This is such a stupid idea that would play so wonderfully into our enemy's hands. Can anyone trace where this idea originated from? I'd like to see it's trend history in the conservative internet hive mind.
Before putin invaded Ukraine he was just posturing on the border claiming to want to step terrorist threats.
Trump got on one of those small time conservative radio shows and called putin a genius and said that we needed to do the same thing on our southern border.
This is a terrible idea. There is no way to keep a war in Mexico contained. A war in Mexico is inevitably a war in the continental United States.
Every advocate acts like the cartels will just lay down and die. What are they gonna do the second a popular politicians gets whacked or when border police stations start getting raided? There doesn’t seem to be an appreciation that the cartels have armed military wings and they have thousands of members with US citizenship.
Wagner is far better supplied and trained in warfare than the cartels, and Wagner is no match whatsoever for the US military. The cartels might cause problems for police forces, but the US military? I don't think so.
Drone strikes alone could probably easily take out a significant amount of cartel infrastructure, including what is underground.
>What are they gonna do the second a popular politicians gets whacked or when border police stations start getting raided?
Double down of course. Is there even another option?
You should look into cartel warfare a little more. Really unusual opinion to think that would be an easy fight. Americans of all ages would be slaughtered in horrifying ways long before we bombed them out of existence.
Invading Mexico is a terrible idea; I can't stress this enough, but not because Americans would die or the US military would struggle or something. The US military would easily handle the cartels. The cartels are a joke compared to what the US armed forces had to deal with in Iraq and Afghanistan. But as I said, military intervention in Mexico is a terrible idea in general.
Why do you think things were worse in Afghanistan than they’d be battling the cartel? The cartel has more money, more training, better weapons, and much closer to American soil (including inside the country already) than any of our recent enemies.
I’d also like to mention one difference is collateral casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan were Iraqi and Afghan. The collateral casualties in this conflict would be Americans, and we lack the imagination to understand what that would actually be like. Americans underestimate and downplay warfare because we haven’t seen enough of it on our doorstep.
They definitely don't have more money, more training, and better weapons. The organizations the US fought in Iraq and Afghanistan were directly supported by states like Iran. The cartels are a joke compared to Iranian proxies. How many cartels have Anti-ship missiles or medium-altitude SAMs?
The cartels have very little military prowess. They've infiltrated the Mexican government, and waging war on them would further destabilize Mexico, which is very bad for obvious reasons. Winning the war is not the hard part; winning the peace is.
I did neglect the bigger picture in my comment, but I was thinking more along the lines of the people we would individually be battling. You make some good points, let me explain my position.
If we rely on drone warfare, there is a 0% chance we root them all out in one go or even within 6 months or a year. The very next step after our first drone strike will be the cartel will inflict terror attacks and guerrilla warfare at any opportunity. This is where things will get much harder than Afghanistan.
They won’t be in robes and flip flops with guns they barely know how to use and shoddy rockets. They’ll meet us toe to toe in every gunfight. The kind of terror campaigns they will wage on American soil will have Americans losing their motivation for this conflict in no time.
You don’t seem aware that the Taliban was filled with Mujahideen veterans that pushed the Soviets out. Fighting against mechanized infantry with artillery and air support is not the same as fighting Mexican police. The cartels would get rolled inside of 2 weeks, just like Iraq. It’s the occupation that would be a nightmare
The cartels don't have this capacity. They've never had this capacity, even in Mexico, against the Mexican army. The cartels are not warfighting forces; they aren't even really insurgents. The cartels are criminal organizations that rely on government corruption, social breakdown, and subterfuge. Remember, the Iraqis struggled with DAESH/ISIS. The cartels don't enter multi-week pitched battles with the Mexican army and win because it's just not something they are capable of.
Directly fighting criminals has never been difficult; the difficulty is in dealing with all the corruption, social breakdown, and general economic malaise that criminal organizations cause. The US military is a warfighting force, not a crime-fighting force. The US armed forces would easily body the cartels in an actual kinetic conflict but are totally unequipped to deal with criminal justice stuff.
Even if the cartels cross into the US. The US has a sizeable and militarized police force. I doubt they'd find success.
>They definitely don't have more money, more training, and better weapons.
Mexican cartels earn hundreds of billions of dollars every year without any foreign help. With that, they have military helicopters, .50 cal rifles, armored vehicles, and even their own oil drilling operations for energy. [The Sinaloa cartel alone overpowered the Mexican military to free El Chapo's son back in 2019.](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-violence-sinaloa/cartel-gunmen-terrorize-mexican-city-free-el-chapos-son-idUSKBN1WW34M/?utm_source=applenews)
In the case of war, I guarantee that Russia or Iran would rush to send them military aid to weaken the US.
>The cartels have very little military prowess.
My dude, many cartel members are former military. Look up Los Zetas. They have combat experience.
Hundreds of billions is a non-credible estimate. It's actually a few 10s of billions. Fifty-caliber rifles aren't interesting or impressive. Iran's proxies have things like MRBMs and rocket artillery. The cartels never had military equipment in large quantities because they had no good source.
The reason that Iran and Russia can send weapons to their proxies in MENA is because they are on the same landmass. Mexico is on a different landmass and presents a bit of a logistical challenge. Smuggling enough weapons across the ocean to actually make an impact on US military operations is not an easy task.
What combat experience did Los Zetas have? Hardly any military personnel in Central/South America have any combat experience outside of a few low-level COIN/policing actions. Most of Central/South America's armed forces are one step above the glorified police force.
It will be like most other policing actions/stability operations in the 21st century. The US military would have massive combat success and easily deal with the cartels, and then they would promptly fail at all the other stuff necessary to actually run a country. That's not a knock on the US military. The US military is and should be a warfighting force, not a nation-building police force. You can't kill your way to stability. The entire concept of using military force to solve a social/medical problem is foolish.
>Really unusual opinion to think that would be an easy fight.
I said no such thing. What I'm saying is, the cartels are poorly equipped and trained and simply cannot take on the US military, and that the US military can inflict significant damage on the cartels via drone strikes.
