Internet sales tax bill faces tough sell in House

WASHINGTON (AP) — Traditional retailers and cash-strapped states face a tough sell in the House as they lobby Congress to limit tax-free shopping on the Internet.

The Senate voted 69 to 27 Monday to pass a bill that empowers states to collect sales taxes from Internet purchases. Under the bill, states could require out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes when they sell products over the Internet, in catalogs, and through radio and TV ads. The sales taxes would be sent to the states where a shopper lives.

Current law says states can only require retailers to collect sales taxes if the merchant has a physical presence in the state.

That means big retailers with stores all over the country like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target collect sales taxes when they sell goods over the Internet. But online retailers like eBay and Amazon don't have to collect sales taxes, except in states where they have offices or distribution centers.

"This bill is about fairness," said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the bill's main sponsor in the Senate. "It's about leveling the playing field between the brick and mortar and online companies and it's about collecting a tax that's already due. It's not about raising taxes."

The bill got bipartisan support in the Senate but faces opposition in the House, where some lawmakers regard it as a tax increase. Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate, and the conservative Heritage Foundation oppose the bill, and many Republicans have been wary of crossing them.

Supporters say the bill is not a tax increase. In many states, shoppers are required to pay unpaid sales tax when they file their state tax returns. However, states complain that few taxpayers comply.

"Obviously there's a lot of consumers out there that have been accustomed to not having to pay any taxes, believing that they don't have to pay any taxes," said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., the bill's main sponsor in the House. "I totally understand that, and I think a lot of our members understand that. There's a lot of political difficulty getting through the fog of it looking like a tax increase."

On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, declined to say whether the House would take up the bill, deferring to the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over the legislation. Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said there are problems with the bill but he did not reject it outright.

"While it attempts to make tax collection simpler, it still has a long way to go," Goodlatte said in a statement. Without more uniformity in the bill, he said, "businesses would still be forced to wade through potentially hundreds of tax rates and a host of different tax codes and definitions."

Goodlatte said he's "open to considering legislation concerning this topic but these issues, along with others, would certainly have to be addressed."

Internet giant eBay led the fight against the bill in the Senate, along with lawmakers from states with no sales tax and several prominent anti-tax groups. The bill's opponents say it would put an expensive obligation on small businesses because they are not as equipped as national merchandisers to collect and remit sales taxes at the multitude of state rates.

Businesses with less than $1 million in online sales would be exempt. EBay wants to exempt businesses with up to $10 million in sales or fewer than 50 employees.

"The contentious debate in the Senate shows that a lot more work needs to be done to get the Internet sales tax issue right, including ensuring that small businesses using the Internet are protected from new burdens that harm their ability to compete and grow," said Brian Bieron, eBay's senior director of global public policy.

Some states have sales taxes as high as 7 percent, plus city and county taxes that can push the combined rate even higher.

Many governors — Republicans and Democrats — have been lobbying the federal government for years for the authority to collect sales taxes from online sales.

The issue is getting bigger for states as more people make purchases online. Last year, Internet sales in the U.S. totaled $226 billion, up nearly 16 percent from the previous year, according to government estimates.

States lost a total of $23 billion last year because they couldn't collect taxes on out-of-state sales, according to a study done for the National Conference of State Legislatures, which has lobbied for the bill. About half of that was lost from Internet sales; half from purchases made through catalogs, mail orders and telephone orders, the study said.

Supporters say the bill makes it relatively easy for Internet retailers to comply. States must provide free computer software to help retailers calculate sales taxes, based on where shoppers live. States must also establish a single entity to receive Internet sales tax revenue, so retailers don't have to send it to individual counties or cities.

Opponents worry the bill would give states too much power to reach across state lines to enforce their tax laws. States could audit out-of-state businesses, impose liens on their property and, ultimately, sue them in state court.

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Associated Press reporter Andrew Miga contributed to this report.

