Arizona's 'Cokeheads' the National Guard

Photo: Arizona National Guard with construction crew on Tohono O'odham land building border wall at San Miguel, Arizona/Photo Indigenous Peoples Delegation.

By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

TUCSON, Ariz. -- There were so many Arizona National Guardsmen eager to run cocaine from the border of Arizona and Mexico to Tucson, that the FBI had to shut down its sting, Operation Lively Green.
While those soldiers were being sentenced in recent months, the Arizona National Guard announced its soldiers would be commanding an armed drone in Iraq by remote control from Tucson.
From Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, a unit controls the MQ-1B Predator, used for armed reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting in Iraq.
While Arizona media reported both stories on the Arizona National Guard -- cocaine running and operating an armed, remote control drone in Iraq -- reporters didn't seem to notice the irony.
Arizona National Guardsmen ran cocaine in uniform in official vehicles to avoid being noticed from the border. The cocaine runners included a recruiting officer working in Tucson public schools.
The Guardsmen were not the only officials running cocaine. During sentencing, nearly 100 others emerged, ranging from a Nogales police officer and a prison guard to US Air Force squadsmen in Tucson patrolling the border by air.
Which brings us to the present, and the fact that Arizona National Guardsmen are helping build the border wall on the Tohono O'odham Nation. While an Indigenous Peoples' delegation was at the border on Tohono O'odham land, near San Miguel, on Nov. 8, 2007, the National Guardsmen were part of the crew building the wall.
This border wall construction has already been responsible for the contractor digging up the graves of the O'odham ancestors. Further, the border wall will be a barrier to the annual traditional ceremony, when O'odham normally walk across their traditional ancestral territory.
Although the politicians call it a "vehicle barrier," it is still a barrier that disects the ancestral territory of the O'odham.
Now, Border Patrol agents, the alien invaders of the O'odham, are telling them they will have to have US passports to walk across their traditional homelands beginning in January. Many O'odham were born at home and do not have passports, or the means to purchase passports.
But you're not likely to read about this in the media, it remains one of the most censored issues.