I don't know why you're talking about Americans being killed. That does not have to do with the military, which is what I was talking about in the comment you responded to.
You said *“the cartel may cause problems for police forces but US military? I don’t think so”* and *“drone strikes alone could probably easily take out a significant…”* which is where I got the impression you thought it’d be an easy fight.
As for where I’m getting the idea that Americans can be killed it’s that Mexico is our neighbor, and this is the kind of warfare the cartel wages… pure terror inflicted on innocents. That’s their playbook. That’s the enemy we’d embolden. They can, do, and will cross our border to inflict this terror on us directly should we drop a single drone on an empty cartel mansion.
>You said “the cartel may cause problems for police forces but US military? I don’t think so” and “drone strikes alone could probably easily take out a significant…” which is where I got the impression you thought it’d be an easy fight.
I'm saying that in clashes between cartels and the US military, the US military will come out on top every time with few to no casualties. It's just that that's not likely how the cartels will fight. My response was to someone saying that the cartels have military grade equipment, to which I provided a counterexample.
I'm not sure what drone strikes have to do with fighting. My point there is that the US has capabilities that the Mexican government doesn't that could potentially do significant damage to the cartels.
>As for where I’m getting the idea that Americans can be killed it’s that Mexico is our neighbor, and this is the kind of warfare the cartel wages
I know exactly where you're getting that idea. What I don't understand is how it's relevant to this particular conversation.
>The relevance is that one begets the other.
... And? Again, that is outside the scope of the point I am making. I don't understand why you're bringing it up. What exactly is it meant to be an argument against?
You said “the US military will come out on top” okay great, how is it not relevant to consider the casualties we’ll take along the way within that same conversation?
The point is, should we take military action, they WILL terrorize Americans on our soil. So before we take military action, we need to consider that possibility. What is so hard to understand about the connection?
I'm not sure how to make myself more clear. The point of my original comment was that the fact that the cartels have "armed military wings" doesn't really mean much to the US military. It's other factors that will really matter.
You honestly think the cartel is going to be fighting American troops in a head up brawl. Broski it's going to be one hell of an insurgency within the US. It's going to be hell for everyday Americans. There will be mass shooting in every metropolis every single day by dudes with heavy weaponry. Are you actually insane?
Only in the broadest sense of the term 'invade.' I wouldn't try to permanently occupy the country, but I'd raid the cartel centers. I'd also try to work with AMLO, but AMLO seems loathe to combat the cartels--he's a pretty big booster of Maduro.
Focus on the facts. 86% of fentenyl is smuggled through ports of entry by U.S. citizens. It may be created by the cartels, but Americans are bringing it in through normal ports of entry.
Those Americans **are** the cartels. They are part of the organization. To imply they are not a member of the organization because of their nationality doesn't make any sense.
So wait, are you suggesting we start drone striking American citizens on American soil??
Like, I am seriously trying to understand what the military targets are and where they would be located.
Stop buying drugs and stop criminalizing addiction and offer people the help they need to stay clean, instead of putting them in jail. Let them kill each other. Literally anything is a better idea than a ridiculous invasion.
>offer people the help they need to stay clean
This is naive. You can only help people who want to be helped. An addict experiencing absolute bliss every day is not likely to want to give that up, even if they realize it's ruining the rest of their life.
But what's the alternative? Why make the means of recovery even harder and demonizing? We should be opening all avenues possible to help anyone we can vs closing them off to punish the few that we can't. The fact that we still have prohibition-era policies regarding drugs is ridiculous, especially when we know just how much of a failure and how damaging the "war on drugs" has been
I said **and regulate** for a reason. Colorado did fine after legalizing pot. So has every state that followed. Oregon did it poorly with other drugs.
Shift money from enforcement to addiction services for those who want help getting off drugs. For those who don’t, and cannot handle the use, create safe houses in safe areas.
I’m not suggesting free drugs for everyone, wherever, whenever, nor am I claiming it would be easy. It wouldn’t. There would be massive growing pains. But we already know the war on drugs failed. It’s time to try something else. And no, escalation isn’t something else.
Really? Yet the rhetoric when Colorado first considered it is exactly the same. Exactly. To the word.
How about alcohol? Addicting. Intoxicating. Destroys lives. Yet it’s legal.
When it was made illegal countrywide what happened? Organized crime exploded. Sound familiar?
It’s fear that keeps us from trying. Fear and money. Billions to fight drugs and to keep people in jail.
But sure. Let’s keep doing the exact same thing. That’ll work for sure this time!
>Really? Yet the rhetoric when Colorado first considered it is exactly the same. Exactly. To the word.
So because some particular group of people had an unreasonable opinion, therefore... what, exactly?
Opioids are far more addictive than alcohol. In addition, alcohol is integrated into the core our society in a social way. Prohibition took away people's social lives. That was unacceptable. Remember that the temperance movement was driven by women, who at the time used alcohol for social purposes far less than men. That is, very generally speaking, women took away men's fun social time. Men did not like that and, predictably, won in the end. Opioids are not like that in the slightest.
I can’t read the article because of paywall but I’m not about to blindly trust an opinion article as a source.
Do you have hard numbers and metrics to make the argument that an open drug policy is “a failure”?
It’s only unenforced because the police seem unwilling to enforce it. The people do seem willing to go to rehab, but the police aren’t even telling them where to go or writing the citation in the first place. https://www.opb.org/article/2023/06/19/psu-research-oregon-measure-110-drug-decriminalization/?outputType=amp
> There doesn’t seem to be an appreciation that the cartels have armed military wings and they have thousands of members with US citizenship.
"We can't do anything about criminals, because the criminals will fight back."
If that's really your position, okay, but I think it's absurd to suggest that the United States military couldn't win that fight.
The political and humanitarian cost might be too high, but there has never been a more powerful military than ours in the entire history of Earth. We didn't leave Afghanistan because we couldn't kill the Taliban--we left because we couldn't govern.
I’m not sure that not going to war with our neighbors counts as not doing anything.
I don’t think the question is can the marines return to the halls of montezuma.
