FierceHomelandSecurity is reporting on testimony of both the Commandant and the Commander of SouthCom, Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, before a joint hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure and Foreign Affairs subcommittees.
“Joint Interagency Task Force South, which is part of Southcom and includes the Coast Guard, (other–Chuck) military services and other agencies, seizes the majority of the cocaine bound for the United States, said Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, the Southcom commander. Yet it receives only 1.5 percent of the federal government’s total counternarcotics budget, he said.”
Commandant Adm. Robert Papp, who appeared alongside Kelly, said that in the past five years, the Coast Guard seized more than twice the amount of cocaine as all domestic law enforcement agencies – federal, state and local – combined.
Over the last five years, Coast Guard ships and law enforcement detachments operating in the offshore regions have removed more than a million pounds of cocaine with a wholesale value of nearly $17 billion. This is more than two times the amount of cocaine seized by all other U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies combined.
While I have my own reservations about the effectiveness of efforts to restrict supply, if you are going to attempt to cut supply, it sure looks like funding Coast Guard efforts should be the first place to put your money.
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Simple question. Doesn’t the CG have a spokes person that can point out what I just read????
The Coast Guard does not have a neither a spokesperson nor a secretary of the Coast Guard. We really REALLY need to solve this problem
Yup! Would also help with interactions with Congress as well.
I mentioned this situation at our coffee crew at McDonalds, and they were rather shocked at this story. One asked, “why would our gov’t not help and organization that is superior in this field with their limited resources?” My response was this president doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and it also brings the U.S. down a notch. Read his father’s book.
Seems like this administration is worried about this problem
Sonny we don’t take partisan political stands here. Lots of people Take credit for cutting the budget, and this is part of that.
Sorry, but this seems the main reason the CG never receives help from anybody with this we don’t get involved attitude.
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Report of testimony before a Congressional Committee. http://www.fiercehomelandsecurity.com/story/high-ranking-us-southern-command-official-says-drug-interdiction-efforts-co/2015-06-18
New CentCom. http://news.usni.org/2015/12/21/vice-adm-kurt-tidd-confirmed-as-next-u-s-southcom-commander
New SouthCom is finding the same thing the previous SouthCom ship found. He doesn’t have enough ships. Interestingly he is saying half of the drug seizures are made by out partners, I assume the include the British, French, Dutch, Canada and Colombia. http://news.usni.org/2016/03/10/southcom-co-tidd-not-enough-ships-aircraft-available-to-fight-drug-war
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Bertholf unloads 14 tons of Cocaine in San Diego. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/San-Diego-Tons-of-Drugs-Seized-in-Pacific-Ocean-US-Coast-Guard–374906101.html
A piece on Air Force participation in Drug enforcement. http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2016/05/29/air-forces-quiet-war-latin-american-drug-cartels/83928274/
Some good info on how SouthCOM views their current operations. http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2016/June/Pages/USSouthernCommandSeeksTechtoMonitorCrimeNetworks.aspx
2016 was a record year for Drug interdiction. http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/4007/2896090/
Good set of data on FY2016 drug seizures. http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/4007/2896126/
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