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Human trafficking, gangs, organized crime as terrorist insurgencies?
For all of the blogosphere's shots at the MSM, MSNBC aired a powerful news documentary on human trafficking in the U.S. The program focused on stories in Detroit and Oakland in which female children were finessed into "social" situations set up by human traffickers then forced into sex slavery. The pimps depicted were ruthless and violent, ruling the children with primal fear by threatening their families.
According to the program, some crime organizations have found child trafficking more lucrative than the drug trade. They are enslaving American children on U.S. soil.
The program tracked situations in which astute public servants in proactive police agencies had been stinging these criminal enterprises for years but barely scratching the surface. It also embarrassed those insensitive police organizations that have treated victim parents (co-victims with their kidnapped children) as chicken little when they report their children missing. The lazy agency supposition, as in Toledo, was that children run away, so too bad.
The ethical police officers, agents and social workers followed in an Oakland task force were battling a cancer one cell at a time. It's a cancer that metastasizes from glitzy virtual "spaces" to terrestrial dives and no-tell-hotel dungeons. They were skimming the surface for a few fortunate children found while a huge cross section of missing minors remained vulnerable or victimized. It is a savagely evil sub-world run by domestic terrorists who take advantage of broken families and ailing social nets.
The authorities were valiant, yet seemed ineffective against loosely connected, mobile networks of pimps advertising child slaves on Craigslist for violation by johns. It is terrorism of the worst kind that imposes devastating human rights violations on children.
I thought of the many news programs and stories like this I'd seen in the past few decades retelling the tragedies of babies, mothers, children, seniors, and bystanders shot, killed, crippled and terrorized by gangs at war in American streets.
Criminal organizations, whether trafficking in human beings, drugs, guns, fear or slaves, share a common fundamental: they function as their own governments and deny the sovereignty of the U.S. and its governments. Organized crime groups are treasonous and subversive by definition.
With such groups, the rawhide premise is correct: "don't try to understand 'em, just rope, throw and drag 'em." Where understanding is needed is in treating and curing the cultural ailments beneath the demand for vile black markets, not in dealing with the terrorists running the cartels at all levels.
Because few victims testify against them, these groups expand. Not only do they enslave their victims, but they silence them before the blind lady of justice who must hear them to do anything about the problem.
If an organized criminal entity uses terror against Americans to enrich itself and undermine lawful economies, it is a terrorist group. Why, under such circumstances, are these groups not treated like al-Qaeda is treated? Do they not terrorize, maim and kill innocent people?
Our warriors fight abroad against groups formerly allying themselves with al-Qaeda because al-Qaeda took out some 3,000 people on 9-11-01 and more before and since. However, the US homicide total for 2007 was 16,929 according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, with a heavy gang element in the homicide counts. Consider these statistics from the L.A. area published by the Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles:
In Los Angeles County, law enforcement officials are aware of more than 1300 street gangs with over 150,000 members. In the City of Los Angeles alone, there are over 400 separate gangs and an estimated 39,000 gang members. "Annual Report to Congress: Creating a Safer America," US Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2000. "Gang Reduction Strategy," City of Los Angeles, 2007.
Gangs account for approximately 43% of all homicides in Los Angeles County. Of the 1038 homicides in 2004, 454 were gang-related. Review of Homicide Crime Statistics, Criminal Justice Center, 2005.
Los Angeles has long been recognized as the epicenter of gang activity nationwide. Recent estimates indicate approximately 1,350 street gangs, with as many as 175,000 members in the FBI Los Angeles' seven-county area of responsibility (San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Orange). Many gangs which today have a nationwide presence, such as the Bloods, the Crips, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), and 18th can trace their roots to Los Angeles. "Combating youth violence: What federal, state, and local governments are doing to deter youth crime," US Congress Proceedings, 2006.
The migration of gang members from Los Angeles to other regions of the United States has led to a rapid proliferation of these gangs in many smaller suburban and rural areas not accustomed to gang activity and its related crimes. "Combating youth violence: What federal, state, and local governments are doing to deter youth crime," US Congress Proceedings, 2006.
And the problem isn't compartmentalized to geopolitical units or the gangs within them. The human trafficking business crosses borders as a refugee and migrant exploitation crime. This paper by Finckenauer and Schrock describes the international context of the U.S. problem.
Organized criminal groups using terror against Americans are insurgents that seek to render useless the legal system and rule of law in America. With terror, they make testimony to justice very unlikely.
Law enforcement and social work cannot fix the problem unless there is a serious degradation of the firepower, fear-power and profits of these groups. These groups are increasingly insurgent and internationally connected. Armed, violent and powerful, these groups constitute enemy combatants whose activities, like al-Qaeda's, aim to destroy public trust in American law, order and economy. These groups seek to prime American addictions for profit while killing people who get in the way.
Criminal enterprise terrorists should meet with the same response from our agencies and military that political terrorists do. National guard or military units specializing in counter-insurgency could work with local police under police command to eradicate and degrade these terrorist groups that kidnap, drug, terrorize, and imprison children.
As President Obama has pointed out, it is not so much a war on terror the U.S. must fight, but a war on specific terrorist groups. Very well, then. Let's be more specific.
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In the 1920s and 1930s, gang violence and organized crime could be treated as strictly law enforcement problems. Neither had achieved the level of organization, weaponry, or interconnection that we face today. Add to that the evidence that they are actively working with REAL terrorist groups.
I don't think we can treat these groups as terrorists per se. But, unlike their predecessors, they pose a serious threat to the fabric of society, including the law itself. We need to go after theese groups with the same ruthlessness that they show to the rest of us.
I would start by declaring it a Federal crime to belong to any group whose primary purpose is criminal activity. Membership should be treated as a form of "acting in concert" in any crimes that are committed by other members of the group.
Next, we need to build a lot more SuperMax prisons to hold those who need to be put there.
February 18, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep Jersey, if you made it a fed crime to belong, the next thing they'd do is form non-profit organizations and then become political parties.
February 19, 2009 4:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mike, I think you make some good points. The problem with treating groups of American citizens as terrorists, is that it's a slippery slope. I think it's better to use the RICO Act and racketeering in general. But I agree that human trafficking needs to be shut down. It's a blight.
February 18, 2009 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
My premise is that these groups and their members have renounced their U.S. citizenship by supporting, aiding, abetting and carrying out their loyal obediences to these groups. Those that use terror and weapons against real U.S. citizens are enemy combatants and they do not deserve due process.
We have naval vessels and coast guard units prepared to use deadly, military grade weaponry against pirates. Why not against these alpha-halos? What they're doing is worse than absconding with millions of dollars in seagoing goods.
February 19, 2009 4:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Glad you stopped in to comment, BTW.
February 19, 2009 4:04 AM | Reply | Permalink