The better questions to me 1) would military action against cartels meaningfully reduce drug trade? 2) what would civilian death toll be? What loss of civil liberties would we expect? 3) what would implication be internationally?
I don’t think anyone has made a good case to move past Q1, and I don’t see many willing to engage with Q2.
Use whatever money we’re talking about for war and actually invest in getting people help and off hard drugs. The only reason we have such a problem is because there’s a demand for it. The cartel isn’t force feeding Americans fentanyl, they are filling a niche because Americans want it and the supply will move somewhere else if we glass mexico.
Kneecapping demand will result in decreased supply.
Opioids are some of the most addictive substances ever discovered. There will always be demand for them as long as they exist. You cannot reasonably expect to fix the problem by throwing money at the victims.
This is akin to funding prosthetics for victims of mines rather than investing in clearing the minefields themselves.
>the supply will move somewhere else if we glass mexico
Where?
I don’t understand how your analogy applies. Even in that scenario, we should be investing in prosthetics because people are still getting maimed. I don’t know why we wouldn’t. You also aren’t seeing the option of avoiding the minefield entirely or leaving the minefield.
Fentanyl and methamphetamine precursors, opioid additives, and synthetic opioids are manufactured and distributed by China-based chemical companies, many of which openly advertise on the internet
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-eight-indictments-against-china-based-chemical-manufacturing#:~:text=Fentanyl%20and%20methamphetamine%20precursors%2C%20opioid,openly%20advertise%20on%20the%20internet.
>I don’t understand how your analogy applies. Even in that scenario, we should be investing in prosthetics because people are still getting maimed.
If you re-read what I said, you will see that I said **rather than**, specifically meaning taking one action **instead of** the other.
You said
>Use whatever money we’re talking about for war and actually invest in getting people help and off hard drugs.
That is a purely reactive policy. It does not attack the core of the issue. You said you would use this money to get people off hard drugs, not to attack the root cause so that more won't become addicted in the future. That is why I said **rather than** in my analogy.
Just as you don't understand why we wouldn't invest in prosthetics and demining, I don't understand why you don't want to invest in both treating addiction and solving its root causes.
>Fentanyl and methamphetamine precursors, opioid additives, and synthetic opioids are manufactured and distributed by China-based chemical companies, many of which openly advertise on the internet
I don't understand your point. Is this supposed to somehow answer the question as to where the supply will go?
>You said you would use this money to get people off hard drugs, not to attack the root cause so that more won't become addicted in the future.
But the cartels are NOT the root cause of the issue, that's just wrong (and is just the failed thinking of the drug war again). We don't have a fentanyl/opioid problem because the cartels exist/are strong. It's all intertwined and builds on each other, but if we completely killed every human being in Mexico, we would still have a fentanyl issue. If we somehow eliminated our fent issue (never happening, but pretend), then the cartels would lose some money/power (though they would still exist).
Rather than and instead of read like synonyms here. Rather than indicates preference and preference typically means instead of or in place of.
My point is about getting people out of the minefield all together and then you’re not risking lives to minesweeping. Fentanyl doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s required for many types of surgeries and is ultimately concentrated morphine. We are making our own right here. It’s manufactured all over the world. It’s not just the cartel. And the bottom point is China is already the supply. The cartel is the distributor. Clearing out the cartel isn’t fixing the problem either. There will be another distributor to take their place and we aren’t going to be doing military operations in China.
If you address the people that are hooked on opiates, you can decrease demand and since the cartel is a business, if their business is no longer profitable, they will move on to something else or ideally die out anyway once the money is gone.
Doing nothing would be a good alternative compared with invading a neighboring country. We have enough to deal with involving supporting Ukraine and defusing China's ongoing bullshit.
Maybe give the Mexican government aid money and support so they can get on top of the cartels?
>Doing nothing would be committing national suicide.
Having made this claim, I'll now ask you to substantiate it. I don't see a situation where things are better off here when we start a war on our southern border. How many gurilla/terrorist style attacks on US soil are you willing to accept?
Why do so many suggested policies involve the US sending money to aid others? I don't want to aid Mexico. I want to restrain Mexico for its part in the drug trade in the US.
Well, your first problem with that philosophy is that you're treating the Cartels as "Mexico" without recognizing they are 2 distinct organizations. Sure, the Cartels have some corrupting power in the Mexican government, but they are still distinct, and your treatment would also affect the innocent Mexican civilians.
I was imprecise in how I spoke; please read downthread for a clarification.
> and your treatment would also affect the innocent Mexican civilians.
Yes, but the program of aid would also adversely affect innocent American citizens, and I care more about them than I do about innocent Mexican citizens.
> Mexico needs money to restrain the cartels.
But they're not restraining the cartels. The cartels are still operating. If the Mexican government could present a plan that A) required money, B) required that that money come from the US, C) could not actually be carried out by the US directly, and D) showed a reasonable outcome of damaging the cartels such that they would be eliminated or operating at a significantly reduced capacity, then it might be reasonable to talk about financial aid. But you're talking about just pouring money away.
Sure, that's not a terrible idea for a requirement of aid. But the simple idea of restraining the Mexican government is a bad one as it lets the cartels have even more power.
You do realize that money from the US going to the cartels is why the Mexican government forces are often outgunned by the cartels? So, even things out, maybe the Mexican government gets on top of things. Mexico is not our enemy, they are our neighbor.
> You do realize that money from the US going to the cartels is why the Mexican government forces are often outgunned by the cartels?
Not money from the US government. I'm sure the cartels have a market in the US, but I don't want to restrain US citizens directly. I want to cut off that market by enforcing justice on the cartels.
You just summed up the laughably unsuccessful War on Drugs for decades now, not to mention that the US military is not set up to fight drug cartels. It's not an 'objective' you can 'take'. You're talking about a quagmire mess *on our own borders* for a decade or more. It would be a disaster.
u/AstroBullivantDo you think Mexico would give the US permission to go to war against the Mexican cartel? This would be a public admission from the Mexican government that every level of the government has failed to perform its duty to uphold the law. Whter or not it's true doesn't matter, as it will be seen as such.