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The U.S. and Bahrain: How to Talk Just Tough Enough with an Ally (Time.com)

On Tuesday - just seven days after his country lifted 13 weeks of martial law - Bahrain's Crown Prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, met separately with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington. A White House statement said the President supported al-Khalifa's "ongoing efforts to initiate national dialogue" and that Bahrain's stability "depends upon respect for the universal rights of the people of Bahrain, including the right to free speech and peaceful assembly."

Coming after Obama lashed out at Bahrain's violent crackdown on peaceful protesters in a speech on May 19, his support was a public about-face that looks to repair ties with a key Middle East ally. It also appeared to signal that America will stop its public criticism of Bahrain's government even as it urges the Sunni-dominated regime to begin talks with opposition leaders. (See photos of protesters being routed from Pearl Square.)

The meetings represent "a shift in tone and indicate a softening of the U.S. stance towards Bahrain," says Shadi Hamid, research director at the Brookings Doha Center, "and show that the U.S. simply isn't serious about putting real sustained pressure on the regime right now." The effect of Tuesday's visit has been to put a band-aid on tensions between the two countries and is, Hamid says, "a green light" for Bahrain's government to go about its business without criticism or interference from the U.S. That business includes both the country's re-opening to international commerce scared off by the turmoil of the spring, and the final stages of a months-long violent crackdown on protesters, which this week saw security forces repeatedly attack Shi'a enclaves with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Since March 13, when Saudi tanks rolled into Manama and security forces began arresting anyone associated with the anti-government movement - including journalists and medical workers - the U.S. government has faced a conundrum. How does Obama reprimand an ally that houses the Navy's Fifth Fleet in a geopolitical arena that includes its regional nemesis, Iran? (See photos of the crackdown in Bahrain.)

"Bahrain has always been ground zero of America's inability to reconcile interests and ideals in the Arab Spring," says Hamid. "It's difficult for the Administration to handle and they haven't really found a way yet." Obama has also come under fire from international rights groups and Bahrain's Shi'as, who have repeatedly said his and Clinton's sporadic criticisms were mere lip service and that both should have taken a tougher public stance against the regime's violent tactics.

The White House said Tuesday that Obama urged al-Khalifa to follow through on "the government's commitment to ensuring that those responsible for human rights abuses will be held accountable," a marked shift in tone from May 19, when he lambasted the regime's destruction of more than 30 Shi'a mosques.

"We've called on the Obama administration to call out strongly and publicly and in no uncertain terms about the human rights violations that occurred," says Hans Hogrefe, chief policy officer at Physicians for Human Rights, which this week decried the sentencing of 48 doctors and nurses whose ministering to injured demonstrators led to their prosecution for participating in the protests. "We would hope that there would have been a more public discourse - it's important for the region to see that we measure human rights with the same yardstick everywhere, that we're not just condemning Syria and Libya all the time but let our friends off easy." (See if Obama's speech helps Bahrain's reformists.)

The U.S. government's aim this week was to emphasize the need for immediate talks about reform between Bahrain's regime and opposition officials. Though the Crown Prince has said he would be open to meeting with Shi'a leaders, Obama, in his May speech, echoed activists' frustration that it was impossible to begin negotiations when most of the opposition leadership was in jail. "The thing that's driving this visit to D.C. is that [Obama and Clinton] are trying to tell the Shi'a to actually negotiate. And to tell the royal family to negotiate," says Thomas Ferguson, senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. "The statement was blunt." Obama's solidarity is crucial for the fairly moderate Crown Prince, whose influence in Bahrain has declined as he fights the growing number of hard-line extremists within his own government.

At stake going forward is the U.S.'s relationship not just with Bahrain but Saudi Arabia, whose soldiers joined forces with Bahraini security officers in quelling the island nation's revolution in March. Many see the conflict in Bahrain as a proxy war between the Saudis and Iran, with the latter looking to seize on any perceived weakness in the relationship between oil-rich Saudi and America. (See how Bahrain is stuck between Saudi Arabia and Iran.)

