BALTIMORE'S FLOW OF ILLEGAL GUNS SUPPLIED BY OUT OF STATE SOURCES (NON-DISCRIMINATORY GUN LAWS)

BALTIMORE'S FLOW OF ILLEGAL GUNS SUPPLIED BY OUT OF STATE SOURCES:

WHY CAN'T POLICE AND MD STATE TROOPERS STOP THE FLOW WITHOUT TARGETING BLACK MEN ONLY??


Sources: BALTIMORE SUN, Fox News, WBALTV, Youtube


***** I-Team finds illegal guns in Baltimore coming from out of state


Amid the hot debate over gun laws, the WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team reveals the steep challenge of reducing the supply of guns often used in crimes.

The problem: laws vary state to state.

It wasn't known at the time, but it turns out that a .40-caliber Glock handgun recovered during a traffic stop by Maryland State Police in Anne Arundel County in 2015 was part of a much larger conspiracy to funnel guns from one state to another.

"The firearm came back to a person who purchased it in the state of Georgia," Maryland State Police Sgt. Frank Lopez said.

Lopez runs the state police gun center, which traces guns and performs background checks on people arrested in possession of guns.

The Glock recovered in Anne Arundel County was actually one of 25 guns legally purchased by a man in Georgia, who then sold them to a man in Maryland. The buyer was Jaleel Wulu, an aspiring rapper known as Trill Castro.
The two men were convicted on federal charges of gun trafficking after some of the guns were recovered from other people during criminal investigations.

"This gentleman purchased many firearms, and they were turning up, the majority of them, in Prince George's County," Lopez said.

An unusual pattern? Not at all.

More often than not, guns seized by police in criminal investigations are coming from someplace other than Maryland.
"I would say approximately 60 percent statewide of firearms that are seized by Maryland law enforcement are not Maryland guns, that goes up exponentially in places like Baltimore City and Prince George's County," Lopez said.

Maryland has some of the toughest gun laws in the country. Buyers are required to wait seven days after purchase to actually take possession of a handgun.

There is no instant background check, and buyers are limited to one purchase per month.
Laws are far more lax in states to the south and west.

In West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, background checks are instant, and there is no waiting period and no limit on how many guns you can purchase at once.

The disparity between gun laws state by state complicates the effort to reduce gun violence, currently an urgent priority in Baltimore.

There is no shortage of supply.

Shantay Guy, who runs the Community Mediation organization in Baltimore, said it is not hard to get a gun in Baltimore.

"It's not difficult at all," Guy said. "Not only are those that are involved in intentionally violent activities have quick access to guns, but even those kids that are fearful that if they are not protecting themselves, they could be another victim, but it's easy for them to get guns too."

Earlier this week, the Baltimore City Council opened debate on increasing the penalty for illegal gun possession in Baltimore.

Guy's organization, which files surveillance video of shootings, is taking on a much harder question: How do you head off people from using a gun to resolve conflict and dispute?

"There are a fair amount of folks in our city who have low levels, quite honestly, of emotional intelligence.

I would offer that I am still working on mine," Guy said. "The more folks that we could get involved in this work to help heal rifts and relationships that have been damaged in Baltimore City, the better likelihood we are going to have in significantly reducing the violence in Baltimore City."

To date, just over 1,000 illegal guns have been seized in Baltimore, and more than 520 people have been wounded or killed in gun violence.

Enrique Peña Nieto Calls Arizona's Immigration Law "Discriminatory", Seeks New Debate On Drug War

Mexican President-Elect Tells Fareed Zakaria: Solution To AZ Law Is Fixing Mexican Economy

Mexican President-Elect Enrique Peña Nieto spoke to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria this week for an interview airing tomorrow, and in a preview released today, Peña Nieto reacts to our Supreme Court upholding parts of Arizona’s controversial SB-1070 law.

While calling the law “discriminatory,” he acknowledged that the solution was making immigration “a decision and not a necessity for Mexicans.”

Zakaria asked Peña Nieto to respond to the Arizona law and explain how, as president of Mexico, his administration would address the immigration problem, particularly the criminal side of it.

He called the law “discriminatory” and argued that said laws “do not recognize the contribution and the value of millions of immigrants” to the American economy.

He added, however, that as President of Mexico, “I understand that Mexico must facilitate conditions for greater economic development through structural reforms, treasury reform, labor reform… in order to generate jobs and great opportunities in our culture.”

The bottom line for him was to make “immigration a decision and not a necessity for Mexicans.”





Mexico's Peña Nieto calls for 'new debate' on the drug war

Mexico's Enrique Peña Nieto called for a "new debate" on the drug war and said the United States must play an important role in that discussion.

The presumptive president-elect spoke this week to Fareed Zakaria in an interviewing airing on this week's "Fareed Zakaria GPS."

"Yes, I do believe we should open up a new debate regarding how to wage war on drug trafficking. Personally, I'm not in favor of legalizing drugs. I'm not persuaded by that as an argument.

However, let's open up a new debate, a review, in which the U.S. plays a fundamental role in conducting this review," said Peña Nieto.

More than 47,500 people have died in drug-related violence since Felipe Calderon, Mexico's current president, made combating cartels a top priority when he took office in 2006.

Peña Nieto has pledged to focus more on reducing violence and less on catching cartel leaders and blocking drugs from reaching the United States.

"What we seek now in our new strategy is to adjust what's been done up until now. It's not a radical change.

It's to broaden the coverage and above all, the emphasis I aspire to of reducing the violence in our country," he told Zakaria.

"I'm persuaded that if we achieve the specialization in the work carried out by the various branches of the federal police and the inspector general's office, waging war on impunity will allow us to combat crime," he said.

The presumptive president-elect also weighed in on Arizona's immigration law, which allows police to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws if "reasonable suspicion" exists that the person is in the United States illegally.

