careful how I use them. I thanked him, (by paying him) and we talked for about twenty more minutes and he asked if I could give him a ride home.

He got into my rent car and told me to drive towards his house on the outskirts of town-as we drove past the airport and headed towards Monterrey, and just as I was about to make the turn off the highway to drop him near his home, we saw three sets of headlights about two hundred yards off the main road in a desolate section of land.

I stopped the car and told him I wanted to see what was going on. Without objection from my friend I drove within a few yards of what appeared to be about a half dozen local cops attempting to seal off a crime scene. We exited our vehicle and walked towards the area where the police cars were shining their lights and as I looked down I was standing over three bodies that, appeared to be young boys judging by their clothes, and who were obviously dead. I stepped over to the side a few steps and there were three more lying in the bushes. As the police started talking to my reporter friend I leaned over the first three bodies and even though I’m no forensic expert, I could clearly see they had all been shot execution style in the back of the head. My friend confirmed the other three had the same type wounds.

Within a few hours we were able to piece together some of the basic common threads between these young corpses. They were all teenage boys-the oldest was seventeen, the youngest was thirteen. They had all been working for one of the cartels as couriers and pocketed the money after crossing about a hundred pounds of marijuana (about $2000 worth) into the United States. They had they had been caught by their handlers (the men in charge of supervising the young gang members) and since the cartel uses hundreds of kids just like these all over Mexico and the U.S., someone made the decision to make examples of these kids. A message needed to be sent out so the rest of the young recruits would realize the severity of side dealing and not following orders.

Six .40 caliber bullets to the heads of these boys sent out a very powerful message.

It was a gruesome sight and it made me realize for the first time, that these kids probably never fully understood the “consequences” of getting involved with the cartel and dealing a little harmless weed.

For years I’ve heard people from all over the country, many of them celebrities, politicians and businessmen make the argument that pot is harmless and that it is “just pot” – it’s not like hard drugs and doesn’t carry the same “consequences” as cocaine and heroin.

Let me just respond like this. To the men that manufacture, transport and sell these narcotics, they are all the same thing-money, and no matter what the substance is, it is intended to be converted into money and that is entirely what this is all about for them. This is just but one example of how they will kill a thirteen year old over a load of pot just as fast as they will kill a thirty year old over a load of cocaine, heroin, or meth.

The discussion about the legalization or decriminalization of certain narcotics is starting to pick up traction in our country today and I for one, embrace that discussion. That doesn’t mean I embrace the legalization, but I definitely think its time to have a detailed, mature discussion on the matter. But the discussion is meaningless unless we deal with the truth and the truth is, the illicit narcotics trade is not only more profitable than ever before in the history of smuggling, but more deadly than before too.

The drug policy in America has become almost schizophrenic especially as it relates to marijuana. No doubt we have to have some type comprehensive reform as it relates to the way we are prosecuting the “war on drugs” (dare I even say “war on drugs?”) because what we have been doing has not worked very well by any standard. Maybe legalization is part of that solution, but this problem is far more complex than any ONE solution. Just like the fence that was built to secure our border and hasn’t. What the fence did succeed in doing is curbing one problem in certain areas, but creating more problems in other areas.

Neither will the legalization of narcotics fix everything wrong with the drug war. It will curb some things, but be advised it will also create new problems in areas we are not prepared for today, causing a whole new set of consequences. Unlike those teenage boys lying in the desert-we should take the time to understand and fully comprehend those consequences before we endeavor to take that next step.

On a hot summer evening, in a bar in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico just across the bridge from Laredo, Texas; a thirty year-old man, on his knees, surrounded by a dozen armed guards, can be heard begging for his life, he cries for one more chance to make it right with the boss, one more chance to see his family—one more chance at life.

His boss happens to be the man who dictates the life and death of every soul in the Laredo corridor, listens to the pleas but has already made up his mind. He stands as judge and jury in this court and it’s clear, he’s heard enough. So he pulls a diamond studded, pearl handled pistol from his belt and slowly hands it over to one of his newest recruits. He tells the recruit to put a bullet in the condemned mans head as he sobs uncontrollably—and so, without hesitation the young man pulls the trigger four times over.

