Kash's Corner - Kash’s Corner: How a Porous Border Facilitates Narcoterrorism

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Nov. 10, 2021 - Kash's Corner

26:43

Kash’s Corner: How a Porous Border Facilitates Narcoterrorism

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	Hello everyone and welcome to Cash's Corner with of course Cash Patel.
	Hey Jan.
	So before we get into our kind of major topics today, you have seem to have a Twitter impersonator out there who seems to be growing their account by kind of leaps and bounds with a lot of sny comments.
	And I was looking at it and I'm like, that doesn't really sound like cash to me.
	Well, as you know, Jan, I don't have any social media and I haven't really in a long, long time.
	And this isn't the first false account.
	Ironically or hypocritically, the first account many months ago about me that someone put up falsely, Twitter took down immediately once I notified them about it.
	And I fast forward to this guy's new account whose followers seem to be growing exponentially and who's saying outlandish things violated Twitter's own policy about deceptive matters and names, my name.
	But this time, Twitter refuses to take down my fake account because I believe it's for political reasons.
	Fascinating.
	There's actually this, there's an article that was actually written about it recently.
	You can kind of track your communications with Twitter.
	Word for word, yeah.
	Rowan Scarborough did a great job taking what I wrote in writing to Twitter, citing them their own policy and its violation, word for word, and their boilerplate response to, we've reviewed this matter and we feel it does not qualify under our, as a violation in our policies.
	And I basically said, it's the same exact violation that happened before.
	Now because this guy has, you know, tens of thousands of followers and is saying outlandish things that support the mainstream media narrative and allow them to easily criticize me, they're allowing it to stay up because they know people are going on there.
	And I can't tell you how many folks have reached out to me and said, oh, you're finally on Twitter.
	Look at this account.
	And I'm like, nope, that's not me.
	You don't think it's because of the really great shades that cash has.
	That's only the second picture he used.
	The first one was of me and President Trump after the Baghdadi raid.
	And I said, what's more deceptive than that?
	You're using a picture of one of my most favorite pictures of my time in the administration standing next to President Trump after we killed Baghdadi in the situation room.
	And this guy's parroting that around so he can collect Twitter followers and allow the mainstream media to perpetuate false stories.
	Well, so what do you hope will happen next with this?
	Well, I don't think anything will happen next for this because Twitter has completely lost its way and they don't care about actually following their own rules.
	It's just another example of the politicization that they put as a priority over actually enforcing their media restrictions that they themselves have created and yet another reason why we need Section 230 to be violated because of, or to be removed, because if it wasn't there, I would definitely be taking Twitter to court.
	So let's jump to more of the issue at hand here.
	We want to talk a little bit about border security.
	This is, you know, you wore the counterterrorism hat at one point.
	Now, we do know that there were, you know, at least two Yemeni nationals who are on the no-fly list on the terrorist watch list, actually, that were apprehended at the border.
	And so there's this real issue that is a potential national security risk.
	And at the same time, you know, how do you characterize what's happening at the border right now?
	Well, you're right.
	You know, I have a lot of experience with that, you know, finishing off as head of counterterrorism for the White House under President Trump.
	Border security is a huge component of protecting America.
	And our southern border, President Trump made a priority of building a wall and securing the border from the south.
	Everyone knows that.
	A lot of people disagreed with how he went about it.
	And the reason partly he did it was because of what you just cited, the Yemeni folks coming in that are on the terrorist watch list.
	That's typical tradecraft for many foreign terrorist organizations, be it Yemen, Iran, Syria, Iraq, wherever.
	They train people overseas.
	They smuggle them into Central America, which is very easy to do.
	You don't really, it's not really a smuggling operation.
	And then they seed them north through the Mexican border.
	And that's problematic if you have terrorists or people who are on terrorist watch lists coming to the United States that way.
	And that was one of the reasons President Trump wanted the wall built to shut that down.
	Now, fast forward, and President Biden has laxed many of President Trump's border security initiatives, including the wall.
	And you have these two folks who were apprehended who are on the terrorism watch list.