"The U.S. has a fundamental interest in keeping its relationship with the Saudis on an even keel, and Bahrain is its biggest issue," says Joost Hiltermann, deputy Middle East director at the International Crisis Group. Obama "knows that Iran will exploit instability in the region. The current situation is feeding into Iranian interests, because the more you suppress the Shi'a, the more they will radicalize and look for external sponsors. So it's important for the U.S. to pressure the regime to open up political space and allow participation for all its people." This week, "they're insisting on the need for dialogue without preconditions as an inclusive exercise that leads to genuine political reform."

"Rights groups may say it's not doing enough publicly to criticize its close ally," Hiltermann continues. "But the government believes that private talks are more useful in this situation than public scorn." Before Clinton's meeting Tuesday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner alluded to the possibility of criticism - and echoed the government's months-long stance on its public treatment of its island ally. "We'll obviously raise our concerns," he told reporters. "Bahrain is a friend and partner, but we can be candid with them, as well." Though opposition leaders have long agitated for stronger public rebukes from the Americans, most now side with Sheikh Ali Salman, head of official opposition party al Wefaq, who said last month that the group was ready for negotiations. After months of violence, it's likely the country's Shi'a majority won't fault U.S. leaders for keeping their discussions with the Crown Prince largely private - as long as promises of talks are kept, and tear gas stops raining down on Manama.

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Alabama governor signs tough new immigration law

Gov. Bentley signed new law ThursdayRequires police to check the status of anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally when stopped for another reasonImmigration and civil rights groups, as well as the Mexican government, have condemned the law

(CNN) -- Alabama's governor has signed what he billed as tough illegal immigration legislation, requiring police to check the status of anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally when stopped for another reason.

The bill, due to come into effect on September 1, was signed into law by Republican Gov. Robert Bentley on Thursday.

Its passage makes Alabama the latest in a series of states, including Georgia and Arizona, to weigh controversial new laws aimed at tackling illegal immigration.

Civil rights groups and the Mexican government have been quick to condemn the move.

According to a factsheet presented by Alabama House Republicans, the bill will require law enforcement officers "to attempt to determine the immigration status of a person who they suspect is an unauthorized alien of this country".

The legislation also makes it a criminal offense to provide transport or housing to an illegal immigrant. The state will have to check the citizenship of students and any business that knowingly employs an illegal immigrant will also be penalized.

A spokesman for Bentley told CNN that the governor had signed "a tough illegal immigration law".

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group, criticized the move, saying Alabama had fallen "into a costly trap" by passing what it described as an "unconstitutional law."

The legislation, sponsored by Republican Rep. Micky Hammon, could cost state taxpayers millions of dollars to enforce and defend through the courts, the SPLC said in a statement.

It also warned the state stood to lose "millions more in lost tax revenue from Alabama businesses that will bear the brunt of boycotts of Alabama goods and services and lost sales to documented and undocumented immigrants who flee the state rather than deal with racial profiling and the state's anti-immigrant climate."

The Mexican government warned that the law could affect the human and civil rights of Mexicans living in or visiting the state.

Several immigrant and civil rights organizations filed a class-action lawsuit last week against a new Georgia law aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration.

That law allows police to ask about immigration status when questioning suspects in certain criminal investigations.

Meanwhile, Arizona's governor said last month she would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after portions of the state's new immigration law were blocked by federal courts.

The Arizona bill catapulted the issue onto the national stage last year, drawing a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice, which argues that the law is unconstitutional.

Lawmakers in at least 20 states weighed similar proposals during the past year, according to the National Immigration Forum.

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Vatican Gets Tough on Child Sex Abuse but Not Tough Enough (Time.com)

When the Vatican issued a letter on Monday ordering bishops across the world to draw up tough guidelines for dealing with priests who rape or molest children, it addressed only half the scandal that has been rocking the Catholic Church.

To be sure, when it comes to the abusive clerics, the Vatican's new edict takes a firm stand, obliging local bishops to cooperate with local law enforcement in reporting sex crimes and recommending that policies be put in place to exclude accused priests from public ministry if they pose a continued danger to minors or could be a "cause of scandal for the community." (See pictures of Pope Benedict XVI.)