The controversial provision was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

It struck down other parts of the law.

"Clearly, it seems to me that these are discriminatory laws that don't recognize the contribution and the value of millions of immigrants, particularly from my country, who make enormous contributions to the United States' economic development.

It's clear to me that Mexico must facilitate conditions for greater economic development through structural reforms, energy reforms, treasury reform, labor reform, in order to generate jobs and greater opportunities in my country, so that immigration is a decision and not a necessity for Mexicans," he said.

An official tally of returns Friday confirmed Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, as the winner of Mexico's presidential election.

But until the country's electoral tribunal ratifies the results - and challenges are virtually assured - he remains the presumptive president-elect.

Peña Nieto's closest rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has vowed to challenge the results, accusing the PRI of vote-buying, and said that he would take his complaints through the legal system.

The federal electoral tribunal, known as TRIFE, will begin to accept complaints Monday of voting irregularities.

The tribunal will have until September 6 to complete its investigation and ratify - or reverse - the official election results.

The new president will be sworn in December 1.





Police in Arizona arrest 20, dismantle drug trafficking cell of Sinaloa Cartel

Authorities in Tempe, Arizona, dismantled a drug trafficking cell associated with Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, arresting 20 people and seizing three tons of marijuana, 30 pounds of methamphetamine and $2.4 million in cash, police said.

A six-month investigation by Tempe police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency also concluded with the seizure of an airplane, 10 vehicles and 14 firearms, police said Friday.

The cartel delivered illegal drugs in Tempe and branched out to customers in New York, Alabama, California and other states, police said.

"This operation demonstrated a collaborative effort by state and federal law enforcement agencies," Tempe Chief of Police Tom Ryff said in a statement.

The drug trafficking "stretched across the Mexico border and into Arizona and beyond," said Doug Coleman, special agent in charge of the DEA's Phoenix office.

The Sinaloa Cartel is one of Mexico's most powerful drug-trafficking groups, and cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera is widely known as Mexico's most-wanted fugitive.

Forbes magazine has placed him on its list of the world's most powerful people, reporting his net worth at $1 billion as of March.


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Sources: CNN, Mediaite, Google Maps

Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson & Amy Winehouse: Music Industry Drug Abuse Casualties! R.I.P.

WHITNEY HOUSTON, MICHAEL JACKSON & AMY WINEHOUSE all fell victim to rampant, corrupt Entertainment Industry Drug Abuse.
All three Stars died prematurely as a result of Prescription & Illegal Drug Abuse given to them by Entertainment Industry Professionals & Hacks.
Unfortunately many more Entertainment Industry Stars are going to DIE!
Because Once Singers & Performers sign Industry Contracts, they HAVE to Tour!
They will be forced to Tour, Perform & make new Albums until they DROP Dead from Exhaustion or Drug Overdoses!
Its All About The Money!
Nothing Else Matters.





I still can't believe the legendary WHITNEY HOUSTON is DEAD!
A fellow "Homegirl" from the East Coast, gone too soon.
I cried all weekend. My husband thought I was Crazy!
I cried because as a Loyal Fan, I closely followed her career for more than 20 years.
From Whitney's early days in Newark, to her Divorce from Bobby, to her Premature death Saturday, I remained dedicated. Even Praying for her at times.
She was a BEAUTIFUL, Gifted, Legendary, "Homegirl" Singer from Jersey who made it out of the Hood.
And Although she experienced International Acclaim for her Huge Voice, I along with many other dedicated fans personally witnessed how the Entertainment Industry Used Her Up, Contributed to her becoming a Drug Addict & then basically dumped her once she became a Liability.
i.e., Michael Jackson & Amy Winehouse.
YES!
The Entertainment Industry USED WHITNEY TO DEATH, Just like they USED MICHAEL JACKSON TO DEATH!
Whitney's personality was naturally very Shy.
To cope with Fame, the glare of Paparazzi, Stage Fright & Constant Touring, she was often given Prescription Drugs & Illegal Drugs by Industry professionals & Industry hacks.
There was also access to Diet Pills to help keep her weight under control.
Those Substances later led to Whitney using Harsher Substances.
i.e., Cocaine & Crack!
The Media often blamed ex-husband Bobby Brown for Whitney's Drug Addiction challenges, however Bobby was NOT to blame.
Prior to meeting & marrying Bobby, Whitney was already using Substances for various reasons.
In fact Whitney's late Father John Houston, tried to intervene & attempted to speak out against what the Entertainment Industry was doing to his beloved daughter.
The Result?
According to the Media he died from complications related to Diabetes & Heart Disease!
I believe Whitney's Father died from a broken heart after witnessing how the Entertainment Industry was using his daughter.
Many people could have helped Whitney before her challenge with Prescription Drugs & Illegal Drugs spiraled out of control, but they chose NOT to speak up because Whitney was PAYING them or Providing for them!
So while everyone else wants to talk about her Gifted Singing Voice & her legendary Career, I can't help but keep it REAL by exposing the TRUTH on how Entertainment Industry Professionals & Entertainment Industry Hacks lured a Young, Innocent Girl to Fame, Used her to make BIG Buck$, then basically dumped her when she became a Liability.
Whitney did NOT die happy. She died Sad. Her voice ruined by years of Drug Abuse. I'm just keeping it real.
I LOVE YOU WHITNEY.
They can't use you anymore baby!
R.I.P. Sweet Princess.

Unfortunately many more Entertainment Industry Stars are going to DIE because the Industry is Corrupt with Drug Abuse. Its All About The Money! Nothing Else Matters.



Wendy Williams Cries Over Whitney Houston's Death And Past Drug Use


Whitney's Houston shocking death has prompted an outpouring of emotion from across the entertainment industry. Monday on "The Wendy Williams Show," (weekdays on Fox) Wendy Williams, who famously clashed with Houston during her days as an L.A. radio host, broke down when talking about the singer's death and their shared history of drug abuse.