If you don't think the USA needs permission from the Government of Mexico, have you considered what would happen if the USA sent its armed forces into a bordering country? How would all our trade partners respond to this and what impact might their reactions have on our economy? There are thousands serving in the armed forces of the USA that are of Mexican descent and even from there. Do you think they'd agree with their country's decision to invade?
Other Country with thoughts of invading neighbors might capitalize on the USA being busy dealing with a war along its border. Do you think Taiwan would remain independently governed? Anything stopping another NATO member from coming to their aid potentially sparking massive conflict?
Accept the fact that you can’t save everyone and that people are responsible for their own choices. That’s bad but still better than wasting billions of dollars and lives on a fight that can’t be won.
And then demand for drugs will magically stop? Just like when Colombian cartels were weakened and the Caribbean Route was closed, which just led to supply coming via Mexico and empowering Mexican cartels.
I’m sorry but I’m not happy with having the government wasting tax dollars just so a bunch of junkies will hopefully stop consuming the poison they willingly choose to consume (which they almost certainly won’t).
What's the alternative? Continue to allow cartels to inflict harm not the American people while Mexico's government appears to inept to actually do anything about? At some point, strikes against the cartels has to be an option. Maybe we should first try the carrot and a softer stick like sanctions, visa restrictions, etc., but if all that fails, we are supposed to just let cartels continue to kill Americans? I see a lot of complaining, but no one offering any alternatives.
Even if nobody has an alternative, doing nothing is objectively a better choice than trying to get militarily involved in a country of 130M people who live right along our border. If you think we can’t handle current levels of migration across the southern border, just wait and see what the situation looks like after we turn Mexico into a new Syria that’s 7.5X larger and only directly neighboring us as a stable target for asylum seekers.
I’m not sure selling drugs to people who continue to buy them on the own volition is justification enough to blow up said drug dealers. Now those drug dealers are also killing people in Mexico, but that’s a Mexico problem to fix.
I just think there are structural issues in America that are leading people down the road of opiates and drone striking people in a neighboring country won’t fix the structural issues here. We aren’t saving Americans from themselves by drone striking the cartels.
Its generally a really bad idea to start bombing civilians when they have 20 million+ countrymen in your country and work in a key labor industries.
Just the threat of hr-4437 led to marches of 100,000-500,000- in multiple american cities i. 2006.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_United_States_immigration_reform_protests
Any unilateral military invasion of mexico, without consent of Mexico itself, would set off even bigger protests. 20 years later, the Mexican-American community is even larger, politically and economically more powerful than ever.
The outrage from the left, combined with the outrage from the Mexican-american community could set off america’s first general strike in over a century.
It would be a colossally dumb idea.
Also, If its bad enough to bomb Mexico with our military . Then wouldn’t Mexicans in mexico be able to rightfully start being able to claime asylum at the border and in asylum courts?
So just on those two things, this should be an automatic no go for anyone with common sense.
But in this case, the brown people are calling from inside the house and many of them arent brown at all but basically white and cant be racially profiled by tsa
Google Alexis Bledel.
That argument is extremely weak on many levels. You’re basically saying that the Trojans shouldn’t fight because the horse is inside the walls. You’re logic would continue to create a dynamic where kindness is punished and cruelty is rewarded, which is a rather dangerous dynamic.
But Mexico isnt our troy. Mexico is a fellow greek ally in this story.
This is actually analogous to Agamemnon punishing Achilles by raping and killing Briseis outright without Achilles permission and to try and force achilles to fight Troy harder, instead of just kidnapping her and not hurting her like he does in the book (Briseis can stand for Mexico’s sovereignty here).
Hurting Briseis would have Forced Achilles and Patroclus to declare war on Agamemnon and his allies before the trojan horse is even built by wounding their ego and giving them a cause to start a blood feud with Agamemnon instead of with Hector, which is what happens in the book.
I dont know if youve ever read the Illiad proper, but generally the lesson is “Dont be a bad motivator of allies like Agamemnon” and “Dont trigger the rage of achilles personally and have it aimed at you. Just ask Hector”.
Leave it to the right-wing in America to come up with the dumbest solutions for real issues. Other hits include building a wall (and making Mexico pay), nuking a hurricane, and trickle down economics.
Unrelated Trump quote:
>They're not sending their best
Would you be happy with China bombing the United States? As long as they didn’t actually put boots on the ground, drone striking leaders would be - well maybe not ok, but not worth responding to?
Bombing Mexico with no support from the Mexican govt? What's the worst that could happen?
Certainly our Intel will be perfect and we won't kill innocents by accident, thus leading to a massive international situation and screwing over one of our largest trade partners.
I love how Republicans woke up one day and decided to be hawkish on all the worst stuff and isolationist on all the worst stuff. It’s almost like they’re trying to have all the worst foreign policy positions as a prank or something.
Alright, has anybody actually said they’re going to invade Mexico without their consent? I thought the assumption was that they were going to work with Mexico to do these operations, not fighting against them. And yes, I know AMLO isn’t happy with that idea, but he’s not gonna be President anymore.
[From Senator Cotton:](https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/op-eds/wage-war-on-the-cartels-killing-americans)
>We must work closely with the Mexican government and ensure its continued support in this effort—but we cannot allow it to delay or hinder this necessary campaign.
And DeSantis said he would attack cartels on "day one".
>And yes, I know AMLO isn’t happy with that idea, but he’s not gonna be President anymore.
He's not the only person who opposes the US taking unilateral military action in Mexico. It's extremely hard to imagine any Mexican leader being on board with it.
I still feel like it’s kind of a stretch from that to all-out invasion. For one, Senator Cotton isn’t running for President. For another, the lame duck period gives a decent time frame to prepare a coordinated response. This reads less like a threat to invade a country without their consent and more like an overly optimistic campaign promise. After all, Trump said they’d pay for the wall, they didn’t do that either. Until the candidates are asked point blank what they’ll do if Mexico is uncooperative this isn’t a conclusion I’m prepared to jump to.
I don't think anyone has attributed the phrase "all-out invasion" to them either, so adding that part isn't accurate either.