But what Monday's letter fails to do is put in place any sanctions on the bishops who oversee those clerics, should they fail to follow through with the recommendations. Child abuse is by no means unique to the Catholic Church. What sets the scandal apart is the sustained and widespread effort by church authorities to cover up for and protect the accused. And, in this regard, the new guidelines change little. "No threat of penalty will deter a child molester from committing a child sex crime," says David Clohessy, national director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which criticized the proposal as too lax. "But penalties can deter bishops from ignoring or concealing those crimes."

In drafting its directive, the Vatican has had to walk a fine line between ensuring its bishops cooperate with officials in the just prosecution of sex offenders under their authority while also ensuring their autonomy from civil authorities, especially in repressive regimes in East Asia or the Middle East, where the church can often have an antagonistic relationship with the state. Indeed, in the handling of individual cases, the letter specifically elevates the judgment of bishops over the civilian review boards that have been introduced in some countries, including the U.S. and Ireland.

But in its effort to make sure bishops retain their independence, the Vatican risks perpetuating what victims' groups say is a pattern that sees church officials place the protection of their priests over the well-being of their parishioners with few repercussions. For whatever reason, until recently, bishops have preferred to deal with clerical abuse internally - often transferring abusive priests from parish to parish - instead of handing them over to civil authorities. "The best explanation I can come up with is a profoundly misguided idea of what is in the good of the church," says Phil Lawler, editor of CatholicCulture.org. "They were paying more attention to its public image than to the spiritual, emotional and physical welfare of the faithful." (See the top 10 Vatican pop-culture moments.)

Doubly worrying is that the Vatican's new guidelines seem modeled on those set in 2002 in the U.S., where even with similar policies in place, the church continues to get hit with scandalous revelations. In February, a grand jury accused the archdiocese of Philadelphia of covering up decades of wrongdoing and keeping up to 37 priests who were suspected of child abuse in active ministry. The archbishop, Cardinal Justin Rigali, at first denied the accusation, but he later suspended 24 of the accused priests. "There were all the procedures in place for handling credible allegations," says Lawler. "But it was the bishop and his subordinates who were responsible for deciding what was a credible allegation."

And while the priests who allegedly committed the abuse face punishment, the man who failed to bring them to account has yet to suffer any sanction. Indeed, a few months later, Rigali was chosen to represent the church in a celebration in the Czech Republic in June. "As long as church officials who ignore and conceal abuse are tolerated and promoted, than nothing will change," says SNAP's Clohessy. "There simply have to be penalties for dreadful wrongdoing."

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Senator Kerry has tough questions for angry Pakistan (Reuters)

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – U.S. Senator John Kerry will push Pakistani leaders on Monday to explain how Osama bin Laden was able to hide in their country for years, without further inflaming Pakistani anger over the U.S. raid that killed the al Qaeda chief.

Compounding Pakistan's reputation as an unstable Muslim country infested with militants, gunmen on motorcycles shot dead a Saudi diplomat in the city of Karachi as he was driving to work.

Al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban militants, who have vowed to strike back for the killing of Saudi-born bin Laden, claimed responsibility.

U.S. special forces flew in from Afghanistan on a secret operation to find and kill bin Laden on May 2, nearly 10 years after he orchestrated the September 11 attacks on the United States.

His discovery holed up in the comfortable garrison town of Abbottabad, only 50 km (30 miles) from the Pakistani capital, has revived suspicion that U.S. ally Pakistan knew where he was and has been playing a double game.

Pakistan has rejected that as absurd. It welcomed bin Laden's killing as a big step in the fight against militancy but objected about being left in the dark over the raid to get him.

Parliament condemned the raid on Saturday as a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and called for a review of ties.

It also said the government should consider cutting U.S. supply lines through Pakistan for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in the event of another "unilateral" assault.

Kerry arrived in Pakistan on Sunday from Afghanistan where he told reporters the United States wanted Pakistan to be a real ally in the fight against militancy.