Williams described how the news of Houston's death stirred up a lot of raw feelings stemming from her own struggles with drugs. "Whitney and I, same age, and both plagued with the demon of substance abuse," Williams said, fighting through tears. "It's been almost 15 years since I smoked last from a crack pipe," she continued. "It's been almost 15 years since I waited on Jerome Avenue on the Bronx for my drugs."

In a 2009 episode of her show, Williams explained that she identified so closely with Houston because they both struggled with substance abuse. At the time, Williams criticized Houston for not taking "ownership" of her drug problem in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. "No matter what she said in that interview, she didn't own her habit," Williams said. "She's still blaming Bobby or the world."

Reflecting on their past squabbles, Williams said she always hoped she and Houston would reconnect later in their lives. "I just thought we would meet and we would hug and we'd be sober and older," she lamented.

The normally-gossipy Williams took the news so hard that she pledged to not discuss the case in the coming weeks. "I've never done this before on this show, but I'm telling you now that I don't have anything more to say regarding this particular case," she said. The camera then panned to Williams' studio audience, who were all holding up 'Whitney fans' to commemorate the legendary singer.


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Sources: ABC News, AOL, CBS News, Huffington Post, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

Sarah Palin & Glen Rice Hooked Up New Book Claims! Rice Confirms! Palin Is Silent

Sarah Palin had sex with basketball player, snorted cocaine and cheated on husband, book claims

Sarah Palin bedding a budding NBA star, snorting coke and cheating on the First Dude?

You betcha!


The scandalous details are revealed in the highly-anticipated tell-all "The Rogue: Searching for The Real Sarah Palin," written by best-selling author Joe McGinniss.

Palin bedded future pro hoops player Glen Rice while he was playing at the University of Michigan, the about the McGinniss book.

The sharp-shooting Rice - who spent one season with the Knicks - was playing in the annual "Great Alaska Shootout" while Palin was a sports reporter with Anchorage television station KTUU, the Enquirer said.

Their one-night stand over Thanksgiving weekend 1987 reportedly occurred in the dorm room of Palin's kid sister at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Palin was described by a friend as the aggressor, with the pal reporting "she hauled his ass down," the Enquirer said.

Less than a year later, Palin was pregnant by husband Todd and the couple eloped.

The book also repeated allegations - denied in the past by Palin - that she had a six-month affair with her husband's business partner in the mid-'90s.

The dalliance put a chill on the Palin marriage, with Todd complaining to friends about the loss of intimacy in their relationship, the Enquirer reported.

McGinniss, the author of "Fatal Vision" and "The Selling of the President," rented the house next door to the Palins in Wasilla while researching the bombshell book.

His agent, David Larabell, declined to comment on the Enquirer excerpts.

"As this is an embargoed book I can't comment on the specificity of its contents," Larabell wrote in an e-mail.

"Also, I haven't seen the National Enquirer article. I don't know about this instance, but they often get these reports right."

The book also reports that Palin was once seen snorting cocaine off the top of a 55-gallon drum while snowmobiling with friends. She also smoked pot with a professor while at Mat-Su College, the book says.

And it quotes a Palin family friend as saying that husband Todd Palin also snorted coke, describing him as "on the end of the straw plenty."

The Enquirer quoted a publishing source about the explosive stories contained in the 320-page book, due in stores next week.

There was no immediate response from the Palin camp.



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Sources: Miami Herald, National Enquirer, NY Daily News, Youtube, Google Maps

Amy Winehouse's Private Funeral; "Back To Black" Video

Amy Winehouse to Be Cremated Following Emotional Funeral

Details surrounding Amy Winehouse's final hours became clearer as her family and friends laid her to rest today.

Kelly Osbourne and Mark Ronson were among the famous friends that joined Winehouse's family and loved ones at London's Edgwarebury Cemetery earlier today. Winehouse will be cremated following the service.

Winehouse's U.K.-based representative, Chris Goodman, told Britain's Daily Mail that her father gave a touching eulogy at today's ceremony.

"Mitch's last words to Amy in his eulogy were 'Goodnight my angel,'" Goodman said. "Sleep tight. Mummy and Daddy love you ever so much."

Reg Traviss, Winehouse's most recent boyfriend, attended the funeral and spoke to Britain's Sun newspaper about the singer's death, saying "I have lost my darling who I loved very much." Blake Fielder-Civil, Winehouse's ex-husband, was not in attendence. He's currently serving a 32 month jail sentence.

Rabbi Frank Hellner officiated the Jewish service in which family and friends sang Winehouse's favorite song, Carole King's "So Far Away." Afterwards, Winehouse's body was taken to Golders Green Crematorium, where her grandmother was cremated. Her family will sit shiva for two days in mourning.

What Killed Amy Winehouse?

U.K. officials began an autopsy Monday to determine what killed the 27-year-old singer, who was found dead in her home in London's Camden district Saturday. They are awaiting the results of a toxicology test, which are expected in two to four weeks. No formal cause of death has been established, and officials reportedly have found no paraphernalia or sign of drugs in Winehouse's home.

Winehouse's official cause of death will be released in October.

On Monday, Goodman revealed that a bodyguard hired to watch the singer was the first person to discover her death.

"She was in her bedroom after saying she wanted to sleep, and when he went to wake her, he found she wasn't breathing," he told the Sun. "He called the emergency services straight away. He was very shocked. At this stage no one knows how she died. She died alone in bed."

The Sun also reported that Winehouse had seen a doctor Friday night as part of a routine series of checkups, given her history of drug and alcohol abuse. The doctor saw nothing wrong.

