Thursday, January 18, 2007

We will rue the day

Is George W. Bush a Mexican Mole?
"January 17, 2007 should go down in American history, along with December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001, as days on which the United States was brutally attacked."
"For on January 17, 2007, Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, former border patrol agents, will be sent to federal prison for defending the United States against an illegal alien from Mexico as that criminal was attempting to smuggle drugs into America."
"Even more distressing is the fact that our president, who has taken an oath to defend and protect America against all enemies, refused to intervene on behalf of Compean and Ramos, and on behalf of the American people."
"He will be remembered as the president who discarded American sovereignty, rule of law, language, and culture in exchange for cheap lettuce and fruit. He will also be remembered as the president who sent American men and women 8,000 miles from home to fight for Iraq and Afghanistan, but who refused to defend the American people at our southern border."
IMPEACH BUSH NOW!!!

9 comments:

u∃∃l!∃ said...

I think that he should have intervened as well.
But maybe there is more to the story than I am aware of.
Why didn't he?
Did he say?

u∃∃l!∃ said...

Now that I have read the other side of the story, I have to side with the President.
(Bush just seems to win my approval on more things all the time).

Did you guys read the whole story, or just the right wing slant on it.

According to what I read, these officials were NOT just doing their job. From what I read, it seems that they could have made the arrest, but they instead choose to provoke the suspect to run so they could shoot him.

To quote the "other" side:
"the defendants were prosecuted because they had fired their weapons at a man who had attempted to surrender by holding his open hands in the air, at which time Agent Compean attempted to hit the man with the butt of Compean's shotgun, causing the man to run in fear of what the agents would do to him next."

Bobkatt said...

Please reference where you found the "other" side info.

Bobkatt said...

Do you approve of this record?
Consider the Bush record:
# Refuses to secure the U.S. border;
# Refuses to act, or even comment on, incursions on American
# soil by armed Mexicans;
# Refuses to enforce existing immigration laws;
# Supports amnesty for 20 million illegal aliens in America;
# Wants to provide illegal aliens with Social Security benefits;
# Opposes making English the official American language;

u∃∃l!∃ said...

I should have included my source(s).

The statement was made by US Attorney Johnny Sutton, and I can point to multiple sources which have published the statement.

Statement by US Attorney Johnny Sutton

press release by U.S. Department of Justice Western Texas

A left leaning blog with facts from Fox news reports

Another key thing left out of many of the misleading reports is that the agents covered up evidence and lied on their reports.

So while there may have been issues with the prosecution, and their sentence may even be too harsh; they are NOT just agents being punished for doing their job.

My agreement with other acts of Bush, related to immigration is independent of my feelings on this particular issue.

I do agree the border needs to be better secured. So far this is the only area where I am in agreement with the anti-letting-any-illegal-immigrant-stay crowd.
In fact, I am even wondering if it is this crowd which is the biggest barrier to reasonable immigration legislation reform.

I had an article on this, on my blog at one point. I think that discussion pretty much got pushed off without much attention.
It was when I first started studying this issue, and was still pretty much in the data gathering phase.

Bobkatt said...

While admitting that the two border guards screwed this case up, they deserved to be reprimanded and punished for not reporting the incident properly and destroying the evidence. However this would amount to a short term of suspension and possibly a fine.
The fact that our own government pursued this case with such zeal confirms my contention that the Bush administration is complicite in keeping the borders open in order to facilitate the drug and people trafficing. How else can you explain the reluctance to secure the border? Why would you offer immunity to a known drug smuggler (he admitted to it before the trial and was subsquently arrested a second time later).
If the Federal Government is such a stickler for inforcing the letter of the law then why are there 30 million illegals still in this country? It is because of them that the few brave border guards are forced to risk their lives everyday aren't allowed to do their jobs. It is by Bush's order that the National Guard on the border is not allowed to defend themselves and are unarmed and overrun by criminals.
There are so many things from the official government version that don't add up. They say that another agent was sure that the drug smuggler wasn't armed. How do they know? He was not searched, they only had visible contact. They say he was just trying to surrender with hand up and open but he ultimately made every effort to excape. They say that Compean was trying to hit smuggler with the butt of his shotgun and fell down. Agent says he was knocked down by smuggler and was bloodied. They say that they would have liked to arrest smuggler for the drug charges but could not tie him to the van. He admitted that he was driving the van full of drugs. These agents were found guilty by a unanimous jury in a United States District Court after a trial that lasted more than two and a half weeks. Three jurors now say THEY DIDN'T WANT TO VOTE GUILTY and are disturbed by the verdict. Robert Gourley, Claudia Torres, and Edine Woods say they were told the verdict HAD TO BE UNANIMOUS, which was flat-out untrue. After the trial, at least two jurors gave sworn statements that they had been pressured to render a guilty verdict and did not understand that a hung jury was possible. In addition, some jurors allegedly bullied other jurors, intimidating them into changing their votes. One juror said he thought that 10 years in prison for the agents was excessive punishment. "Had we had the option of a hung jury," he said, "I truly believe the outcome may have been different."
What it really comes down to is this criminal should not have been in our country in the first place. And because of the governments actions we are just a little more unsafe than before and border agents are a little more reluctent to follow up on their intuition and do their job.

u∃∃l!∃ said...

Had the reports of this (those on right wing talk radio, the right leaning media) not completely failed to report such facts as filing false reports and covering up evidence; their reports would have had more credibility.

Once the officers did this, they lost all credibility. This is why the drug smuggler could not be prosecuted.
These are very serious offenses in a line of work, where you are trusted to protect people.
The drug smuggler may be getting away with it because of the officer's behavior. So if it angers you that a drug smuggler is getting away with something, than that anger should be directed at the border agents.

Why did the agents need to hide evidence and file a false report? What did they do, that was so wrong, that they needed to cover it up?

It is this type of thing, that makes me wonder, how much of the kick-them-all-out crowd is really based on hate. So many of the arguments are just not credible.

We will see what Bush does now that he has announced he will come up with a plan.
I like the idea of making it easier for the workers to come in, and harder for the Drug Smugglers.

Bobkatt said...

I guess I must be a hater then. Because I believe we need to enforce the existing laws and remove the illegals. We have immigration laws for a reason. If you can't control your borders you can't protect the public. Plain and simple. A majority of the American people want it and the constitution demands it.
You don't give one example of how the "kick them all out crowd" is based on hate, please.

u∃∃l!∃ said...

I am for controlling the borders.

I made that statement, based on the mis-reporting of the border patrol agent case, which seemed to be aimed at stirring up anger which is often a driver of hate.

If law enforcement had intentionally covered up evidence and filed a false report, and the incident was related to the arrest of one of your family members; would you still feel that only a slap on the wrist was deserved?

However, I apologize for use of the word "hate" as it was probably way too strong, and no one really knows how anyone else really feels.