Star-Telegram.com | 06/11/2007 | Guardsmen on border accused of running smuggling ring — This is just peachy.
Three National Guardsmen assigned to the Texas-Mexico border were accused of running an immigrant smuggling ring after 24 immigrants were found inside a van that one of them was driving, a U.S. attorney said Monday. The three, arrested late Thursday and Friday, were arraigned Monday on a federal charge of conspiring to transport illegal immigrants.
Pfc. Jose Rodrigo Torres, 26, and Sgt. Julio Cesar Pacheco, 25, both of Laredo, and Sgt. Clarence Hodge Jr., 36, of Fort Worth, were arrested near Laredo.
A Border Patrol agent found 24 illegal immigrants inside a van Torres was driving along Interstate 35 near Cotulla, Texas, about 68 miles north of the border, prosecutors said. Torres was in uniform at the time of his arrest Thursday. The van was leased by the National Guard, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
found by Aric Mackey
I decided to look the word up “first”:
Treason:
1. A crime that undermines the offender’s government /// I’d say yes as the government is so closely and exclusively associated with border issues, but don’t all crimes undermine the government to some degree?
2. Disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior //// This certainly applies.
3. An act of deliberate betrayal /// Kinda circular here as crime is deliberate and a betrayal of sorts.
Its unusual for military personel to be involved in localized crime given they are usually rotated around too quickly to form such relationships. I guess money does corrupt?
Should add to above that a dictionary violation is not a “legal” violation. Just don’t feel like looking up the statutue or the constitutional or the military code to see what might actually relevantly apply?
Hey- – – guess you can edit====”if you are fast!!”
Finally… Border Guards who know what is good for the agricultural economy. 🙂
Criminal? Probably. Certainly. Yes.
Treason? Not even in the same ball park.
Free enterprise. They learned from Bush’s regime.
#5 “Free enterprise. They learned from Bush’s regime”
Not just the Bush regime – but also the Clinton regime, the do-nothing Senators , the Federal Judges, etc., and etc.
Taking advantage of the marketplace is severely limited if you don’t have access to your own limousine.
Ah! The invisible hand of the market at work! :)!
I am shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that boarder guards might be involved with smuggling (of people or anything else). Ever wonder what happens to all the stuff the confiscate?
Treason…..in a country with a government of the people, for the people, by the people? There’s just no pleasing some folks.
No surprise here … move along.
Since the Armed Forces are recruiting in Mexico these days, I’d say they are merely oppurtunists.
Considering the crappy paycheck they are getting for defending their country I’m not surprised at all.
Then isn’t all of Congress committing treason with their immigration amnesty and guest worker bill? How about Bill Clinton when he had the Energy Department share technology with the Chinese?
10. It was a lot worse under the previous administration.
11. True, but when Ken Star failed in proving Clinton lied about a sexual relation, it sorta ruined his next step to illustrate Clinton would likely lie about that and / or the illegal campaign fund raising from China as well.
Oh well, due to partisan politics, the whole matter was just deemed to be just about sex and was dismissed off by many supporters of Clinton by saying a lot of people do it so why punish the guy. His party was more afraid of him being tagged for treason and ruining their chances for control of the White House. than to do the right thing
#11, 12, & 13
Yup, when your boy Bush is in trouble, blame Clinton. Well, at least Clinton didn’t trade weapons with America’s enemies. Now, that is treason. And then pardon the culprits before they could be charged. That isn’t treason, but it sure gives something for all the Reagan lovers something to cheer about.
I still don’t understand why Republicans hate America so much.
Running a smuggling ring isn’t treason, but it is frowned upon by the higher ups.
14. 🙂 Bush isn’t my boy, but I can see why you think that since I singled Clinton out on the truly lousy pay the military got under him and the missle propulsion technology the Chinese now have thanks to him.
My other posts in the past have been defensive of Bush only because liberals tend to apply a double standard for laying blame on him but wiping their hands clean of any responsibility. I think if people want to say Bush lied, then I don’t care, but people on both sides need to step up and take responsibility because he’s not the only one who “lied”.
Also, I didn’t blame Clinton for any of Bush’s failures. However if you want to go down that path, I think it’s a bit partisan to blame everything on Bush when some of the problems he’s dealing with were inherited from the previous administration.
The Clinton administration did choke the military financially and pretty much didn’t give any kind of reasonable pay raise until the last year when Gore was running for president. Bush is fixing that now. Clinton also cut funding on equipping our military because it probably looked good on paper and assumed that a 9/11 and future “war on terror” was not going to happen. Bush is fixing that now. Did Clinton intentionally mean to handicap our troops for a situation like this? I don’t think so, but you can’t run a military like a regular corporation with a bean counter attitude either.
I also don’t think Clinton intended to whittle down the military more aggressively than planned had he known 9/11 was going to happen. He was just short sighted. He might have possibly changed his mind about justifying the more aggressive RIFing of the military by using the National Guard and Reserves had he saw a 9/11 going to happen. But he didn’t and his lack of foresight is what Bush ended up with and now somehow gets the blame for us not having adequate armor to Bush using intel gathered under the Clinton administration to “‘lie” to all of Congress.
Kucinich had it right when he singled out Hillary when she tried calling this war Bush’s war when it really isn’t. She voted for it then and regrets it now, but Kucinich points out that she had the same information then that she does now. The Democrats now have the power to end this war right now. Kill the funding. Keep the promise to the people. Otherwise there’s something morally wrong when you’re opposed to war yet still fund it like Kucinich said. The balance of power was shifted because the people want this war to end today.
I would hope Bush does not get blamed for Congress’ inability to end this war. Congress has no legal authority to tell the president how to run a war. They can only declare war and fund it. The Democrat controlled Congress should keep the promise they made to the people and kill the funding for this war which is entirely in their right and power to do so. Hopefully this timeline legislation won’t be used to say it’s Bush’s fault that this war was not stopped.
China now has missles that can reach us. Like it or not, Clinton fostered that. No doubt that North Korea will or is in the process of asking big brother for help.
As for why Republicans hate America so much, beats me. I’m not one of them. I hope members of both parties who support this immigration reform don’t get re-elected. They certainly don’t have America’s best interest in mind in my humble opinion. Both parties are drinking from the same glass of wine for different reasons.
The National Guardsmen who ran the smuggling ring will no doubt get a Court Martial and rightfully so. Hopefully Bush won’t get the blame for somehow forcing this individual to participate in this illegal activity. BTW, I didn’t blame Clinton for this individual’s actions either. 🙂
Another example of why: “ONLY THE POLICE AND MILITARY SHOULD HAVE FIREARMS.”
i just want to say that anybody would of and maybe done the same thing thes people had the power in hand but money in the eye and they put us all down i just want to wish my friend pacheco the best of luck and take care and we still love u