The Grammy-winning singer was literally rocking out the night before she died, according to People magazine,

"We know that she was well enough to be playing drums well into Friday night," said Julie Dam, People's assistant managing editor. "We spoke to neighbors who said she was usually so quiet. It's worth noting that she was making a lot of noise that night."

But Winehouse's clean bill of health and activity prior to her death might have masked underlying problems from years of substance abuse that eventually killed her.

"She may have had asthma and emphysema because of her smoking," said Dr. Eric Braverman, an addiction specialist and author of the book "The Edge Effect." "From that, you can have a terrible respiratory arrest. You can have a seizure. Your lungs can choke off your trachea. It happens in asthmatics a lot."

Respiratory conditions might not have been picked up by Winehouse's physician.

"If you have a pulmonary disease, you need a lung function test, not a stethoscope," Braverman said. "So a simple physical that tells you you have a clean bill of health doesn't say much."

Winehouse's father told reporters in 2008 that she had been diagnosed with early-stage emphysema. She was also vocal about her struggles with eating disorders, which could have played a part in her death, too.

"You can also suffer cardiac arrhythmia from dieting and not eating properly," Braverman said. "Even panic attacks in her state can constrict the lungs and bring on death."


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Sources: ABC News, Amazon.com, VeVo, Youtube, Google Maps

Amy Winehouse: Gifted, Young Singer Destroyed By Drug Addiction; Needed Serious Rehab!

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Amy Winehouse, British Soul Singer With a Troubled Life, Dies at 27

Amy Winehouse, the British singer who found worldwide fame with a sassy, hip-hop-inflected take on retro soul, yet became a tabloid fixture as her problems with drugs and alcohol led to a strikingly public career collapse, was found dead on Saturday in her apartment in London, the police said. She was 27.

The cause was not immediately known. The police said that they were investigating the circumstances of the death, but that “at this early stage it is being treated as unexplained.”

With a husky, tart voice and a style that drew equally from the sounds of Motown and the stark storytelling of rap, Ms. Winehouse became one of the most acclaimed young singers of the past decade, selling millions of albums, winning five Grammy Awards and starting a British retro-R&B trend that continues today.

Yet, almost from the moment she arrived on the international pop scene in early 2007, Ms. Winehouse appeared to flirt with self-destruction. She sang of an alcohol-soaked demimonde in songs like “Rehab” — whose refrain, “They tried to make me go to rehab/I said, ‘No, no, no,’ ” crystallized Ms. Winehouse’s persona — and before long it seemed to spill over into her personal life and fuel lurid headlines.

The interplay between Ms. Winehouse’s life and art made her one of the most fascinating figures in pop music since Kurt Cobain, whose demise in 1994 — also at age 27 — was preceded by drug abuse and a frustration with fame as something that could never be escaped. Yet in time, the notoriety from Ms. Winehouse’s various drug arrests, public meltdowns and ruined concerts overshadowed her talent as a musician, and her career never recovered.

On Saturday, as the news of Ms. Winehouse’s death spread, many musicians took to Twitter with deep sadness but no surprise. Lily Allen, who rose through the British pop scene shortly after Ms. Winehouse, called her “such a lost soul.” The singer Josh Groban wrote: “Drugs took her gift, her soul, her light, long before they took her life. RIP Amy.”

As much as her misfortunes eventually took on a sense of predictability, when Ms. Winehouse arrived with her breakthrough second album “Back to Black,” which was released in Britain in late 2006 and in the United States the next year, she was a fresh voice with a novel take on pop history. She spoke of her love for Frank Sinatra, Thelonious Monk and Motown, as well as Nas, the hard-core New York rapper with a sharp eye for narrative detail.

Her greatest love, however, was the 1960s girl groups, something that was evident from the instantly recognizable beehive hairdo and Cleopatra makeup that she borrowed from the Ronettes. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2007, Ms. Winehouse explained how a breakup had inspired the songs on “Back to Black,” and described her state of mind in terms of music and alcohol.

“I didn’t want to just wake up drinking, and crying, and listening to Shangri-Las, and go to sleep, and wake up drinking, and listening to the Shangri-Las,” she said. “So I turned it into songs, and that’s how I got through it.”

Amy Jade Winehouse was born in Southgate, London, on Sept. 14, 1983. Her mother, Janis, was a pharmacist, and her father, Mitch, was a cab driver who nursed a love for music. They both survive her, along with a brother, Alex.

Ms. Winehouse showed an early talent for performing, as well as an eclecticism that would characterize her later work. She loved her father’s Sinatra records, but she also liked hip-hop; at age 10 she and a friend formed a rap group called Sweet ’n’ Sour that Ms. Winehouse later described as “the little white Jewish Salt-N-Pepa.” (Ms. Winehouse was the “sour” half.)

She attended the Sylvia Young Theater School in London and later went to the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology, a free performing arts school there that counts several other recent female pop stars among its alumnae, including Ms. Allen and Adele, another young singer who is sometimes seen as picking up the neo-soul mantle from Ms. Winehouse.

In 2003, at age 19, Ms. Winehouse released her first album, “Frank.” Influenced by jazz, it established her as a rising star in Britain. But “Back to Black,” recorded with the producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, and the Brooklyn retro-soul band the Dap-Kings, made her an international sensation. With thick horns and club-ready hip-hop beats, the album was a darkly stylish update of classic 1960s R&B, and it was adored by critics and the public alike.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales, Ms. Winehouse has sold 2.7 million albums and 3.4 million tracks in the United States.

Yet, while “Rehab” was still climbing the charts, Ms. Winehouse made headlines for drug binges and arrests that left her hospitalized and forced her to cancel concert dates.

In October 2007, Ms. Winehouse and her husband at the time, Blake Fielder-Civil, were arrested in Norway on charges of marijuana possession. A month later, Mr. Fielder-Civil was arrested and accused of perverting the course of justice by trying to bribe the victim in a bar fight not to testify against him. (Ms. Winehouse and Mr. Fielder-Civil divorced in 2009.)