Kerry, a Democrat close to the Obama administration and who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met powerful army chief General Ashfaq Kayani at army headquarters late on Sunday and was due to meet other leaders on Monday.

While Kerry has tough questions for Pakistan, its military can be expected to convey its anger over the U.S. assault on bin Laden, which military officials say has caused a breakdown in trust and cast a shadow over security cooperation.

"Kayani ... apprised the visiting dignitary about intense feelings of rank and file of the Pakistan army on the Abbottabad incident," the military said in a statement on Monday, referring to the operation to get bin Laden.

It did not elaborate but said Kerry would hold detailed discussions on relations with government leaders on Monday.

"DISENCHANTED AND DISMAYED"

The Nation newspaper, which generally reflects the thinking of the military establishment, said Kerry's mission was to pressure Pakistan into accepting all U.S. demands, even at the cost of Pakistan's national interests.

"The U.S. may have serious questions post-Osama episode, but Pakistan stands totally disenchanted and dismayed," the paper said in an editorial.

The government should stick to the positions spelled out by parliament on the weekend, it said.

"There should be no compromise on sovereignty and national interests at any costs."

The U.S. administration has not accused Pakistan of complicity in hiding bin Laden but has said he must have had some sort of support network, which it wants to uncover.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke on Sunday to President Asif Ali Zardari by telephone about the situation since bin Laden's death, Zardari's office said, adding Zardari told Clinton about parliament's concerns.

"Both agreed to resolve the issues amicably and move forward," the president's office said.

Police in the southern commercial hub of Karachi said gunmen on motorcycles killed the Saudi diplomat. The attack came days after assailants threw two hand grenades at the Saudi consulate in Pakistan's commercial hub. No one was hurt in that attack.

Al Qaeda is violently opposed to the Saudi government, which is a close ally of Pakistan, and has vowed revenge for the killing of its leader. Their allies, the Pakistani Taliban, said they killed the diplomat.

"We take responsibility," a Taliban spokesman said by telephone from an undisclosed location, referring to the killing of the diplomat earlier in the day.

"Until America stops chasing al Qaeda and stops drone strikes we will keep carrying out such attacks," he said, referring to U.S. attacks with pilotless aircraft on militants in northwest Pakistan.

(Additional reporting by Faisal Aziz, Kamran Haider; editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Kerry to ask Pakistan tough questions at critical time (Reuters)

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – U.S. Senator John Kerry will press Pakistani leaders for answers on Osama bin Laden in talks on Monday but he will be keen to ensure Pakistani anger over the raid does not subvert vital security cooperation.

U.S. special forces found and killed the al Qaeda leader in the garrison town of Abbottabad, 50 km (30 miles) north of Islamabad on May 2.

His discovery living comfortably in a high-walled compound virtually under the noses of military authorities has revived suspicion that Pakistani security agencies knew where he was.

Pakistan welcomed bin Laden's killing as a big step against militancy.

But the secret U.S. raid to get him has been condemned as a violation of sovereignty which embarrassed and outraged the military. Military officials say it has caused a breakdown in trust which has cast a shadow over security cooperation.

Pakistan might be a tricky ally but it is vital to U.S. efforts to combat Islamist militants and to efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, where U.S. forces depend on Pakistani supply lines for water, food, fuel and other essentials.

In a sign of Pakistani anger, the chairman of Pakistan's joint chiefs of staff committee, General Khalid Shameem Wynne, on Friday canceled a five-day visit to the United States that had been set to begin on May 22.

But officials in Pakistan's civilian government said security cooperation with the United States would go on.

"There is difference of opinion but we'll continue our cooperation with the world as well as the United States," said one senior government official who declined to be identified.

Kerry told reporters in Afghanistan on Sunday he would hold a series of "important discussions" in Islamabad on Monday.

"CRITICAL MOMENT"

Kerry has long been seen as a friend of Pakistan but told reporters in Kabul on Sunday the relationship between Washington and Islamabad had reached "a critical moment."

