Criminal gangs in the USA have swelled to an estimated 1 million members responsible for up to 80% of crimes in communities across the nation, according to a gang threat assessment compiled by federal officials.
The major findings in a report by the Justice Department's National Gang Intelligence Center, which has not been publicly released, conclude gangs are the "primary retail-level distributors of most illicit drugs" and several are "capable" of competing with major U.S.-based Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.
"A rising number of U.S.-based gangs are seemingly intent on developing working relationships" with U.S. and foreign drug-trafficking organizations and other criminal groups to "gain direct access to foreign sources of illicit drugs," the report concludes. The gang population estimate is up 200,000 since 2005.
Bruce Ferrell, chairman of the Midwest Gang Investigators Association, whose group monitors gang activity in 10 states, says the number of gang members may be even higher than the report's estimate.
#1
A reminder of the 2005 Army War College monograph warning that street gangs are increasingly morphing into urban insurgency in their methods and effects.
From the summary:
The primary thrust of this monograph is to explain the linkage of contemporary criminal street gangs (that is, the gang phenomenon or third generation gangs) to insurgency in terms of the instability it wreaks upon government and the concomitant challenge to state sovereignty. Although there are differences between gangs and insurgents regarding motives and modes of operations, this linkage infers that gang phenomena are mutated forms of urban insurgency. In these terms, these "new" nonstate actors must eventually seize political power in order to guarantee the freedom of action and the commercial environment they want. The common denominator that clearly links the gang phenomenon to insurgency is that the third generation gangs' and insurgents' ultimate objective is to depose or control the governments of targeted countries.
Locally, we might note that MS-13 has targeted US police and drug enforcement officials for assasination, demonstrating that the analysis has domestic as well as foreign relevance.
#3
Gang crime is really up and not just on the borders. Chicago's murder rate is about Iraq and Afghanistan's combined. Even sleepy Omaha averages a murder a week, attributed to rival gangs. How would respond to an urban insurgency, especially one trained by the US School of the Americas, like the Zetas, when it is illegal to deploy the military on home soil? Obama was really short-sighted on this one--should have kept Gitmo open for these guys. They have deported many of the illegal members, although the connections haven't been severed, and some just continue business elsewhere. Our overcrowded prisons let them go but they need separated from society. Maybe the ACLU will start an Adopt-a-Gangbanger program and take them home to learn multicultural values in the privacy of their own homes.
#5
...when it is illegal to deploy the military on home soil?
Oh, that only applies to non-liberal activity, whether its federal troops to integrate a high school in Little Rock or a college in Jackson, troops are employable in domestic law and order. They just can't be subordinated to local law enforcement. Andy Jackson had no more trouble implementing martial law in New Orleans than the commander in Hawaii did after that nasty bit the Japanese did one December. When the fed's do it, it's ok [or as least as long as there's a -D after the name or something THEY approve of].
#6
Don't most major cities have some sort of "gang taskforce" as part of their police departments?
How's that working out? (That's not a snark, btw ... serious question: Are cities with effective gang taskforces seeing the same rate of increase in gang activity?)
#7
Probably they mean 80% of violent crime, not all crime and only in urban areas with systemic gang warfare.
I don't think so. As the article makes clear, there is gang activity in a lot of smaller towns and rural areas now - this is not just an urban problem and its effects go way beyond gangbanger red on red.
Re: gang task forces, the FBI is a participant / sponsor of many of them. The list is online here
#8
We had a murder here in Colorado Springs when two rival gangs duked it out over an iPod. The guy that did the shooting is looking at 30 years to life. The shooting took place about three miles from my house. We've heard of gang activity in all the "small" towns between Denver and Cheyenne - bedroom communities, for the most part. Robberies, assaults, and vandalism are all up.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/02/2009 19:23 Comments ||
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#9
They're up in my town 50% over last year. Which for a town of less than 30,000 is a huge jump. Our police have managed to catch quite a few of them, and I'm not sure it's gang related though as most of them are usually in their 40's and tend to be druggies. Might be increased drugs is forcing addicts to find more money. Dunno.