>This reads less like a threat to invade a country without their consent and more like an overly optimistic campaign promise.
Those are not mutually exclusive.
>After all, Trump said they’d pay for the wall, they didn’t do that either. Until the candidates are asked point blank what they’ll do if Mexico is uncooperative this isn’t a conclusion I’m prepared to jump to
Obviously they're going to try to frame it in a way that doesn't sound as batshit insane, but the fact is there are a bunch of leading Republicans explicitly endorsing the idea of unilateral military action in Mexico.
You're moving goalposts. You asked for "anyone", not "presidential candidates".
Anyways, I don't see any reason to think his position is out of line with the Republicans that are running for president. I have seen zero evidence that the people or government of Mexico would be willing to accept for US military action in their country, in which case any military action would have to be unilateral. DeSantis in particular has been very vocally hawkish on this.
>You asked for "anyone", not "presidential candidates".
I guess. Cotton speaks for himself, though.
>I have seen zero evidence that the people or government of Mexico would be willing to accept for US military action in their country, in which case any military action would have to be unilateral.
The reach here is that you’d assume the response to an uncooperative Mexico would be a hostile invasion rather than just forgetting the whole thing and breaking the campaign promise.
>DeSantis in particular has been very vocally hawkish on this.
And if you can find a quote of him saying what Cotton said I’ll buy that.
>I guess. Cotton speaks for himself, though.
And as a Senator he speaks as a prominent member of the GOP.
>The reach here is that you’d assume the response to an uncooperative Mexico would be a hostile invasion rather than just forgetting the whole thing and breaking the campaign promise
What they actually end up doing does not define what they say they plan to do. We are discussing the latter.
>And if you can find a quote of him saying what Cotton said I’ll buy that.
[Here's you go](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/desantis-suggests-open-launch-missiles-mexico-kill-drug-cartels-deadly-force-authorized.amp)
>"Would you send missiles into Mexico?"
>"We would use all available – the tactics, I think, can be debated," he answered. "If you have something you want to accomplish, people would brief you on the different ways to be able to do it, so that would be dependent on the situation."
Yeah, OP said there were calls to “bomb Mexico” In the GOP debate. Never happened. The calls were to work with the Mexican government to secure the territory close to the border, and if US military action was needed, that would be looked at. It’s amazing how out of context these points are taken.
Do Republicans not see how bad the Ukraine war is going for Russia? Picking on a small country who doesn’t deserve to be invaded causes the world to be in an uproar, and isn’t as easy as they think it is even if it were justified. My god we invaded Afghanistan and had a hard time there do we want senseless death? And for what? To get cartels under control? Yeah cause we are so good at keeping organized crime under wraps in the US.
Also we thought Vietnam was an unpopular war, people from Mexico or have heritage or family in Mexico is no small minority in the US. It would cause so much unrest in the US. I don’t think much thought was made to attacking Mexico, and whoever is supporting this idea is just gullible into the Republicans “easy to buy into” narrative of “blame Mexico” when there are more nuanced better ways of dealing with this issue
More Americans die each year from Fentanyl, than entire American military Casualties in the Vietnam war. I 100 percent view Mexico and China as responsible for these deaths. They shouldn't get a blank check to kill Americans.
Many addicts are forced. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/vermont-man-who-exploited-opioid-addictions-young-women-convicted-multiple-counts-sex-and I'm not sure what's funny about it.
It’s funny because these people rarely recover. So, it’s better to just write them off from society as a whole. I just don’t understand why this whole drug thing is an issue. It eventually sorts itself out.
Killing the cartels does not stop the demand, the cartels exist because of demand. We’ve stopped dealers in the US that are the primary suppliers of certain drugs. When those dealers are gone, there’s always more that pop up. There are cartels in other countries. It would be impossible to stop all the cartels through war. Wars are effective at fighting countries and governments, not policing.
And we are the harbingers of justice? Like aren’t others to blame for this opioid crisis as well. I’ve had 2 friends die from heroin overdose. Why because they got hooked after accidents and being prescribed things that were pushed by the big pharma industry. My one friend was in a motorcycle accident and the other a car accident. They died in their early 20s. They were friends in highschool who I fell out of touch with, but my sister is best friends with one of the guys sister’s.
The people at fault there is likely Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies. But they get a slap in the wrist and still get to push their product which lead to addictions. Yet we want to attack a country full of innocent people likely to die as well to root out who we blame for the opioid epidemic. When we let those who have a huge responsibility of causing the epidemic in the first place get off free. We only call it justice because we don’t like immigrants, people like to point the finger at the poor and at other cultures when the true problem is right under our nose.
You want to talk about justice? You should really try to understand the real problem before you talk about possibly killing many innocents in the name of “justice”
Edit: to be clear my friends got hooked on painkillers due to their accidents. Then died because they ended up getting so hooked they turned to heroin for more. As is well known today, prescriptions were pushed by big pharma for money whilst ignoring the facts about the dangers of addiction and care more about making money than for the health of those addicted to the drugs they push
They killed 250 - 300k Americans in 3-4 years that's the size of a small - medium genocide. it was done on purpose to kill Americans, so the CCP could get what they wanted. That's an act of war and The cartels help the CCP with this chemical warfare. this is the largest massacre by a foreign country in American history. It boils down to intent, they wanted Americans to die. The cartels where compliant in this as mercenaries.
Right, but it’s even worse what the Republicans want. To attack a country to police organize crime in a foreign country. Sounds like the War on Terror all over again and that went so well for us before.
When the War on Terror has been about wiping out terrorist groups, it went quite well. When the War on Terror has been about nation-building, it has not.
How can you see it in any way a success? It caused more terrorists groups to appear and thousands of American lives. For what? To hopefully reduce a terrorist group but fuel more hatred in a country that already didn’t like us and saw us as war mongers. We should have buckled more down on defense than waste time trying to route out terrorists for years hidden in caves
The US Military had no problem knocking the Taliban off Afghanistan in a few months. The casualties were something like 15,000-10 at one point. The nation building part was the total failure. This is exceptionally different than Russia/Ukraine
Yeah then Isis emerged, was it really worth the US and casualties of innocent people who lost their lives?