"It is fair to say that some of my colleagues in the House and Senate have deep reservations as to whether or not Pakistan is committed to the same goals or prepared to be a full partner in pursuing those goals," Kerry told reporters.

The U.S. administration has not accused Pakistan of complicity in hiding bin Laden but has said he must have had some sort of support network, which it wants to uncover.

U.S. legislators have questioned whether Pakistan is serious about fighting militants and some have called for a suspension of U.S. aid.

Kerry said if there is no "improvement in the current situation" it will become increasingly difficult to convince people at home of the need to give aid to Pakistan.

Pakistan's parliament condemned on Saturday the U.S. raid to find and kill bin Laden, and called for a review of U.S. ties, warning that Pakistan could cut U.S. supply lines to its forces in Afghanistan if there were more such attacks.

ARRESTS

The United States is likely to seek Pakistani help in an investigation into an imam of a Florida mosque and his two sons, arrested in the United States on Saturday on charges of financing the Pakistani Taliban.

Three others charged were living in Pakistan, U.S. officials said. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said had yet to get a request for help but was ready to assist.

"As far as countering terrorism is concerned, there has been constant cooperation with the United States and there is no suspension of it," said ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua.

Kerry, speaking two days after two suicide bombers killed 80 people at a Pakistani paramilitary academy, said Pakistan was also a victim of "terrorism" and that the death of bin Laden provided a critical chance to move forward.

"This is not a moment for anything but very sober serious discussion with an understanding that there is a lot at stake. There is no other way to put it. I think they understand that, we understand that," he said.

Pakistan has rejected as absurd suggestions the killing showed incompetence or complicity in hiding the al Qaeda leader.

Kerry, a Democrat close to the Obama administration and who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said earlier it was "extraordinarily hard to believe" bin Laden could have been in Pakistan for so long without any knowledge.

Asked if the United States would conduct a similar raid inside Pakistan to kill Mullah Omar, the reclusive leader of the Afghan Taliban, Kerry said Washington would consider all options.

Pakistan has a long record of using Islamist militants as proxies, especially to counter the influence of nuclear-armed rival, India.

(Additional reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman in Kabul; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Paul Tait)

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Pancho Villa relative is new Mexico tough cop

CHETUMAL, Mexico (AP) — Much like his great uncle, revolutionary leader Pancho Villa, retired Mexican army Gen. Carlos Bibiano Villa Castillo isn't easily frightened.

Retired Army Gen. Carlos Bibiano Villa Castillo looks on last month during his swearing-in ceremony as Mexico's Public Security Secretary in Chetumal, Mexico.

Even before Villa started his job last month as top cop in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo, he'd received a grisly welcome from Mexico's most ruthless drug cartel, the Zetas.

"This is a little gift for you," read the note, which was placed on a dismembered body dumped near the resort city of Cancun. "You're next, Villa."

It was no idle threat. Two years ago, retired Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello was kidnapped, tortured and killed shortly after he was hired as a security adviser to root out corruption in Cancun.

The 62-year-old Villa, who shares the intense stare and strong features of his famous relative, is undeterred. He started his new job on April 5.

"Damn good that they sent me a warning," Villa told The Associated Press. "If they are warning me, I'll be ready."

Such bravado has been a trademark for Villa as he's joined the struggle to contain this country's escalating drug wars and suggested publicly that he subscribes to a shoot-first, ask-questions-later style of policing.

A father of three, Villa sleeps with a rifle and a .44 caliber pistol he calls "mi negrita" -- "my little black one." He joined the military at age 16, happy to receive three hot meals a day after a youth spent herding cattle in the mountains of Durango. A telecommunications and intelligence expert during his 43 years in the military, he rose to the rank of general and now calls the army his father, and the nation his mother.

In fact, Villa represents a new mold of top cop in a country where all levels of law enforcement -- even federal prosecutors -- have been co-opted by drug cartels. According to Mexico's Institute for Security and Democracy, 17 of Mexico's 32 states have retired military officers heading their departments of public security. Two years ago, the newspaper Reforma said there were only six.