IÂ’m madder than a hillbilly with a busted banjo string because Obama isnÂ’t helping those poor folks in Kentucky!
Seems they had a big ice storm and dozens of people are dead. More than a million homes havenÂ’t got electricity. ItÂ’s a state of emergency but the funny thing is: I donÂ’t see the midstream media filming folks looting plasma TVs or huddled together at Churchill Downs, yelling about cannibalism, or shooting the National Guard from the roofs of their hillbilly shacks.
I guess because none of thatÂ’s going on! All those crazy stupid hicks are just taking care of themselves and their neighbors, and clinging to their guns and bibles and Klan robes and moonshine to keep warm like they have for countless inbred generations.
But what’s our new Communist-in-Chief doing? Chowing down on arugula steaks at that fancy pants Buckwheat Dinner, then watching the Super Bowl in his toasty warm office. (Guess you heard that the same guy who told us “we can’t keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times” insists his Oval Office be kept hotter than an orchid greenhouse because “he’s from Hawaii.”)
Obama doesnÂ’t want to make a fuss about the Kentucky ice storm, and not just because those hillbillies didnÂ’t vote for him. ItÂ’s because if he does, his whole global warming scam goes right out the single-pane window! Boy, does Obama have slush on his face now!
The Teleprompter Kid better fly his magic unicorn over the rainbow and down to Kentucky pronto if he wants to keep that Spike Jones fella from making a nasty movie called “When the Generators Broke”. Obama said he’d stop the oceans from rising but he can’t melt a little snow?
That Obama! I tell you – he sure puts the “F” in FEMA!
Posted by: Mike ||
02/02/2009 13:36 ||
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#1
If an ice storm happens in Kentucky and there is no MSM who wants you to hear it, does it make a sound?
. . . In the years since its release the film has been taken up by Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and followers of the oppressed Chinese Falun Gong movement. Meanwhile, the Internet brims with weighty philosophical treatises on the deep Platonist, Aristotelian, and existentialist themes providing the skin and bones beneath the film's clown makeup. . . . countless professors use it to teach ethics and a host of philosophical approaches. Several pastors sent me excerpts from sermons in which Groundhog Day was the central metaphor. And dozens of committed Christians of all denominations related that it was one of their most cherished movies.
When the Museum of Modern Art in New York debuted a film series on "The Hidden God: Film and Faith" two years ago, it opened with Groundhog Day. The rest of the films were drawn from the ranks of turgid and bleak intellectual cinema, including standards from Ingmar Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. According to the New York Times, curators of the series were stunned to discover that so many of the 35 leading literary and religious scholars who had been polled to pick the series entries had chosen Groundhog Day that a spat had broken out among the scholars over who would get to write about the film for the catalogue. In a wonderful essay for the Christian magazine Touchstone, theology professor Michael P. Foley wrote that Groundhog Day is "a stunning allegory of moral, intellectual, and even religious excellence in the face of postmodern decay, a sort of Christian-Aristotelian Pilgrim's Progress for those lost in the contemporary cosmos." Charles Murray, author of Human Accomplishment, has cited Groundhog Day more than once as one of the few cultural achievements of recent times that will be remembered centuries from now. He was quoted in The New Yorker declaring, "It is a brilliant moral fable offering an Aristotelian view of the world." . . .
Hey!
I got you babe
I got you babe . . .
"Let's live here! . . . We'll rent to start."
Posted by: Mike ||
02/02/2009 08:25 ||
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#1
Actually, today's been renamed Al Gore Day. If Al Gore sees his shadow, it's six more weeks of Global Warming...
Damn, we are all sitting here in open-mouthed astonishment.
Turkish premier Tayyip Erdogan has just stormed off the rostrum after calling Israel's president Shimon Peres a "killer" to his face.