Perhaps the peak of Ms. Winehouse’s career was the 2008 Grammy Awards. She was nominated for six prizes and took home five, including Best New Artist. Yet even days before the show, her appearance there was uncertain because of visa problems. In the end, she performed by satellite from London.

Although Ms. Winehouse has not made an album since “Back to Black,” she tried to revive her career several times. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Ms. Winehouse’s father, who released a jazz album this year, said she had been in good health lately. (Mr. Winehouse was scheduled to perform at the Blue Note jazz club in New York on Monday, but canceled after learning of his daughter’s death.)

Yet Ms. Winehouse’s most recent comeback attempt faltered badly. Last month, she canceled a European tour after a performance in Belgrade on the first night, during which she appeared to be too intoxicated to perform properly.


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Karzai's Brother Assassinated For Cooperating With CIA (Conspiracy)

Ahmad Wali Karzai's assassination leaves a big headache for Nato


His assassination in Kandahar removes an embarrassment but leaves behind an even bigger headache: how to fill the political and security vacuum left behind.

He had long been Kandahar’s power broker and a crucial pillar in the web of personal alliances that his half-brother, President Hamid Karzai, relied upon to project his influence.

As a result, it is impossible to overstate his importance in the south of Afghanistan and his central role in Nato efforts to see off the Taliban in their spiritual home.

His death removed an ally in a key region just as America begins withdraw some 33,000 troops.

At one stage, though, Nato commanders hoped to persuade President Karzai to dump his half-brother, and so rid his regime of the non-stop allegations of corruption and vice emanating from the head of Kandahar’s provincial council.

In the end – like elsewhere in Afghanistan - they were forced to do a grubby deal, accepting him warts and all in return for the influence he could wield among the local Pashtun population.

“He’s the proverbial 800lb gorilla and he’s in the middle of a lot of rooms. He’s the mafia don, the family fixer, the troubleshooter,” said one Nato officer describing the pragmatic approach.

Last year, he proved himself a staunch supporter of Nato and the US, as international forces cleared the Taliban from around Kandahar.

Now, his death with only encourage the Taliban, who already have one eye on the calendar and the eventual withdrawal of Nato forces in 2014.

The timing could not be worse, just as the US begins searching for a political solution after a decade of war.

Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani analyst, said the death of an ally in such a crucial city would hugely disrupt Nato strategy.

“At the end of the day, he was very close to the president. Kandahar is hugely important and President Karzai needed someone there he could trust,” he said.

“If Kandahar cannot be controlled then the withdrawal schedule will be thrown out.”



Reports link Karzai's brother to heroin trade

When Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden beneath concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his boss.

Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Jan later told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a phone call from an aide to President Karzai directing him to release the truck.

Two years later, American and Afghan counternarcotics forces stopped another truck, this time near Kabul, finding more than 110 pounds of heroin. Soon after the seizure, United States investigators told other American officials that they had discovered links between the drug shipment and a bodyguard believed to be an intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai, according to a participant in the briefing.

The assertions about the involvement of the president's brother in the incidents were never investigated, according to American and Afghan officials, even though allegations that he has benefited from narcotics trafficking have circulated widely in Afghanistan.

Both President Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai, now the chief of the Kandahar Provincial Council, the governing body for the region that includes Afghanistan's second largest city, dismiss the allegations as politically motivated attacks by longtime foes.

"I am not a drug dealer, I never was and I never will be," the president's brother said in a recent phone interview. "I am a victim of vicious politics."

But the assertions about him have deeply worried top American officials in Kabul and in Washington. The United States officials fear that perceptions that the Afghan president might be protecting his brother are damaging his credibility and undermining efforts by the United States to buttress his government, which has been under siege from rivals and a Taliban insurgency fueled by drug money, several senior Bush administration officials said. Their concerns have intensified as American troops have been deployed to the country in growing numbers.

"What appears to be a fairly common Afghan public perception of corruption inside their government is a tremendously corrosive element working against establishing long-term confidence in that government — a very serious matter," said Lieutenant General David Barno, who was commander of coalition military forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and is now retired. "That could be problematic strategically for the United States."

The White House says it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration officials said in interviews last week.

Numerous reports link Ahmed Wali Karzai to the drug trade, according to current and former officials from the White House, the State Department and the United States Embassy in Afghanistan, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. In meetings with President Karzai, including a 2006 session with the United States ambassador, the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief and their British counterparts, American officials have talked about the allegations in hopes that the president might move his brother out of the country, said several people who took part in or were briefed on the talks.

"We thought the concern expressed to Karzai might be enough to get him out of there," one official said. But President Karzai has resisted, demanding clear-cut evidence of wrongdoing, several officials said. "We don't have the kind of hard, direct evidence that you could take to get a criminal indictment," a White House official said. "That allows Karzai to say, where's your proof?"

Neither the Drug Enforcement Administration, which conducts counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, nor the fledgling Afghan anti-drug agency has pursued investigations into the accusations against the president's brother.

Several American investigators said senior officials at the DEA and the office of the Director of National Intelligence complained to them that the White House favored a hands-off approach toward Ahmed Wali Karzai because of the political delicacy of the matter. But White House officials dispute that, instead citing limited DEA resources in Kandahar and southern Afghanistan and the absence of political will in the Afghan government to go after major drug suspects as the reasons for the lack of an inquiry.

"We invested considerable resources into building Afghan capability to conduct such investigations and consistently encouraged Karzai to take on the big fish and address widespread Afghan suspicions about the link between his brother and narcotics," said Meghan O'Sullivan, who was the coordinator for Afghanistan and Iraq at the National Security Council until last year.