This was the new recruit’s first kill and his first real test for initiation to become an assassin of the Gulf Cartel’s enforcement arm known as the Zetas. He had never killed anyone before that night and when his cartel boss handed him the pistol and he pulled that trigger— he knew he loved it. He told me later that it gave him a rush that he had never felt before, “to kill a man and know I was going to get a way with it gave me a feeling of power” —He spoke of that night as if he had found his true calling—“I knew right then I was born to be a sicario” (Spanish for “hit-man”) He was thirteen years old.

I’ve met and talked with numerous players in the drug war being waged on our border and beyond, that have often left me feeling more than a little disturbed. The utter disregard for human life that’s evidenced in the daily tortures and executions taking place down here, certainly wears on the most seasoned of us reporting on it. But when I looked into the eyes of this young man and saw how he lit up inside while speaking so nonchalantly yet eloquently about how he “lived to kill” ever since he pulled that trigger for the first time, it sent cold chills down my spine—and still does. “I’ve killed men while they were tied and bound but that there is no thrill, no excitement in that for me. I prefer to stalk my target, hunt them down and then, after I know his moves front to back, I sneak up on them, look’em in the eyes and pull the trigger—now that’s a rush.”

I interviewed him a year before the mainstream media ever heard his name, Rosalio Reta, was born and raised in Laredo, Texas and recruited by the Zetas when he was barely in the 7th grade.

The first time I met Reta he was barely 18 years old and awaiting his first murder trial in Webb County. We had to meet in private because to be seen talking with someone like me, would have been a death sentence for someone like him. Sheriff Rick Flores, one of the courageous men I ever known, had him moved into his personal office so I could meet with the most infamous prisoner in his jail at the time. Even though Reta was in leg irons and shackles he had an arrogant look about him, wearing a smirk on his face that made you think he thought all of this was funny.

If you don’t count the lightening bolts tattooed on his face, he looks like any ordinary kid until he opens his mouth to speak. Calculating and conniving, I’d call him street smart for sure. He ended up asking me as many questions that first day as I did him.

He took notes as we talked, he asked me all kinds of personal questions, in fact the more personal I got with my questions he did the same. At first I didn’t know what to think about this quid pro quo interview, but after a while I realized he was trying to intimidate me or back me off more than anything else. Knowing what I already knew about this kid, it almost worked.

He told me that he frequently went to Nuevo Laredo looking to work as a drug runner or whatever he could to make the kind of money that type of work pays. This part of his story is played out everyday all along the border, and recruitment of young teenagers into drug gangs is nothing new either, but giving them para-military training and state of the art weaponry is. Reta is part of a new wave of young recruits that are giving the drug cartels a bumper crop of highly trained and highly motivated soldiers and giving us our worst nightmare—domestic narco-terrorists.

Training for these kids starts as soon as they are deemed by their elder Zeta commander as being ready, usually after they have proven their ability to kill someone. Once that right of passage has been taken then the real training can begin.

The core group of men commanding los Zetas, were trained and outfitted here in the United States at the School of the Americas in the 1990’s. Trained to handle all types sophisticated weaponry: automatic assault rifles, heavy-caliber machine guns, bombs, and grenade launchers. They are experts in explosives, GPS technology, wiretapping, and counterintelligence. And even though many of the founding members have been captured or killed in the last few years—they have managed to duplicate themselves many times over with this new generation of better Zetas.

My interview with Reta and numerous other sources revealed that the Zetas have training camps all over northern Mexico, central America and have even been known to use property on the U.S. side of the border to conduct training.

And what exactly are they training these boys and girls to do? It starts out as any other military boot camp with physical training, running and obstacle course drills and then classes later in the day.

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for six months; the same training that is given to the most elite special-forces anywhere is given to these teenagers, all in the consorted effort to build a generation of narco-terrorists better than their predecessors. They are indoctrinated to the ways of the Zetas. “Leave no man behind” is one of those creeds a Zetita is taught to live by, Reta told me “if you go out with ten other men and they get killed, you come home with ten corpses or not at all.” At a time in his life when Reta should have been learning geometry, basic biology and how to muster up the courage to ask a girl out on a date—he was learning how to calculate wind and distance to take out a target and the best ways to torture a man to extract information.