	Now, the question is, not that we caught them, who didn't we catch?
	That's the problem.
	And that's how some of these folks got into America before when they were launching terrorism operations against us on our soil.
	And unfortunately, it's going to continue if we don't address it.
	Well, so obviously the whole wall situation is, the wall is basically, all work on the wall, as I understand it, has stopped.
	So what do you think of that?
	Well, I think it's unfortunately a continuation of putting politics and what the media wants to hear above the national security importance for the American people.
	President Trump said border security was a top priority and the wall was a top priority.
	President Biden's foreign policy seems to be a continuation of what did he do?
	I'm doing the opposite.
	So he immediately, as you said, came in and shut down construction of border walls.
	So there hasn't been a foot of border wall built under the Biden administration.
	What else did he do?
	He laxed the measures allowing folks to come into the United States illegally.
	And look, let me say this first off.
	I don't blame these individuals who are trying to get into America.
	I'm not talking about the terrorists, but I'm talking about individuals from places like Venezuela and Honduras and Nicaragua.
	They are facing some severely harsh conditions down there and humanitarian crisis down there.
	But I think, and I place the security of the American people above the needs of allowing folks to come into our country illegally.
	Well, so this is actually a very interesting question.
	We're both children of immigrants.
	Right?
	And so I'm very grateful to be able to be born in North America and not in communist Poland, for example.
	Now, so there's this question.
	I mean, the policies, I think, of the previous administration were described as sort of anti-immigrant and so forth.
	Would you agree with that characterization?
	I think that's absurd.
	You know, as you said, son of an immigrant, right, father flees a dictator, the equivalent of Hitler in Africa, goes to Canada, gets a visa, and then lawfully immigrates to the United States in the late 70s.
	That is the American dream.
	That's the American story.
	Then to have his son go up and be the first head of counterterrorism of any White House in the United States history and have his son become the first minority chief of staff for the Department of Defense, I think, speaks for itself in terms of how can you call this administration racist or anti-immigrant?
	I'm living proof that it's not.
	And I'm not the only guy.
	So something that's, I think, worth mentioning that the issue at the border isn't just about immigration.
	It's often portrayed as purely an immigration issue or an illegal immigration issue.
	But actually, there's a lot of very serious national security questions around the border that are related, for example, drug trafficking and human trafficking.
	So, you know, what was your experience of how does that actually look on our border from your vantage point?
	Well, it was, and I think still continues to be a problem.
	It used to be a significant problem before President Trump came into office because he specifically ran on tapping down narco-terrorism, narco-trafficking, human trafficking, and illegal immigration.
	That was no surprise.
	That's what he ran on, and that's what he implemented when he came into office.
	And the numbers speak for themselves.
	There's a drastic reduction across the board on illegal immigration, on narco-terrorism, narco-trafficking, and human trafficking.
	All things you think would be apolitical.
	Those are all bad things that you want to have stopped if you could.
	I've heard this term narco-terrorism branched about.
	What does that mean exactly?
	Okay, so great question.
	It's a couple of components.
	One, it's when the cartels, for in this case, the Mexican drug cartels partner with foreign terrorist organizations to either funnel money and arms in exchange for goods and services.
	I'll give you a perfect example.
	So in Afghanistan, where they have the massive poppy fields, right, they basically have to create and ship opium once they produce it around the world for distribution in order to make their money.
	The terrorist organizations there in charge of the opiate production partner with organizations in Mexico, cartels, to distribute that narcotic substance throughout North America.
	That's one form of narco-terrorism.
	Another form is simple services.
	Basically, you have cartels in Mexico partner with the folks like Hamas in terms of exchanging weapons for narcotics or weapons for money.
	And because they have such different distribution networks, Hamas doesn't have the ability to infiltrate America like a Mexican cartel does.
	But the Mexican cartels can put in drugs, put in opioids, put in weapons throughout the U.S. for money from a Hamas.
	So those are two types of narco-terrorism that the U.S. has been subjected to in the past and will continue to be subjected to.
	Well, that's absolutely fascinating.