Humayun Hamidzada, press secretary for President Karzai, denied that the president's brother was involved in drug trafficking or that the president had intervened to help him. "People have made allegations without proof," Hamidzada said.

Spokesmen for the Drug Enforcement Administration, the State Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

An Informant's Tip

The concerns about Ahmed Wali Karzai have surfaced recently because of the imprisonment of an informant who tipped off American and Afghan investigators to the drug-filled truck outside Kabul in 2006.

The informant, Hajji Aman Kheri, was arrested a year later on charges of plotting to kill an Afghan vice president in 2002. The Afghan Supreme Court recently ordered him freed for lack of evidence, but he has not been released. Nearly 100 political leaders in his home region protested his continued incarceration last month.

Kheri, in a phone interview from jail in Kabul, said he had been an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and United States intelligence agencies, an assertion confirmed by American counternarcotics and intelligence officials. Several of those officials, frustrated that the Bush administration was not pressing for Kheri's release, came forward to disclose his role in the drug seizure.

Ever since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, critics have charged that the Bush administration has failed to take aggressive action against the Afghan narcotics trade, because of both opposition from the Karzai government and reluctance by the United States military to get bogged down by eradication and interdiction efforts that would antagonize local warlords and Afghan poppy farmers. Now, Afghanistan provides about 95 percent of the world's supply of heroin.

Just as the Taliban have benefited from money produced by the drug trade, so have many officials in the Karzai government, according to American and Afghan officials. Thomas Schweich, a former senior State Department counternarcotics official, wrote in The New York Times Magazine in July that drug traffickers were buying off hundreds of police chiefs, judges and other officials. "Narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government," he said.

Suspicions of Corruption

Of the suspicions about Ahmed Wali Karzai, Representative Mark Steven Kirk, an Illinois Republican who has focused on the Afghan drug problem in Congress, said, "I would ask people in the Bush administration and the DEA about him, and they would say, 'We think he's dirty.' "

In the two drug seizures in 2004 and 2006, millions of dollars' worth of heroin was found. In April 2006, Jan, by then a member of the Afghan Parliament, met with American investigators at a DEA safe house in Kabul and was asked to describe the events surrounding the 2004 drug discovery, according to notes from the debriefing session. He told the Americans that after impounding the truck, he received calls from Ahmed Wali Karzai and Shaida Mohammad, an aide to President Karzai, according to the notes.

Jan later became a political opponent of President Karzai, and in a 2007 speech in Parliament he accused Ahmed Wali Karzai of involvement in the drug trade. Jan was shot to death in July as he drove from a guesthouse to his main residence in Kandahar Province. The Taliban were suspected in the assassination.

Mohammad, in a recent interview in Washington, dismissed Jan's account, saying that Jan had fabricated the story about being pressured to release the drug shipment in order to damage President Karzai.

But Khan Mohammad, the former Afghan commander in Kandahar who was Jan's superior in 2004, said in a recent interview that Jan reported at the time that he had received a call from the Karzai aide ordering him to release the drug cache. Khan Mohammad recalled that Jan believed that the call had been instigated by Ahmed Wali Karzai, not the president.

"This was a very heavy issue," Mohammad said.

He provided the same account in an October 2004 interview with The Christian Science Monitor. Mohammad said that after a subordinate captured a large shipment of heroin about two months earlier, the official received repeated telephone calls from Ahmed Wali Karzai. "He was saying, 'This heroin belongs to me, you should release it,' " the newspaper quoted Mohammad as saying.

Languishing in Detention

In 2006, Kheri, the Afghan informant, tipped off American counternarcotics agents to another drug shipment. Kheri, who had proved so valuable to the United States that his family had been resettled in Virginia in 2004, briefly returned to Afghanistan in 2006.

The heroin in the truck that was seized was to be delivered to Ahmed Wali Karzai's bodyguard in the village of Maidan Shahr, and then transported to Kandahar, one of the Afghans involved in the deal later told American investigators, according to notes of his debriefing. Several Afghans — the drivers and the truck's owner — were arrested by Afghan authorities, but no action was taken against Karzai or his bodyguard, who investigators believe serves as a middleman, the American officials said.

In 2007, Kheri visited Afghanistan again, once again serving as an American informant, the officials said. This time, however, he was arrested by the Karzai government and charged in the 2002 assassination of Hajji Abdul Qadir, an Afghan vice president, who had been a political rival of Kheri's brother, Hajji Zaman, a former militia commander and a powerful figure in eastern Afghanistan.

Kheri, in the phone interview from Kabul, denied any involvement in the killing and said his arrest was politically motivated. He maintained that the president's brother was involved in the heroin trade.

"It's no secret about Wali Karzai and drugs," said Kheri, who speaks English. "A lot of people in the Afghan government are involved in drug trafficking."

Kheri's continued detention, despite the Afghan court's order to release him, has frustrated some of the American investigators who worked with him.

In recent months, they have met with officials at the State Department and the office of the Director of National Intelligence seeking to persuade the Bush administration to intervene with the Karzai government to release Kheri.

"We have just left a really valuable informant sitting in jail to rot," one investigator said.


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Sources: NY Times, Russia Today, Telegraph.co.uk, Youtube, Google Maps

Karzai Celebrates Obama's U.S. Troops Withdrawal Plan (Of Course!)

After Becoming Super Rich Via G. W. Bush's "War On Terror" Profiteering Scheme, Of Course Karzai Is Happy To See American Troops Leave.

Now He Can Continue His Narcotics Trade Without Interruptions.

Yes Its Definitely Time To Bring Our Troops Home!!

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Karzai welcomes U.S. troop withdrawal

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama's plans for a U.S. troops drawdown and said it's a sign that Afghanistan is ready to take control of security in the war-torn nation.

"The number of troops that he has announced to be withdrawn is a sign that Afghanistan is taking over its own security and is trying to defend its territory by its own means," Karzai said. "So we are happy about the announcement."