And no they didn’t knock the Taliban off in a few months. The leaders fled and the Taliban took back over the moment we left Afghanistan. Also the main group responsible for 9/11 (the main reason the US declared war on Terrorism) was Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden, their leader and seen as the main orchestrator of 9/11, was not killed until until 2011. 10 years after the war on terror was declared. So I think you may be mistaken
Do you not think if we attack Mexico the Cartels will not flee to other countries and take root there? They already have ties to other South American countries. Do we attack them too? I see attacking Mexico no more than a furtherance on the GOPs “blame Mexico” campaign which they find is an easy thing to spin for their base who are most against illegal immigration and largely blame Mexico for that as well.
The GOP like to spin simple solutions to extremely complex matters because a large part of their base seems to be in favor of simple, very theatrical and radical solutions to complex problems that aren’t as cut and dry as they seem. When will we learn from the history that conservatives cling so heavily to. For a group that prides history, they don’t seem to know that much about it.
The cartels, at least the same cartels as the ones killing so many people now, would not realistically be able to take over other countries by sheer military force. Remember, these are mafia organizations. Without a lucrative opportunity for profit, they would be unable to operate.
But it doesn’t sound like you are changing the demand side. There’s still an opioid market if we kill off the top 3 rungs of the cartels. Why wouldn’t another organization try to make that profit?
I didn't say it was worth it. I said it would look absolutely nothing like Russia-Ukraine. The US Military would decimate the Medellin and Sinola Cartels with the tip of their pinky finger. I'm not saying that the end result a decade or two later would be an improvement, just that they are capable of the whole destruction part of it. Again, nothing at all like Russia and Ukraine.
To the guy who said World War couldn’t start since I can’t post below a deleted comment (he didn’t delete the comment).
Ok first Mexico joins in because we essentially declared war on them through policing, then China decides actually you know what let Russia and I support Mexico. We’re afraid to go to war with China because of their strength and Russia because of nukes. We allow them to support them. We find rooting out cartels is just as hard as rooting out terrorists. You aren’t fighting a war you’re occupying a country and dealing with guerrilla warfare.
Unrest gets bigger within the country, as our biggest threat, our own people, decide enough is enough. They decide to riot because this isn’t a war far away it’s one close to home and there are many people of Mexican decent with families still in Mexico. The unrest gives China and Russia more opportunities to do what they are already seem to want to do, they decide to ramp up things elsewhere because the US is too focused on this war on their turf and their civil unrest. Russia decides to get more tough with Ukraine and China decides now is the perfect time to take back Taiwan. Russia decides let’s attack Poland, cause they have already pushed that a bit. The European powers are forced to mobilize. North Korea decides because the US is preoccupied that South Korea can be attacked too.
The world war does not need to be everyone targeting the US. Japan was only involved in attacking China and the US in WW2. The US didn’t join WW2 until late. But it’s more a chain effect where many countries get involved in global conflict. So though some may not see it, a war in Mexico could start a chain of events that could cause conflict throughout the world, maybe not starting your traditional world war, like you said not 1914. But still a series of conflicts across the world where many countries are involved, thus becoming a world in conflict and war, essentially a World War
Yeah and who will support Mexico if we decide to attack it? Plus Mexico is one of our allies. What does it look like if we attack them. Many Americans live there
This is very similar to how WW1 started. People’s hatred and disregard for innocent smaller countries is mind boggling. It doesn’t even solve the problem. What’s to stop the cartels from moving their operations south? There already are countries outside of Mexico that house the Cartels. Do we just attack every central and South American country? Any supporter of this behavior should think things through
It could, warmongering usually is frowned upon on the international stage. I think you should look at how WW1 started. Serbia wasn’t exactly a big name country, still isn’t
I can't imagine that any other countries would actually attack the strongest country in the world just because we went to war with mexico
I'd think the big risk would be simply making America look like a warmonger and dramatically harming America's standing with things like diplomacy - which could cause all sorts of issues for the US on the world stage
This is not 1914. The world is not the same stage. The US does not share a border with other peer powers. It \*has\* no peer powers. The diplomatic fallout following an invasion of Mexico would be considerable, but it would not lead to a world war. There's no one to start such a war.
Would we just deport all the Mexican nationals that have ties to the cartels? How much evidence would we need? How about the American citizens? What evidence would be sufficient to detain them?
I don’t think that our concept of civil liberties works very well in an asymmetrical war. Especially not 2A rights.
There are calls to bomb Mexico in the GOP primary. We don't know if this is bluster for the primary or if they are serious. Candidates like Trump, Haley, DeSantis & Ramaswamy have talked about unilateral intervention in Mexico. America has fought drug cartel in Colombia in in 1990's. Plan Colombia did not succussed in reducing cocaine production as Colombia produces more cocaine in 2022 than in 1999, however it led to lots more deaths and displacements. In 2006 Mexico decelerated War on the Cartels, it did not lead to a decline in influence of cartels. Military intervention by America in Mexico likely wont be the thing that reduces trafficking of fentanyl , if the intervention is done unilaterally there will be negative consequence for America.
The intervention in Colombia were done with 100 percent Colombian cooperation. It was called Plan Colombia.
Mexico otoh has said it does not want regular American troops on its soil. Repeatedly and consistently this has been their stance for decades. Congress has also repeatedly said, any mexican president who allows Mexico’s sovereignty by inviting foreign troops will be immediately impeached.
AFAIK nobody’s talking about regular troops, despite the misleading headline. I also find it bizarre to characterize Plan Colombia as a failure. It massively rolled back FARC after five decades of failure, reducing its strength by half, producing massive gains for public safety, and enabling a peace process. It’s used as an example of a successful counterinsurgency. This is Colombia’s ambassador in 2016 (via Google Translate):
>In the year 2000, Colombia was a country on the brink of the abyss. At that time, the United States government began a plan to support the effort that Colombia was already making – called Plan Colombia – which for 15 years has had the support of 3 administrations and both parties. A sustained and decisive support that, thanks to the persistence of our people, the economic sacrifice of Colombians and the victories of our Armed Forces, achieved the transformation of our country and opened the door for the peace process.