That trend concerns human rights observers, who say a military-based approach threatens to only escalate the violence in a nation where mass graves and gang executions have become numbingly common. Nationwide, drug turf battles already have resulted in more than 34,000 deaths over the last four years.

"Military men have skills for eliminating their enemies, but not necessarily in crime prevention," said Juan Salgado, a specialist in public safety research at Mexico's Center for Economic Research and Teaching.

Oscar Manuel Soto, a researcher for the National Institute of Criminal Justice, notes that military officers have the advantage of specialized training in weapons and tactics, but that knowledge "is to handle situations of war, not to handle civilian situations, and that is a big problem."

The get-tough military style was made famous by Julian Leyzaola, a retired army lieutenant colonel and former Tijuana police chief who now heads public safety in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's most dangerous.

While his crackdown on crime was popular in Tijuana, he was accused of torturing police he labeled corrupt. Villa says his strategy and style have nothing to do with Leyzaola, whom he said he's never met.

Villa stoked similar worries, however, after retiring from the military in early 2009 and serving as police chief in the northern city of Torreon, a major battleground between the Zetas and Sinaloa cartels. By his own count, his force carried out 76 gun battles with cartel foot soldiers; he was grazed by a bullet fragment in one confrontation.

In the 15 months Villa was police chief, the Coahuila state commission on humans rights opened four investigations into reports of arbitrary detention by local police. The commission didn't provide information on the outcomes, but none included allegations of torture or more serious human rights violations.

It was in Torreon that Villa saw firsthand the carnage wrought by the Zetas, which have been blamed for the massacres of 183 people in March and 72 in August in northern Tamaulipas state.

Villa recently told a local newspaper, La Jornada, "When I catch a Zeta ? I kill him. Why interrogate him?"

He has since backed away from the comment, insisting he said it in a moment of pique, when he had just survived the second ambush targeting him in a year and seen the man he expected to replace him in Torreon murdered.

In fact, Villa, an athletic career soldier with a carefully cropped mustache, has been fond of throwing off such one-liners. He's also been quoted as saying, "The only thing (a police chief) needs is a set of balls, and no fear."

Villa said he had to get tough in Torreon because he was dealing with a police force he described as overweight, corrupt and inefficient. Of the 1,100-member police force, "1,000 were corrupt," he charged.

"What did I need criminals for, if they were all on the force?" he said. Some of the officers there even rented out their uniforms and vehicles to crooks, he added.

Villa fired 600 police officers in Torreon and recruited new ones, including 114 former soldiers. He instituted background and drug checks and extensive vetting for officers.

"I put some discipline in place, a heavy hand," he recalls.

Now, he promises to take a similar approach in Quintana Roo, a state the Zetas are believed to use as a trans-shipment point for drugs.

Villa said he sees some of the same problems among municipal and state police all over the country.

Of the 388,000 officers on such police forces, 70 percent have only a grade-school education and 60 percent earn less than $350 per month, raising concerns that they may be more susceptible to corruption.

On top of that, small town police also often are afraid of local criminals.

"A local policeman lives in that community, and the criminals know him, and know where he lives," Villa said. "And they threaten them, 'Cooperate or I'll go after your family.'"

His evaluation of the 1,700-member police force now under his command is hardly more encouraging.

"Sixty percent are useless: fat bellies, diabetes, flat feet ? they've got everything," he said.

Before taking the job, he was disappointed to hear his department had 60 advisers on the payroll.

"I don't want advisers, I want people on the street," Villa says. "What I want is 'go out and bust some heads.'"

In fact, Villa seems to be itching for a fight. He turned almost whimsical while describing the thrills of a gun battle.

"You should see how beautifully you start to sweat and the adrenaline gets running when the fighting starts," he said.

Whether the residents of Quintana Roo will welcome such an approach remains to be seen. But Villa's brazen attitude has won support from some desperate to put a stop to the constant drug cartel brutality.

"Men of these abilities and resoluteness are what the country needs," wrote reader Pedro Cazares in response to a La Jornada article about the general. "Just let them do their job."

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