The ones signing up to be assassins aren’t just taught to kill with weapons, but they are given martial arts training and taught first how to kill with their hands. They are taught how to run the most sophisticated surveillance and weaponry available today. They are taught how to dis-assemble and re-assemble every weapon they are issued, and then they learn how to use it with deadly precision; they handle all forms of handguns, AK-47’s, AR-15’s, .50 caliber machine guns, fragment grenades and rocket launchers. They are taught how to properly form a sniper team and take out a target from distances of a thousand yards or more. To hone their urban assault training to a higher level, they encourage the teams here in the U.S., to enter into paintball tournaments and report their scores.

They have an extensive course in SERE, the acronym for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. They are taught how to dispense torture to obtain information and how to take being tortured, in case they are ever captured. They are taught how to drive their vehicles in high speed chases and how to box in their intended targets at intersection as to create the best possible kill zone and at the same time limit the potential for collateral damage and injury to innocent bystanders.

As you would probably guess many of these kids “washout” of the program and for those recruits that can’t cut the rigors of para-military training, the option is given to go into a complete smuggling training program or sign up for an advanced school in electronics and even college.

Operating in the States is a necessity for every drug trafficking organization including the Zetas. These American recruits serve as great benefit to the DTO’s because these kids don’t stand out, they blend right into our society. They speak perfect English, they dress like every other teenager, they know the roads and they know the customs. They can guard a million dollar load of narcotics from Laredo to Dallas and pass right through a border checkpoint and never look suspicious. When the narcotics reach their destination they act as the cartel bankers, collect the money, and drive that cash back safely to Mexico and never miss a day of school to do it.

I just recently spoke at a law enforcement conference of gang investigators and the question that’s being asked by the law enforcement community, “How does a police force seeking to act within the law and respect human rights successfully combat an enemy, made up of teenagers armed with heavy weapons, all of whom will kill a police officer without thought and who, if arrested, can only be held in custody for a few hours?

Her trembling hands and shaking legs speak volumes of the pain she suffers day-in and day-out, wondering about the fate of her little girl. “Is she alive? Is she dead? Is she cold and hungry? Have they hurt her? If they did kill her, where is her body?” These thoughts race through the grief stricken mind of this single mother a hundred times a day.

Consuelo (not her real name), a 49 year-old mother of four, can hardly speak her daughters’ name before her face flinches with pain and her eyes fill with tears again. “Today is my baby Paula’s 20th birthday [not her real name either]. It’s been over two years and we’ve heard nothing.” With a breath of exasperation, frustration, and more than a hint of resentment she exclaims, “And no one has helped us. No one.”

As horrific as this sounds, this story has been played out hundreds of times in the last five years all across the U.S./Mexican border. Sometimes it ends with the return of the loved one, in some cases alive but in most cases not. Sometimes, like in Consuelo’s case, it never ends.

I’ve interviewed over fifty families in the last four years, families living the same nightmare every day: “What has happened to my loved one in Mexico?”

My first encounter was with a man whose daughter and best friend became the center of attention in the mainstream media for a short time after their kidnappings in September of 2004. So compelled by their story, I made them the centerpiece of the kidnapping segment of my documentary, “Drug Wars.”

William Slemaker sat down with me and told me the frightening details of the night his daughter, Yvette Martinez, 24, and her best friend, Brenda Cisneros, 21, were kidnapped just a half-mile from the bridge crossing back into the U.S. by the local police in Nuevo Laredo, only to be handed over to a drug lord the next day. He told me that when he reported the two girls missing he was surprised to find out how helpless U.S. authorities were and how hopeless the Mexican authorities were.

After a grueling night of listening to William and five other families tell me their stories of pain and despair, I was emotionally drained to the point that I got up from the chair I had been sitting in for nearly six hours, walked into the adjoining room, broke-down and cried like a baby. As a father, I could not help but place myself in the shoes of these parents and feel for just a moment, the pain they have been feeling for years. I walked back into the room where they had gathered and as I embraced them all thanking them for talking to me, I thought to myself I never want to know what it would be like to be in their position. Their pain is what keeps me reporting on the border today.