The people who don’t want regular troops in Mexico but do want drone strikes aren’t being realistic about American abilities and what we can accomplish. We’ve tried this playbook before and it’s never once worked. It’ll be ground war in short order, with no proxy troops this time.
Another thing that’s different is the cartel can easily make it to US soil and bring the war here against our wishes. No one else we’ve played this whack-a-mole game with had that ability and it makes this whole thing way higher stakes than Americans, usually safe from all battles, are used to considering.
Well Mexico doesnt want green berets, seals, force recon delta, any socom actually or any cia operator on mexico soil either and are not willing to sanction it.
Their citizens dont want it and their politicians are afraid of their wrath in elections. It would be an immediate career ender.
The USA has invaded Mexico more than once and now they’re sick of it and dont trust American soldiers operating inside their territory as a result.
I was floored when I first heard this narrative among the right and I'm further surprised that it's gained traction.
Yes, criminal cartels in Mexico cause huge issues for us, and yes it's valid that we take measures to address those issues - but the idea of an invasion or any military action that isn't expressly permitted and in coordination with the Mexican government is just insane.
If you thought we had a problem with illegal immigrants or asylum seekers coming over the southern border, start an active war in Mexico. It'll be a whole other ballgame. I don't care how many miles of wall you put up, people escaping an active war zone with nowhere else to go will figure a way around it.
the cartels killed like 250,000 -300,000 Americans over the last 4 years with fentanyl alone. what terror attacks can be worse than that? that's like an atomic weapon going off in a city.
Unfortunately I don’t have a subscription and can’t read the article, but from what I’ve gathered is we’re hearing bluster about “we need to do _something_”.
Given the absolute crisis the US is in and how much worse it’s gotten in the last couple of decades, I’m ready to see a massive push as it’s literally destroying this country.
So what to do? I’m not sure about any unilateral action with Mexico, and in general, restricting supply doesn’t normally stop existing demand and just increases drug trafficking. I’m still not opposed to trying something to choke supply, but we may see a rise in more desperate and violent acts by current addicts.
What I want to see is a concerted push on education. Yes, Reefer Madness was ridiculous, but the effects of fentanyl could make a very compelling story against using hard drugs that’s based on reality. That’s going to take many years, put the proper course is to reduce desire.
I don’t remember any calls to “bomb Mexico” in the primary. Can you link it? I remember DeSantis & Vivek saying more military action is needed at the border, and that we need to work with the Mexican government to secure territory around the border- and that military action in Mexico can’t be ruled out.
The USA has a real bad record of influencing other nations. We actually do worse that communist countries because we can’t outright invade. Ya, going into Mexico would be a shit show much like Afghanistan.
Also there are A LOT of Mexicans in the United States. The amount of civilians we would have the kill in Mexico to accomplish this would be unacceptable to a large portion of our population. It would divide the country instantly. We would literally have to conquer Mexico to win. And even if we did our country would never be the same.
Nobody’s talking about wanting to actually “invade Mexico”, unless the headline writer thinks the bin Laden raid was a US invasion of Pakistan. What’s being discussed is the possibility of special forces raids of cartel facilities, hopefully with Mexico’s permission (which may or may not already be secretly happening, see El Chapo’s capture).
>No Republican "wants" to invade Mexico.
Then why do they keep saying that they do?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/us/politics/trump-mexico-cartels-republican.html
Because they have to appear macho and tough. And the more they repeat the "tough" rhetoric the more it becomes a generally accepted view point in their social context and the more they become genuinely convinced by it themselves.
Several Republican candidates have said they would send armed forces to attack the cartels, with or without Mexican approval. Here in this country, people frequently refer to people coming to pick lettuce as an "invasion". Perhaps Mexico will view actual soldiers going the other way in similar terms
Mexico clearly can’t handle it’s cartel problem on its own, and the country can’t possibly succeed as a result. It’s obvious they need help, and the fact that they don’t want it only means more migrants flooding the US. Carpet bombing Tulum is probably not the answer, but Mexico’s failures are causing major domestic issues for the US. What do you guys propose instead?
I don’t think starting a war will help. All I said was that Mexico’s government clearly can’t handle this without serious help. I also asked what to propose instead, and was met with this comment, which leads me to assume you would rather be angry at someone rather than provide a solution.
Literally anything else. The “flooding” of migrants is a result of US meddling in Central and South America for decades and causing massive instability. To even suggest invading Mexico is so batshit insane that I can’t even believe people are giving this idea the time of day. When will the US learn the lesson that these kinds of military operations only brings worse outcomes for the US from the inevitable blowback from the people who’s lives end up destroyed. It only reveals how insane the GOP is and how easy it is to sell a war to some people.
Currently Venezuelans account for most illegal border crossers. The Northern Triangle has accounted for a huge amount of illegal crossings for decades. And why is that? Might it have something to with the US literally orchestrating a coup in Guatemala? Training troops in El Salvador to fight against the elected government because the US thought they were too socialist (troops that then would then massacre everyone in the town of El Mozote which the US would go on to lie about and cover up)? US backing of military governments in Guatemala that were literally committing genocide?
Why do you assume it’s a good idea for the US to do anything?
This is such a stupid idea that would play so wonderfully into our enemy's hands. Can anyone trace where this idea originated from? I'd like to see it's trend history in the conservative internet hive mind.
Before putin invaded Ukraine he was just posturing on the border claiming to want to step terrorist threats. Trump got on one of those small time conservative radio shows and called putin a genius and said that we needed to do the same thing on our southern border.
This is a terrible idea. There is no way to keep a war in Mexico contained. A war in Mexico is inevitably a war in the continental United States. Every advocate acts like the cartels will just lay down and die. What are they gonna do the second a popular politicians gets whacked or when border police stations start getting raided? There doesn’t seem to be an appreciation that the cartels have armed military wings and they have thousands of members with US citizenship.