As the United States pulls back, Karzai painted a picture of a more stable Afghanistan, despite the fact that May was the bloodiest month for Afghan civilians since 2007. He told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview set to air Sunday that Afghans were ready to take the reins of their own country.

"It is the responsibility of the Afghan people to protect their country and to provide security for the citizens of the country," Karzai said. "If you fail in fulfilling our most important responsibility with regard to our country and our people, then somebody else should take over."

Obama announced Wednesday night that 10,000 U.S. troops would leave Afghanistan this year and all 33,000 forces sent as part of a 2009 surge would return home by the summer of 2012.

Karzai also defended his public criticisms of NATO, which in recent weeks have taken on a more angry tone. Karzai blasted the alliance for civilian deaths and nighttime raids. He said his comment on NATO becoming an "occupying force" was taken out of context.

"No, I don't regret having made that comment," he said. "That comment was not seen in the full sentence that I spoke. It was after the incident of civilian casualties in Afghanistan where children were killed in an aerial bombing, where I said, 'No more of such aerial bombings on our residents.'

"The question was what if they continue?" Karzai said.

"When Afghanistan asks that these operations cease and even then, if they continue, this means we are not in charge of our country," he said. "And that, of course, becomes an occupation. It was in this context that I spoke, and I stand by that."

Karzai stressed regional cooperation between his homeland and neighboring Pakistan and India in the fight to bring an end to many years of conflict. He said the United States and Afghanistan's other allies could do a lot more in expediting talks with the Taliban to put an end to the violence.

"My statements are neither hostile nor inflammatory nor designed to get anything but an understanding from our partners that the Afghan people need to feel secure, they need to see this war take a direction in which they can see the end of the tunnel," Karzai said.

He said Afghanistan, dependent on U.S. dollars for security and development, was grateful to American taxpayers, but expressed dismay that U.S. humanitarian efforts have not always taken Afghan wishes into account.

He cited a Kandahar electricity project in which he said the United States spent $250 million to buy generators. Karzai said Afghanistan would have preferred the construction of a dam, which he called a more lasting solution.


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Sources: CNN, Guardian.co.uk, MSNBC, NY Times, Raw Story, Youtube, Google Maps

Mexican Cartel Drug Wars Fueled By Guns From U.S.

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Firearms From U.S. Being Used In Mexico Drug Violence


Mexican cartels are taking advantage of U.S. gun laws to buy thousands of weapons that are being used in an escalating drug war that has claimed more than 31,000 lives since late 2006, experts and law enforcement officials tell NBC News.

U.S. firearms agents estimate that around 80 percent of the weapons used by Mexican drug traffickers come from the United States, where cartel leaders are hiring Americans with clean records to make the purchases for them. In the past four years, Mexican authorities say they have seized 90,000 weapons from their nation's drug war.

"The cartels need their tools of the trade, which are the weapons, and they are coming to the U.S. to get those weapons," William McMahon of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told NBC News.

Authorities say the straw buyers are paid up to $200 per weapon and cite a recent case in Oklahoma City, where a former state narcotics agent pleaded guilty in such a gunrunning scheme.

Francisco Reyes, 29, was accused of paying two friends to buy dozens of firearms destined for Mexico, according to court documents. One of those buyers, Jorge Alexis Blanco, bought at least 15 guns and attempted to buy three more, according to Michael Randall of the ATF in the criminal complaint.

"They are being taken advantage of by these cartels and really are providing something that's going be used to kill someone in Mexico," said McMahon, adding that the cartels are specifically looking for high-caliber weapons.


'Acapulco Police Massacre'

Authorities say they have no doubts that weapon purchases are being used to fuel the violence in Mexico, including a recent case known as the "Acapulco Police Massacre," in which four officers and three secretaries were murdered.

Guns used in that and other cases were traced to Houston. Overall, the Southwest border states, especially Texas, California and Arizona, are the primary sources of weapons used by the cartels in Mexico, where buying guns is much more difficult than in the U.S., according to the Department of Justice.

In 2009, ATF reported to Congress that about 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico that ATF has traced were initially sold in the United States. However, the National Rifle Association has said the percentage is much lower.

In smuggling weapons across the border, experts say, the guns are usually hidden in cars and trucks.

"They'll hide them in secret compartments, whether it's a spare tire, a gas tank, camper shells or they even build secret compartments to put them in there," said Rick Serrano, an ATF supervisor in Tucson, Ariz.

In Texas, authorities arrested Ernesto Gonzalez-Reyes, 48, in March alleging they found five 7.62mm semiautomatic rifles, 10 high-capacity 7.62mm magazines and 50 rounds of .40-caliber ammunition hidden within the cargo area panels and the front and rear bumpers of the Chevrolet Suburban he was driving.


'Not going to honest American hands'

During his visit to the United States in May, Mexican President Felipe Calderon urged a joint session of Congress to ban assault weapons that are showing up in his country.

Calderon said the U.S. need to "regulate the sale of these weapons in the right way."

"Many of these guns are not going to honest American hands," he said. "Instead, thousands are ending up in the hands of criminals."

Although U.S. officials say they have recently seized more than 10,000 weapons headed for Mexico, Mexican authorities say more work needs to be done to stem the flow, including better use of a gun-tracing program known as eTrace.

That program was announced in Mexico in January 2008 as the cornerstone of efforts to "terminate the illegal shipment of arms to Mexico and reduce the violence they cause on both sides of the border."

But a recent inspector general's preliminary report, first publicized in October, called eTrace underused and unsuccessful. One top official said not enough Mexican investigators had been trained or had access to the electronic database.

"It doesn't mean the system is not working. It's not working as well as it can," ATF Deputy Director Kenneth Melson told The Associated Press in October. "The information was being submitted by people who didn't know how to trace guns."