I look at my bank account and see that I have literally broke myself and my family financially to get the word out to as many people as possible—then I think of them and suddenly my problems are not so bad after all. I stop feeling sorry for myself and start working again.

Not all of the kidnappings I have worked in the past four years have this never-ending pain attached. Some people do actually get confirmation of the death of their loved one, occasionally they even get the remains which they can bury, grieve over, and gain some type of closure through. And then every once in a while a happy ending comes—their loved one comes home, alive—not always well, but alive.

The last kidnapping I covered in Nuevo Laredo was just such a case. Two young girls 18 and 19-years-old were out late at night at a bar in Nuevo Laredo. At about 2:30am they were kidnapped and held without a ransom demand for a week. On the seventh day—their captors released them near a truck stop on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo. I spent most of that week with the mother of the older of the two girls, Gina (not her real name).  Her grief, pain and suffering was all too familiar to me. Gina’s cry for help to the public and authorities exacted the same response I have seen over and over since hearing William Slemaker’s story in 2006.

Alas there were two silver linings in this story—the obvious one was that the girls were returned to their families, emotionally beat down and physically hurt, but alive and well enough to recover. But the one silver lining that had an even bigger impact on me than the girls being reunited with their loved ones, was the unconditional love and support this family received from one man. He was the same man that first called me on the phone to tell me about the kidnappings before the local news had even reported it. He told me “Rusty, you need to get down here and investigate this.”

This man stood by Gina and held her hand as she walked, held her head as she cried and helped her at every critical turn. This man stood there with a face of tears as the news of the safe return of this young girl was confirmed by the authorities and celebrated along with the family as they waited in anticipation for the teenage victim to walk through the doors of the Webb County Sheriffs office. When it was all over, Gina went on national television thanking this man for all he had done to encourage, help and support her and she thanked God for sending this man to her because she had no one else.

That man was none other than William Slemaker.

William has managed to take the pain he has endured for the past four-and-a-half years and turn it into a useful and powerful tool to help others faced with the same plight. I have taken William with me all over the country to speak at conventions and several venues where we premiered “Drug Wars.”  Audiences from everywhere are drawn to his story but drawn even closer by his passion to help the hundreds of other people that have missing loved ones in Mexico. I pray for William and his family that though helping these other people and showing them unconditional love and support that the pain and grief they have suffered over Yvette’s disappearance will be removed—without a trace.

One thing I’ve learned in documenting the drug war is that statistics alone don’t tell the story and for a true picture you have to dig beyond the numbers and the hype to draw a real conclusion of whether progress is being made or not.

The current death toll for this year in Mexico’s war against the cartels just peaked over 2,400. This is about the same number of narco-executions as last year at this time and at this pace we will probably exceed last years toll of 5,400. No real change there. But if you drill down on this number what you find is staggering as it relates to the number of law enforcement officials in the execution tally. Though the exact number of local municipal police is not known for certain because many of the narcos dress up like police to conduct operations, it is reported by intelligence sources that over 1/4 or 600 of these executions have been local, state and federal law enforcement agents. Since the first of the year, thirty-one active federal agents alone have been killed in Mexico.

To put that into perspective can you imagine the media blitz and public outcry that would occur if thirty-one FBI agents had been gunned down in the streets of America this year?

Next, the use of the military to prosecute this war by Mexican President Calderon has for the first time in decades, actually put the cartels in a corner and thus a position of having to defend themselves. But a close look at this strategy proves that this is having mixed results at best. In March of this year President Calderon dispatched the army to the border city of Juarez to restore law and order back to a region that had become the murder capital of the western hemisphere. The murder rate immediately dropped 96%, but by April there were 63 murders reported in the Juarez area and despite the presence of nearly 10,000 military and federal personnel in Juarez, there were still 10 homicides during one 2-day span in that month.  