Mr Peres in turn has been thundering and fulminating at the top of his voice for 25 minutes -- while the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sat in embarrased silence next to him, mostly looking at his shoes.
The incensed leaders then walked out passed packed ranks of trembling Davos enthusiasts - all believers in civilized comity, and all horrified by this display of raw and visceral feeling - into a hall where a light-hearted Strauss Waltz being played with shocking insouciance.
If we journalists missed our deadlines - and leaving a big gap in our newspapers tomorrow - you must forgive us, because we none could concentrate on anything as this extraordinary spectacle of Mid-East passion unfolded before our eyes.
Mr Peres -- winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace prize -- had reason to be angry. The Turkish leader called today for the Obama administration to list Israel as a terrorist state for alleged atrocities against civilians in Gaza. "President Obama must redefine terror and terrorist organizations in the Middle East, and based on this new definition, a new American policy must be deployed in the Middle East," he said.
This seems to have tipped Mr Peres over the edge. A genteel panel on Mid-East issues flew out of control after he let rip such eloquence and emotion that nobody dared stop him, and people sat enthralled, or in tears, or aghast, as he related how Hamas was deploying terror in Gaza.
A hundred Fatah prisoners in Gaza had been thrown from roof-tops, he said. Dozens had been shot in the legs. The Gaza schools had become a Gulag of Palestinian prisoners, he said, reading aloud a letter from Fatah's secretary-general. "The tragedy of Gaza is not Israel, it is Hamas. They created a dictatorship. A very dangerous one."
Israel had withdrawn its troops and settlements from Gaza. It had complied to the letter with all accords, yet it was still attacked, and bombed, and rocket daily. (I merely relate his words this without wishing to make any judgment of my own on a conflict that has killed 1,300 people in Gaza, and 14 Israelis)
"What would you do?" he screamed into the face of Mr Erdogan, who sat stony faced, pulling slightly back, his legs twisted, his whole body language at war. "We have been a nation for sixty years, and which other nation has had to fight seven wars?"
Mr Erdogan perhaps feels betrayed because Turkey was mediating on behalf of Israel when the Gaza occurred. "I saw this as a lack of respect for us and also a shadow cast over peace," he said.
His Swiss trip has ended very badly. "I will never come back to Davos", he said as he strode out, complaining that his own rant had been cut short by the moderator.
It has been a bad hair day for Turkey's pro-Islamic leader. The negotiations for an IMF stand-by loan broke down. "It's not the end of the world", he said.
We'll see what the markets have to say about that tomorrow.
#2
In the early 1990s Erdogan made his Islamist bones as mayor of Istanbul and as head of the Islamist Refah Party. He was an early supporter of jihad in Bosnia and was an adept fundraiser for mujahideen operating in the Balkans. He worked with Sudan's Hasan al-Turabi and Al-Fatih Hassanein in support of the very Islamist Third World Relief Agency. He is a very devious SOB.
#4
What happened is that Tayyip Erdogan said out loud what about two thirds of the "cool kids" at Davos think in their heart of hearts--and then Shimon Peres refused to just smile and take it.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/02/2009 10:15 Comments ||
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#5
Let's give these genocidal primitives stealth technology!
Posted by: ed ||
02/02/2009 10:53 Comments ||
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#6
When I was traveling and working in Israel, the Turks were doing a lot of business there, especially construction. This is when the Paleo's were barred from transit and working because of all the bus bombings. Most of the skilled and semi-skilled additional labor was Turk as well as big Turk construction firms working with the Israelis. Turkey has really backtracked here.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/02/2009 10:54 Comments ||
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#7
I'd like to see one of them there ARCLIGHT raids dropped on Davos. Shoot, maybe even two. And while we're at it, drop one on the next Bilderburgers get together. Say, does anyone know where G. Soros lives?
#8
It seems the mask is now off Erdogan. He is an Islamist radical at heart and is leading Turkey away from secular democracy towards an Islamist Republic.