	So I understand that actually, you know, Venezuela is one of these states that has these sort of deep ties.
	It's like a hub for this sort of thing at the moment, right?
	Well, Venezuela, unfortunately, not our ally, not our friend, is sort of the perfect partner for a group, organization, a terrorist organization overseas looking to partner with something close to the American border in our hemisphere.
	And because of the Maduro regime, who hates America and will do anything or allow anything that will hurt American interests, makes it easy for them to partner.
	And they actually, this is no surprise to you, Venezuelans' partnership is with the Iranian regime, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism.
	They are constantly trading off Iranian and Venezuelan crude with each other for supplies and minerals and allowing narcotics and illegal substances to flow into Venezuela and then up into the United States and around North America, including Canada.
	So that's just another great example that you brought up that is a current partnership that should not be allowed and is absolutely illegal.
	That's fascinating.
	I want to talk a little bit more about that because I know that you worked on the Venezuela issue, let's say, while in government.
	But before we get there, so recently we had this border connection.
	We recently had this article by Charlotte Cuthbertson.
	About over 10,000 Venezuelans in this fiscal year have actually been apprehended at the border, crossing illegally.
	That's up from like 135 the previous year, and there's still four months worth of goal.
	sort of a massive shift and just as a to cite some numbers because I remember them right now it's actually been there were 70 people from 70 countries represented And just in the Del Rio sector, there were, I think it's 119,000 in that sector that I've come across in this fiscal year from 70 different countries.
	I mean, the numbers are kind of astounding.
	But back to Venezuela.
	Huge, huge disproportion.
	And from what you're saying, you might kind of expect that Venezuelans would want to come to America, right?
	I think that was a great piece of reporting by Charlotte.
	And unfortunately, I wasn't shocked at the trend upwards in numbers, but I was somewhat shocked at the actual numbers that you just cited, because that is a significant change for year over year.
	And I think it just goes to show you how Venezuela has continued to spiral downward and how bad it is for the Venezuelan people there.
	And this administration has chosen, I don't know what our policy is with Venezuela right now.
	I don't see any engagement with the global community to tamp out Maduro like we at least tried to do under President Trump.
	And so it is causing a massive influx of Venezuelans and you can't personally blame them for wanting to flee a tyrannical regime that is just killing people and violating their human rights on so many levels.
	You would think that there would be an emphasis from this administration to tamp that down.
	But all we're seeing is a surge to our border.
	And to me, that shows the worsening of the situation in Venezuela, not the improvement of it, because if it was getting better, people would want to stay there.
	Well, let's talk about the realities of Venezuela.
	I mean, where you dealt with that directly, right?
	Yeah, so one of my first roles at the National Security Council was I was the director of multilateral affairs.
	So basically, that means using the United Nations to work around the world to meet human rights issues head-on and work with our allies and partners.
	And obviously at the time, Maduro was leading his campaign literally through the streets of Venezuela, driving tanks into people, as was shown on national TV, and killing hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals while violating their human rights.
	So it was a big component, and it required a global solution that still has not been reached to this date.
	And that's why you see people fleeing.
	The problem hasn't been solved.
	Yes, Venezuela is one of the largest exporters of crude oil, or sits on one of the largest reserves of crude oil in the world, and gold, which gives them a bargaining chip with the likes of Iran and whatnot in Russia, but that doesn't give them a hall pass to commit human rights violations.
	So tell me a little bit about this.
	So, you know, what did you try to do and where did it not work out, I guess?
	Well, we tried to line up the global community through the United Nations.
	We asked our global partners around the world, country by country, who are you siding with?
	Are you siding with anti-Maduro movements at the time, people challenging Maduro's leadership to free the Venezuelan people, or are you siding with Maduro?
	And you saw the likes of Russia and Cuba side with Maduro, no surprise.
	But then most of our European allies and Middle Eastern allies sided with the U.S. and the United Nations in trying to remove Maduro or at least set up a system where we could work with him so that we could better the situation in Venezuela.
	And that's where we force people to choose sides.