The situation across Mexico does not seem to be improving but rather shifting. Like the proverbial story of plugging the leaking dam with your fingers-you plug one hole and two more spring up just a few feet away. As the military and federal forces continue to apply pressure on the narco-terrorists, violent outbreaks in regions once thought “safe” from the narco-war, start to rear their ugly head. This past weekend military and federal agents in the resort mecca of Acapulco engaged a group of armed gunmen in a gun fight that broke out just a block away from Los Flamingos, the same resort where the rich and famous frequently spend their downtime.

Once the battle began the armed gangsters sped off to a safe-house located in yet another “high rent” district within the city limits and there, federal forces engaged in a six hour shoot-out with the assailants where they exchanged over 3000 rounds fired from automatic assault rifles and 50 fragment grenades detonated. Sixteen assailants and two soldiers lost their lives that day.  

Some in the American media were shocked to see this but what so many people don’t realize is that these resort cities are major ports of entry that are home to major shipping lanes. These same lanes of open commerce are perfect camouflage for the cartels multi-ton shipments of South American cocaine and heroin, military grade weapons from countries such as Venezuela, and precursor chemicals from Asian countries for the manufacturing of methamphetamines. These ports are worth billions to the cartel businessmen who pay millions of dollars each month to the para-military soldiers they employ to guard these ports and the wares being shipped through them. 

As the second half of 2009 unfolds we are no doubt going to see more and more of these outbreaks in cities once thought of as “off limits” to narco-terror.  

One point I should explain is that the main reason we see six hour gunfights in the streets of Mexico and not here, has more to do with corruption than any other single component. When U.S. law enforcement engages in taking down a criminal organization such as the narco-insurgent cell in Acapulco, it is a highly refined, intelligence driven operation, many times involving numerous other agencies from all levels. Close tabs are kept and often times weeks or even months will pass before the actual takedown is ordered. This is accomplished because the information about their operation has little chance of being leaked to the narcos they are pursuing. On the other hand in Mexico, once intelligence is given to the forces that are charged with pursing the narcos they sometimes only have a few minutes or hours to act on it or it will certainly be leaked to the narcos. This makes up for much of the open violence we are seeing in Mexico today and since the corruption within the ranks of the Mexican agencies at every level exceed even what the Calderon administration thought existed-violent outbreaks like this are not likely to change anytime soon either.  

The violence in the U.S. has not reached anywhere near this level but by no means does that equate to an unaffected United States. What happens in Mexico has a very profound and deep impact on many aspects of American life. Starting with law enforcement and security, the Mexican drug cartels remain the greatest organizational threat to the United States and our national security. 

There is not one major city in America that is not seeing the presence and residual of the narco-insurgency that is quickly taking over the drug running, extortion, murder and other criminal enterprises from what used to be reserved for the old mafia and modern American street gangs. This is one change that will be catastrophic for many in our country. 

How about border security? Change? Well again we have to look closely and go beyond the stats. Yes illegal immigration is down, but there has been no decrease in the amount of drugs coming into the US. And the fact that illegal immigration is down begs the question; is the border fence really the reason why or is it due to our ailing economy and the fact that we are starting to enforce the rule of law with regard to that issue in this country?  

How about drug consumption? Change? According to government stats it’s at the same percentage rate as it was 20 years ago, so even by that stat there is no change. But they failed to note that we have 100 million more people living here than 20 years ago thus another 1,000,000 people addicted to drugs in this country.

These are not assertions and hollow allegations by Rusty Fleming. These are all well documented facts as stated by the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security as well as the Drug Threat Assessment report for 2009. All of these agencies combined with the top criminal justice and gang experts from around the country, all agree on one point, the narco-terror machine that is tearing up Mexico and many other Latin American countries today, is alive and well in the United States of America and their current trend of growing and expanding shows no signs of change.

Now, it is important to understand that these organizations are primarily in the business of selling narcotics. You have to look at this the way they do—it’s like any other multi-billion dollar business, in that it seeks to make a profit on the manufacture and distribution of goods. The making, growing, selling, and delivery of their products are all part of their internal operations. Pretty much everything else they do is ancillary operations to support that end, and those are the operations they outsource. That includes most of their dirty work—the collections, kidnappings, torture, and assassinations—which they contract out to paramilitary gangs,which are put together piecemeal or recruited directly from gangs such as MS-13, los Zetas, and others.