#10
The EU will never _say_ never. They want to say "If you just hobble the military a little bit more we'll let you join..." when the military is basically the only thing keeping Turkey secular. Kinda makes ya wonder, doesn't it?
#11
Even as the writer lays out the facts about Hamas' terrorist character and provocations, he has to give a little shout out to his anti-Israeli culture of origin. Hey, folks. I'm not judging here so don't blame me, just sayin what he said is all. I see lots more dead Gazans than Israelis so the Jews are still bad. I'm still one of you. We're cool, right?
The "more dead Israelis should would make me feel better about the whole thing" meme should be called out for the whacked out moral blindness it is. Since more Germans than
Americans died in WWII, does that mean defeating Nazism was a mistake? Would more dead GI's and maybe a bombed out US city have made it ok to defeat fascism? Few Americans and many Iraqis died in the liberation of Kuwait; should we have handed the country back to Saddam with our apologies? We'll try again when you're stronger, when you can get in a few more kills. Keeping your people alive is the point. The Israeli military should be proud of their achievement, not castigated for it. If you want to accuse a nation of misbehavior in war you should have more than just a body count to make your point.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
02/02/2009 12:37 Comments ||
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#1
Good Lord! The beauty of this delusion is that there's no need for a scintilla of documentaion nor is there a comparison with the toll of the previous Tikriti regime. When Obama acknowledged the recent Iraqi election, he thanked the UN ... everyone but those directly responsible ... the American Armed Forces. Wake me up in twenty years when the real scholarship begins.
#2
They left out the body count of puppies, baby ducks, and unicorns. [Also missing in the count is the large number of muzzie on muzzie killing]. The only surprise here is that it wasn't in the esteemed Lancet. /sarcasm off
#5
How did 1 millions dead create 2 millions of widows and 5 million of orphans?
Iraqi men must be rich so support many more than 2 wives.
The women must be very fertile to average 5 children each before they were killed along with their husbands.
I guess the left gave up trying to do the math on invented numbers, and just pulled conveniently large number out of their arse without calculating any sort of cohesiveness.
#6
Lagom, it is an Islamic country. I suppose if a significant fraction of the dead had their full four wives, there could be a multiple of widows for the dead...
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/02/2009 13:36 Comments ||
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#7
"Most independent analysts would say it's too soon to judge the political outcome."
They're waiting until they can give Obama all the credit.
Meanwhile, Iraqi TV reports:
"In the lowest death toll since five years, Iraq Defense, Interior and Health Ministries reported that a total of 191 Iraqis were killed including 140 civilians, 27 soldiers and 24 policemen due to violence marked in January 2009."
#1
Tax havens only work when they are limited to a relatively few individuals. Like most money making schemes, when everybody piles aboard, the boat sinks. But there are always new schemes.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
“Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter.” 
When the Museum of Modern Art in New York debuted a film series on "The Hidden God: Film and Faith" two years ago, it opened with Groundhog Day. The rest of the films were drawn from the ranks of turgid and bleak intellectual cinema, including standards from Ingmar Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. According to the New York Times, curators of the series were stunned to discover that so many of the 35 leading literary and religious scholars who had been polled to pick the series entries had chosen Groundhog Day that a spat had broken out among the scholars over who would get to write about the film for the catalogue. In a wonderful essay for the Christian magazine Touchstone, theology professor Michael P. Foley wrote that Groundhog Day is "a stunning allegory of moral, intellectual, and even religious excellence in the face of postmodern decay, a sort of Christian-Aristotelian Pilgrim's Progress for those lost in the contemporary cosmos." Charles Murray, author of Human Accomplishment, has cited Groundhog Day more than once as one of the few cultural achievements of recent times that will be remembered centuries from now. He was quoted in The New Yorker declaring, "It is a brilliant moral fable offering an Aristotelian view of the world." . . .
