On Monday, Representative Darrell Issa (R–CA) and Senator Charles Grassley (R–IA) released Part II of their promised three-part report titled Fast and Furious: The Anatomy of a Failed Operation. As described in a Heritage Legal Memorandum, Part I focused on the involvement of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and …
The House of Representatives will vote today on contempt charges for Attorney General Eric Holder related to his involvement in Operation Fast and Furious. The vote follows Holder’s refusal to produce documents requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA). The following is …
The resignation of U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual, under pressure from President Felipe Calderon, is bad news for the Obama Administration. There is little doubt that this is a “blow to U.S.-Mexico relations, in that the personal overcame the institutional.” It will damage joint U.S.–Mexico efforts to fight organized …
The March 3 working meeting between Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon and U.S. President Barack Obama loomed as a showdown over Mexico’s sputtering war against crime and increasingly prickly relations between Mexico and the U.S. The encounter, however, took a sunny turn when the two presidents agreed to focus on trade, …
Today, President Barack Obama will welcome Mexican President Felipe Calderon to the White House. As Senior Latin American Policy Analyst, Ray Walser, aptly described in his latest WebMemo, the atmosphere will be tense given the February 15 murder of U.S. immigration agent Jaime Zapata and recent Wikileaks revelations from the …
In December 2006, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon launched a campaign against Mexico’s drug-trafficking organizations. That war continues to rage four years later. In a violent and visible confrontation that began on December 9, 2010, the Mexican federal police delivered a punishing blow against La Familia Michoacana, a dug trafficking cartel …
The cold blooded murder of 72 illegal migrants by members of Mexico’s notorious Zeta cartel in the state of Tamaulipas is another stark and gruesome reminder of the current criminal and drug-related turmoil in Mexico. According to press reports the victims came from Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil and Ecuador. The …
While Mexico’s drug cartel violence continues to mount and the recent sophisticated car bombing in Ciudad Juarez indicate possible foreign assistance to the drug lords, the Obama Administration received a less than stellar grade from the Government Accounting Office on its handling of delivery of help to the embattled Mexicans. …
The senseless daylight murders of Lesley A. Enriquez, an American employee in the U.S. Consulate General in Ciudad Juarez, her U.S. citizen husband, Arthur Redelfs, and a Mexican employee of the Consulate General, Jorge Salcido sends a sobering signal to Washington that Mexico’s drug violence is evolving in even more …
Answer: they both want to punish Colombia. Venezuela’s authoritarian, anti-American President Chavez claims Colombia threatens his national security, runs around too much with the “Empire,” [the U.S.], and will one day provoke a war with Venezuela. For these reasons, he aims to punish Colombia by cutting off trade and undermining …