Many people have asked me what is it that makes these cartels so different and so much more inherently dangerous than in previous years. One word: “organization.”  As I go around the country and speak on the subject of narco-terrorism I always begin by telling my audiences, “these are not your daddy’s cartels.” It is, without a doubt, the biggest single mistake law enforcement and government officials make when they are trying to assess the situation along our border and how to deal with the drug cartels.

This is not drug dealing as usual. These organizations are so highly “organized” they rival their legitimate counter-parts at most major companies in America. Obviously it wouldn’t take much to jump over the bar set by GM, Chrysler and AIG these days but you have to remember even those companies are operating openly, in a world of free trade and legitimacy. What does it say about a company that has billions of dollars in revenue, no open accounting system, thousands of employees world-wide, and has never spent one dime in advertising and never lost money? They have managed to stay ahead of the entities they are at war with (rival cartels and law enforcement worldwide) in technology, operations, and weaponry through the worst of economic environments and at the same time grow their business.

Like any CEO of a Fortune 500 company, these drug lords have sought to expand their profitability and there are two primary ways to accomplish that end; decreasing expenses and increasing income.

The decreasing of expenses—Lead is cheaper than Silver

Through violence and public acts of brutality—using bullets and fear instead of hard cash when it comes to the corrupting of police, judges, and politicians.

The increase of income—Wholesale to Retail

In years past the cartels have worked in partnerships with American Street gangs to distribute large quantities of narcotics but now—be it through merger or murder, they are assuming more and more direct control over the retail sales of narcotics in the U.S. (the same wholesale market that is valued at $15-$40 Billion turned into $150-$200 Billion retail).

Taking these factors into consideration and adding the fact that once a DTO is in total control of the region they are fighting for, such as the Laredo corridor, they instantly move into extorting legitimate businesses to compliment their operations (trucking companies, customs brokerage firms, money exchange houses and car dealerships) and for money laundering (banking and real-estate).

They train their operatives with the finest military training available on the planet. The core group of men commanding Los Zetas, for example, is trained and outfitted with sophisticated weaponry: automatic assault rifles, heavy-caliber machine guns, bombs, and grenade launchers. They are experts in explosives, GPS technology, wiretapping, and counterintelligence and they have standing orders to kill anyone who interferes with the delivery of their loads.

I have the only interview of one the young men featured in AC360’s piece last week about young assassins who were recruited by the Zetas at the age of 13. Recruitment of young teenagers into gangs is nothing new, but giving them para-military training and state of the art weaponry is. This new wave of young recruits is giving the narcos in Mexico the best of operational circumstances and giving us our worst nightmare, a bumper crop of highly trained and highly motivated domestic terrorists that come from among our own families.

To see what we are up against, just combine the virtually unlimited financial resources of the drug lords with a group of killers trained in anti-drug warfare, and you end up with an efficient, well-equipped force that will stop at nothing to complete its mission.

For more please visit: www.drugwarsthemovie.com

One of the more disturbing aspects of the narco-insurgency in North America is the effect it is having on the free press in Mexico. Our own history has proven that exposing the truth in a free press has done more for positive change in government and corporate accountability in our nation than perhaps any other single component, but that simply does not fit in the world of terror that the narcos create and perpetuate. Hardly a single Mexican media outlet in the country operates freely and without fear when it comes to reporting on the narcos and their activities.

The narcos have succeeded in removing nearly all investigative reporting in the Mexican media. Even if reporters are allowed to, or brave enough to, they often remove their bylines, reveal very few facts and almost never name the perpetrators. There are numerous reported cases of media intimidation in the U.S. as well. Newspapers from San Antonio and Dallas have pulled reporters back to as far as New York to get them away from the threats made on them for reporting on cartel activity.

So the question becomes how do you fight against an enemy if you don’t even know who he is? Can you imagine going after the Gambino crime family having never mentioned John Gotti’s name? So what comes out in the press is essentially body counts and highlights of the brutality prominently displayed by the warring groups that wish to send their messages of fear to authorities, rival gangs and the public at large.

