Phil Jordan: McCain way off-base blaming wildfires on Mexican immigrants
This opinion piece appeared on Sunday:
By Phil Jordan, Guest columnist
Honorable Senator McCain:
I recently read your response to one of your constituents re: the “Mexican” forest fire starters. I am addressing your reply.
Let me assure you that I voted for you, supporting your return to the Senate. However, I am concerned that you have joined the fearmongers of Arizona. Fires are started by all sorts of people, but to blame the recent fires in Arizona on Mexicans (or illegal immigrants, as you call them) is totally unfair.
You made a blanket statement, did not provide any substantial proof, and thus continue to fan the anti-Mexican sentiment that is prevalent in Arizona, as well as the rest of our country.
[…]
I don’t fully agree with Mr. Jordan on this, but that’s not why I posted it.
This article appeared the previous Wednesday:
Zetas may be smuggling weapons
The brutally violent Zetas drug organization may be smuggling military-grade weapons through El Paso and Columbus, N.M., to feed its ongoing battles against other cartels and to possibly disrupt the 2012 elections in Mexico.This subject is one of intense interest on my part, but I didn’t post this article, because it stinks. Mr. Plumlee supports Mr. Jordan and Mr. Jordan supports Mr. Plumlee, but other than that, the assertions have no support.Phil Jordan, a former director of the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center and a former CIA operative, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons through the El Paso area.
A federal law enforcement agency in El Paso said it has no information about the allegations that the Zetas are smuggling weapons through El Paso.
“They are purchasing weapons in the Dallas area and are flying them to El Paso, and then they are taking them across the border into Juárez,” said Jordan, a law enforcement consultant and former DEA official who still has contacts in the law enforcement community.
Jordan said the Zetas were flying weapons caches out of the Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, and after they arrive in the El Paso vicinity, the Zetas smuggled them into Juárez.
“What’s ironic is that the DEA also uses the Alliance Airport for some of its operations,” Jordan said. “The Zetas were working out of a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in the Dallas area to smuggle the weapons to the border.”
The DEA has its Aviation Operations Center at Alliance.
Robert “Tosh” Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot, supported Jordan’s allegations and said the Zetas allegedly also purchased property in the Columbus-Palomas border region to stash weapons and other contraband.
[…]
Jordan agreed with Plumlee’s allegations that the Zetas are operating in the Columbus-Palomas border.
[…][emphases added]
Apparently Mr. Jordan believes that fear mongering and unfounded assertions should be made about New Mexico and Texas, but not Arizona. This annoys me no end.