Melson said the system, when used properly, can provide strategic and intelligence information to fight gun-smuggling, establishing trafficking patterns as well as identifying weapons sources.

"We're now at a point where we can process much more information quickly, information that will be more accurate and more complete," Melson said.


'Iron River'

But finding a way to stop the weapons flow, now known as the "Iron River," is being hindered to some extent by U.S. gun laws, officials say. In November, the inspector general of the Department of Justice detailed the problem, citing the lack of a federal statute specifically prohibiting firearms trafficking.

Meanwhile, Mexican authorities are taking steps to ensure the weapons that are seized don't find their way back to the cartels.

At a military base, in Mexico City, soldiers use torches and hammers to destroy thousands of guns, saving others for evidence in criminal investigations.


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Sources: Hand Guns Mag., MSNBC, Google Maps

Columbia University Students Selling Drugs To Pay Tuition? "Operation Ivy League"

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Five Columbia Students Charged With Selling Drugs On Campus


Five students at Columbia University in New York were arrested and accused of selling drugs at fraternity houses and other on-campus residences.

The indictment of the students and three other people followed a five-month investigation called “Operation Ivy League,” authorities said yesterday. Undercover officers spent $11,000 in 31 purchases of drugs including cocaine, marijuana, powdered MDMA or ecstasy, and LSD-laced Altoids mints and Sweetarts candy, the New York City Police Department and Bridget G. Brennan, a special narcotics prosecutor, said in a statement.

“The students arrested today supplied dangerous substances to their friends and other students to turn a quick profit, but subjected themselves to risks, of which they were either ignorant or in denial,” Brennan said in yesterday’s statement.

The Columbia students were identified as Harrison David, 20; Chris Coles, 20; Adam Klein, 20; Jose Stephan Perez, 20; and Michael Wymbs, 22. All of the students pleaded not guilty during an initial appearance before judge Michael Sonberg yesterday.

Coles is from Philadelphia; David is from Wrentham, Massachusetts; Klein is from Cloister, New Jersey; and Perez is from Atlanta, said Kati Cornell, a spokeswoman for the special narcotics office. The three people accused of being their suppliers aren’t students.

William Novak, an assistant district attorney, said David, a third-year engineering student, told investigators he used drug proceeds to help cover tuition costs. Tuition is about $41,600 for the 2010-11 academic year, according to the university’s website.

‘Limited Financial Ability’

Perez, who wore a Columbia sweatshirt at his arraignment, is a scholarship student with “limited financial ability,” and his mother is a marine biologist with a modest income, his attorney, Robert Weinstein, said in court yesterday.

Wymbs, a senior with a 3.5 grade point average, never had a run-in with the law before yesterday’s arrest, said his attorney, Michael Bachner. He is applying to graduate schools and hopes the arrest won’t derail those plans, Bachner said.

Wymbs was student council president and salutatorian in high school and in the summer worked as a biostatician for a cancer research program, Bachner said. His father, who was in court yesterday, is a professor of international business in the city and his mother is a partner at a law firm.

Most of the sales took place in common areas and bedrooms at the Alpha Epsilon Pi, Pi Kappa Alpha and Psi Upsilon fraternities, according to the statement. Coles and Wymbs allegedly sold drugs from their rooms at the Intercultural House and East Campus Housing.

Expulsion Possible

Students who violate the school’s prohibition on illicit drugs may face disciplinary measures that can include expulsion, according to the university’s website.

“The alleged behavior of the students involved in this incident goes against not only state and federal law, but also university policy and the principles we have set -- and strive together to maintain -- for our community,” Columbia told students in a message yesterday, according to an e-mail from school spokesman Robert Hornsby. “Please rest assured we are taking this matter very seriously.”

Columbia, founded in 1754, has about 25,000 students. Graduates include President Barack Obama and Warren Buffett, the chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., who attended Columbia Business School. It is one of eight private schools in the northeastern U.S. that make up the Ivy League.

Alleged Suppliers

Alleged suppliers Miron Sarzynski, 23, and his girlfriend, Megan Asper, 22, were arrested on Oct. 27 in the East Village section of Manhattan, the statement said. Sarzynski allegedly sold drugs to undercover officers seven times and made drugs at his apartment on East Sixth Street.

Searches of the students’ rooms this morning yielded a bottle of LSD, 50 capsules of MDMA, 15 Adderall pills, more than half a pound of marijuana and about $2,000 in cash, the statement said.

An October raid of Sarzynski’s apartment turned up two dozen marijuana plants, equipment for growing marijuana, jars of the drug DMT, a bottle of LSD, $1,200 cash and two air pistols.

Sarzynski is also charged with attempting to kidnap a pair of rival cocaine traffickers who he thought stole money from him, and trying to hire an undercover officer to help him, according to the statement.

Kidnapping Plan

Sarzynski’s alleged plan was to kidnap the rival traffickers with a stun gun, hold them for ransom and torture them by giving them a heavy dose of LSD, the statement said. He planned to kill them if they didn’t pay, and handed a vial of LSD to the officer before his arrest.

A third alleged cocaine supplier, Roberto Lagares, 30, was arrested Dec. 5 at the Kingsborough Houses, a New York City Housing Authority Development in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, according to the police statement.

Sarzynski and Asper were arraigned last month and are still in custody, Cornell said. Lagares was arraigned yesterday. Bail for the eight suspects was set between $10,000 and $250,000.

Psi Upsilon had no “official comment” on yesterday’s events “but will continue to cooperate with the university to ‘get to the bottom of this.’” Paul Warren, president of Pi Kappa Alpha, didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment, and Carlos Eduardo Rodriguez Castillo, president of Alpha Epsilon Pi, declined to comment in a telephone interview.


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Sources: Bloomberg.com, MSNBC, NY Daily News, Google Maps