By killing rivals in barbaric fashion—beheading, burning alive and torture, the message is—“This is what happens when you are with the wrong gang”— by killing law enforcement agents the message is—“This will happen to anyone who opposes us” and by killing top government officials, the message is—“We can get to anybody” and to the public who sees the decapitated, burned and tortured remains, the message is— “No one is safe.”

The crimes are often not reported and if they are, they are almost never investigated and of the few that are investigated, the guilty are almost never caught, and of those few who are caught, they are often either set free by a corrupt judge or broke out of jail by their fellow soldiers. But in any case, once the word is out that someone is reporting or investigating the crime, the cartels dispatch the hit squads to retaliate against whomever they have to. Multiply this by 6000 times in one year and it becomes demoralizing to the most optimistic patriots in any society.

For more, please visit: www.drugwarsthemovie.com

I’ve been documenting the Mexican drug cartels and their operations in Mexico and the U.S. on film and in print for the past four years. I’ve contributed to magazines, newspapers and presented segments on network news, I’ve written a book on the subject and meet regularly with intelligence agents from every three lettered agency in the alphabet. I’ve had a front row seat to one of the most violent and brutal uprisings in the history of our two countries and still I am amazed that so few people, especially within our government comprehend this problem and haven’t a clue as to the true effects it is having on our own society, economy and geopolitical landscape.

The flow of illicit narcotics into the United States from Mexico is nothing new and neither is the fact that the Mexican DTO’s (Drug Trafficking Organizations) are running the entire show. Up until recently it was believed that they were earning somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 billion dollars a year from that enterprise and for the past two decades the U.S. government has been content with the lackluster results of their interdiction efforts evidenced by the fact that nothing has really changed in that time span.

But lately it seems something has finally got certain branches of our government worried and when viewed in its totality, it should worry us all; in fact, when you have seen the vision that these highly organized, well financed DTO’s have for their future, not only will you be concerned, but if you care for this country, it will scare the hell out of you.

This is the kind of stuff  you see in the movies-but even “Scarface” had an ending.

I’m going to be writing in an effort to paint this picture for all to see. I do my reporting from the frontlines because I spend about two to three weeks out of every month in Mexico and along our border.

I’ve had the opportunity to get at close range to some of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world. Whether that has been a blessing or a curse remains to be seen, but nonetheless, it has given me insight into a situation that is not only dangerous, but frightening–to see first hand what they are successfully doing with the money, power and influence they are amassing by selling their wares to our own people and around the world.

The men who run these organizations are not a bunch of coked out cowboys slinging their pistols in the air as they party day and night. No, these are intelligent, educated men with the resources to surround themselves with some of the sharpest minds on the planet. They run global, multi-billion dollar businesses that operate around the clock, around the world. They know the power of knowledge. They have the latest in technologies and weaponry, they use satellites for communications and surveillance. They employ their own private armies–fully trained and armed to teeth–in order to protect their operations.

Narco-terrorism is alive and well, not just along our border but all over the U.S.

Want proof? Last week 750 operatives from the Sinaloa cartel were taken down in over 120 cities across the country. Before that, last fall, 500 operatives working for the Gulf cartel were arrested in an operation spanning the south. That’s 1,250 narco-terrorists operating on American soil, receiving their instructions from Mexico, all arrested here in the last six months.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing in much more detail about the interviews I’m gathering from ordinary citizens who are caught in the cross-fire of daily cartel hits–family members of kidnapped children, teachers who are being extorted by the cartels, hospital staff who are afraid to do their jobs because when a wounded cop or criminal is brought to their hospital the cartels send a hit squad in to finish the job right in front of doctors and nurses…

I’ll share stories of cops who are afraid of doing their job because even though they don’t work for the cartels, their bosses do, so when they are sent out to do a job, they don’t know if they are doing it for their government or the cartel.

The bottom line is that there is no governmental force in control of the Juarez corridor, but what’s worse is that there is no single cartel in control either, making this region the most dangerous place to be in the Western Hemisphere.

The American public has little clue what the effects of narco-terrorism looks like.  Mexico itself has not yet failed, but Juarez has, and it is happening 1100 feet from our border.