	And I think that was a good initial step, but the follow-through didn't occur with the vigor that it needed to with the global community.
	Well, and it's interesting because this was in the news for a while.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	It was the topic.
	Right.
	And then it just kind of fell out.
	And we don't hear about it very much these days.
	No, you're right.
	As you said, Jan, earlier, in the Del Rio sector of the border, you know, for the first time in history, over 10,000 Venezuelans alone have tried to cross into the U.S. illegally.
	That's up from 150, 150 people just a year ago.
	And that just, that's proof.
	It's all the proof that you need in the world that Venezuela is so bad, and this administration has not addressed it as a priority, that we need to be re-examining what we're doing with the Maduro regime and what we're allowing them to do.
	So what are the options on the table then?
	The options are, A, sanctions, which we hit them with.
	We hit them with crushing global sanctions, not just in Venezuela, but we sanctioned individuals who did businesses with Venezuela continuously using the Department of the Treasury and Commerce and DOJ and things like that.
	You need to hold people accountable to by charging individuals committing human rights violations and criminal activity and permitting narco-trafficking and narcoterrorism to hit the U.S. border.
	There's so many things we can do without even directly engaging Venezuela that we're just not doing.
	So, and talking about the border, there's also another very long border across the north of the U.S., right?
	With Canada, with my home country.
	You know, is there an issue with the Canadian border?
	Especially, you know, I was just reading Willful Blindness.
	We're going to have an interview with Sam Cooper, who wrote this incredible book that chronicles how Vancouver has become a hub for drug trafficking and money laundering for Chinese triads and so forth.
	So is the northern border an issue?
	Yeah, so the playbook's the same.
	Look, folks like China are going to look to exploit American weakness just like the Mexican drug cartels and the terrorist organizations are partnering through our South.
	Vancouver is a major international city that obviously has direct flights in and out of China and the region.
	And we have a great relationship with the Canadian government and we're more secure in our north than we are in our south.
	And I think the Chinese government and the CCP are taking advantage of that by doing the things that you said they're doing through Vancouver.
	The border up there is much easier to cross and much less restricted in terms of physical walls and space like that if they wanted to start smuggling individuals or things through it.
	And I think the Chinese are looking to take advantage of that point in case Vancouver is their entry point.
	Let's talk a little bit about Afghanistan.
	You mentioned Afghanistan earlier as, and it just had me thinking, you know, we're in the process of actually, the U.S. is in the process of leaving Afghanistan.
	The U.S. military is in the process of leaving.
	So what actually happens next?
	Like, how is that going to play out based on everything you know from your experience?
	Look, Afghanistan, you know, I've served, I've done deployments there, I've served time on the ground there, and the work is amazing.
	And the people that we have, our men and women downrange there, are awesome.
	But it's Afghanistan at the end of the day, okay?
	The Brits tried it in the 80s.
	The Russians tried it in the 90s, and we've been trying it since 2001 to fix Afghanistan.
	It's not fixable.
	We can't stay there forever.
	We've been there for almost 20 years, 2 trillion and thousands of injuries and deaths, unfortunately, in Afghanistan.
	So, I mean, many of your folks listening to this may not like this, but I don't think we need to be in Afghanistan anymore.
	And if three world powers were unable to solve the issues of Afghanistan decade over decade, staying another 10 years isn't going to do it.
	I mean, the question, of course, is that there's a lot of bad actors in the region who may or almost certainly will be interested in.
	The bad actors are already there.
	They're still there.
	Afghanistan still allows, even though we're still there footing the bill, Afghanistan still holds American hostages or allows them to be held on their territory.
	They still harbor terrorists.
	They still harbor some of the world's leading terrorists on their territory.
	And we're still there paying the Afghani government.
	We're still there doing the humanitarian work for the people in the country.
	We're still there engaging in diplomatic relations.
	One of our largest embassies in the world and our biggest compounds is in Kabul.
	So whether we stay or leave, they're not really helping us in matters that I think are most important to America's national security, like defeating terrorist leaders and bringing home American hostages and engaging in diplomatic relations.
	So I understand when people say if we leave, somebody else will fill in.
