integrate the tools of American power to combat
transnational organized crime…and urge our foreign
partners to do the same." The Strategy also calls for the
U.S. government and our international partners to work
together to combat transnational illicit networks, and take
that fight to the next level by breaking their corruptive
power, attacking their financial underpinnings, stripping
them of their illicit wealth, and severing their access to
the financial system.

With our diplomatic reach and
foreign assistance authorities, INL is strengthening partner
nation capacity to deal with these emerging transnational
criminal threats including by combating corruption and
targeting the illicit wealth of criminal entrepreneurs.
INL’s programs promote regional capacity-building to
mitigate the famous "balloon effect" we saw in South America
in the 1980s and 1990s, whereby criminal groups jump from
one country to another as pressure was applied. Through the
Central America Regional Security Initiative, theDon't think for a minute that New Jersey Sen. Michael Doherty's placement on the legislative committee investigating the George Washington Bridge scandal signals the Christie administration will be handled with kid gloves.

That was a popular sentiment last week as the panel took shape and naysayers pointed to the conservative Doherty's past dalliances with the governor's office.

But that's ancient history.

Whether or not you agree with his ideology, Doherty is a shrewd politician and sharp attorney who has integrity. He'll give a fair hearing to the evidence presented to the committee and be guided by his sense of right and wrong.

The notion that he's a lackey for

should have gone out the window months ago.

By last fall, with Christie making headlines for deciding on a special election to fill the late