	But the reality is they're already there.
	The Russians, the Chinese, the Pakistanis, they're already there.
	They're not going to leave because we leave.
	Yeah.
	Well, so, you know, again, the argument that I've heard, and I had Michael Doran on in a recent episode, you know, talking about the sort of Chinese engagement with Iran in the region and its designs on the region and, you know, a kind of, you know, the Middle East, there's this kind of status, there's been this status quo of sorts, of course, you know, not a terribly great status quo, many people would argue.
	But it's existed and people or a number of people I spoke to are very concerned about that shifting to basically something that's dominated by China or something that's dominated by Iran or both of them together.
	Well, I think, look, America needs to, President Trump made this decision whether we should be in Afghanistan or we shouldn't be.
	And he specifically told me we need to end the forever wars.
	And we did that as best we could under his tenure when I was at the Department of Defense.
	And I think we succeeded in many places, including Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria.
	But turning back towards Afghanistan, it's amazing to me now that for all the years leading up to the President Trump's administration, the drumbeat from the media was, get out of Afghanistan.
	What are we doing there?
	When President Trump decided to get out of Afghanistan, the drumbeat shifted to, why aren't we staying?
	And that is the height of hypocrisy and the biggest highlight that is the problem with the majority of the reporting in the mainstream media.
	Because they immediately get amnesia as to what the reporting was for 20 years prior to President Trump's arrival and then just steamroll headlines that make him look bad.
	And the problem with that is if there's a valid reason to attack him, that's fine.
	But if it occurs at the detriment of U.S. national security interests, then I have a major problem with that.
	And that's where he and I saw eye to eye on how to protect American interest.
	And we didn't care what the media was going to write about us.
	Well, but this is now, you know, the Biden administration, under the Biden administration, this is happening.
	So is it, you know, it's a different presidency.
	Well, they say it's happening.
	Our plan was we were at zero on one May of this year.
	They've extended that to an arbitrary date at 9-11.
	I mean, that's a whole nother story that I think we shouldn't be using the 9-11 date as a symbolic date as a withdrawal from Afghanistan.
	But are they going to do it?
	We'll see.
	And will it be a total withdrawal?
	I don't know.
	All these questions they have not answered.
	And we can remain.
	And I'm not saying we shouldn't remain in the region or leave special forces in and around Afghanistan to protect against immediate terrorist threats.
	That's the largest priority we have in Afghanistan, yesterday, 15 years ago, or today.
	We'll always leave some security posture there in the region.
	That's always going to remain.
	So I don't want people thinking we're just pulling chocks and getting the heck out forever.
	Why do you not like 9-11 as a symbolic date?
	I mean, look, as a New Yorker growing up in New York, being born there, being raised there, you know, 9-11 was the largest terrorist attack in my lifetime.
	I remember exactly where I was when I saw the towers fall in my college dorm room watching it on TV, not being able to reach my family in New York.
	And there's just too much remembrance that needs to happen for the fallen and too much remembrance that needs to happen for the men and women who decided to join the fight as a result of that.
	We don't need that to be the day that people highlight or politicize further the removal from Afghanistan.
	That should just be a date when it happens, an arbitrary date that doesn't coincide with 9-11.
	So in this vein, we actually passed Memorial Day recently, as you well know.
	And, you know, at the epoch times, we've decided to kind of take this whole month as an opportunity to highlight various heroes in society, first responders, law enforcement, people that are kind of day after day going out, putting everything on the line, of course, in the medical profession under COVID.
	And so do you have any message you want to share?
	Well, look, I mean, I was very fortunate to lead the Defense Department for President Trump for a period of time as its chief of staff.
	And it's the largest organization in the world.
	Three million individuals, civilian or uniform, decide to go at it every day and defend this nation.
	And I think taking a breath to reflect on their service and their leadership and also instilling a desire in our future leaders to put on a uniform or to serve in some capacity are things that we should be doing on days like Memorial Day and just taking a moment to reflect and thanking those that have served and helping the next generation of service members to come forward.
	Wonderful.

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