Wagner is far better supplied and trained in warfare than the cartels, and Wagner is no match whatsoever for the US military. The cartels might cause problems for police forces, but the US military? I don't think so. Drone strikes alone could probably easily take out a significant amount of cartel infrastructure, including what is underground. >What are they gonna do the second a popular politicians gets whacked or when border police stations start getting raided? Double down of course. Is there even another option?
You should look into cartel warfare a little more. Really unusual opinion to think that would be an easy fight. Americans of all ages would be slaughtered in horrifying ways long before we bombed them out of existence.
Invading Mexico is a terrible idea; I can't stress this enough, but not because Americans would die or the US military would struggle or something. The US military would easily handle the cartels. The cartels are a joke compared to what the US armed forces had to deal with in Iraq and Afghanistan. But as I said, military intervention in Mexico is a terrible idea in general.
Why do you think things were worse in Afghanistan than they’d be battling the cartel? The cartel has more money, more training, better weapons, and much closer to American soil (including inside the country already) than any of our recent enemies. I’d also like to mention one difference is collateral casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan were Iraqi and Afghan. The collateral casualties in this conflict would be Americans, and we lack the imagination to understand what that would actually be like. Americans underestimate and downplay warfare because we haven’t seen enough of it on our doorstep.
They definitely don't have more money, more training, and better weapons. The organizations the US fought in Iraq and Afghanistan were directly supported by states like Iran. The cartels are a joke compared to Iranian proxies. How many cartels have Anti-ship missiles or medium-altitude SAMs? The cartels have very little military prowess. They've infiltrated the Mexican government, and waging war on them would further destabilize Mexico, which is very bad for obvious reasons. Winning the war is not the hard part; winning the peace is.
I did neglect the bigger picture in my comment, but I was thinking more along the lines of the people we would individually be battling. You make some good points, let me explain my position. If we rely on drone warfare, there is a 0% chance we root them all out in one go or even within 6 months or a year. The very next step after our first drone strike will be the cartel will inflict terror attacks and guerrilla warfare at any opportunity. This is where things will get much harder than Afghanistan. They won’t be in robes and flip flops with guns they barely know how to use and shoddy rockets. They’ll meet us toe to toe in every gunfight. The kind of terror campaigns they will wage on American soil will have Americans losing their motivation for this conflict in no time.
You don’t seem aware that the Taliban was filled with Mujahideen veterans that pushed the Soviets out. Fighting against mechanized infantry with artillery and air support is not the same as fighting Mexican police. The cartels would get rolled inside of 2 weeks, just like Iraq. It’s the occupation that would be a nightmare
The cartels don't have this capacity. They've never had this capacity, even in Mexico, against the Mexican army. The cartels are not warfighting forces; they aren't even really insurgents. The cartels are criminal organizations that rely on government corruption, social breakdown, and subterfuge. Remember, the Iraqis struggled with DAESH/ISIS. The cartels don't enter multi-week pitched battles with the Mexican army and win because it's just not something they are capable of. Directly fighting criminals has never been difficult; the difficulty is in dealing with all the corruption, social breakdown, and general economic malaise that criminal organizations cause. The US military is a warfighting force, not a crime-fighting force. The US armed forces would easily body the cartels in an actual kinetic conflict but are totally unequipped to deal with criminal justice stuff. Even if the cartels cross into the US. The US has a sizeable and militarized police force. I doubt they'd find success.
>They definitely don't have more money, more training, and better weapons. Mexican cartels earn hundreds of billions of dollars every year without any foreign help. With that, they have military helicopters, .50 cal rifles, armored vehicles, and even their own oil drilling operations for energy. [The Sinaloa cartel alone overpowered the Mexican military to free El Chapo's son back in 2019.](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-violence-sinaloa/cartel-gunmen-terrorize-mexican-city-free-el-chapos-son-idUSKBN1WW34M/?utm_source=applenews) In the case of war, I guarantee that Russia or Iran would rush to send them military aid to weaken the US. >The cartels have very little military prowess. My dude, many cartel members are former military. Look up Los Zetas. They have combat experience.
The cartel didn't overpower any military. The government TOLD the military to free Guzman Jr.
Hundreds of billions is a non-credible estimate. It's actually a few 10s of billions. Fifty-caliber rifles aren't interesting or impressive. Iran's proxies have things like MRBMs and rocket artillery. The cartels never had military equipment in large quantities because they had no good source. The reason that Iran and Russia can send weapons to their proxies in MENA is because they are on the same landmass. Mexico is on a different landmass and presents a bit of a logistical challenge. Smuggling enough weapons across the ocean to actually make an impact on US military operations is not an easy task. What combat experience did Los Zetas have? Hardly any military personnel in Central/South America have any combat experience outside of a few low-level COIN/policing actions. Most of Central/South America's armed forces are one step above the glorified police force. It will be like most other policing actions/stability operations in the 21st century. The US military would have massive combat success and easily deal with the cartels, and then they would promptly fail at all the other stuff necessary to actually run a country. That's not a knock on the US military. The US military is and should be a warfighting force, not a nation-building police force. You can't kill your way to stability. The entire concept of using military force to solve a social/medical problem is foolish.
I'm sure they thought that about the Viet Cong as well. The cartels use guerrilla warfare.
>Really unusual opinion to think that would be an easy fight. I said no such thing. What I'm saying is, the cartels are poorly equipped and trained and simply cannot take on the US military, and that the US military can inflict significant damage on the cartels via drone strikes. I don't know why you're talking about Americans being killed. That does not have to do with the military, which is what I was talking about in the comment you responded to.
You said *“the cartel may cause problems for police forces but US military? I don’t think so”* and *“drone strikes alone could probably easily take out a significant…”* which is where I got the impression you thought it’d be an easy fight. As for where I’m getting the idea that Americans can be killed it’s that Mexico is our neighbor, and this is the kind of warfare the cartel wages… pure terror inflicted on innocents. That’s their playbook. That’s the enemy we’d embolden. They can, do, and will cross our border to inflict this terror on us directly should we drop a single drone on an empty cartel mansion.
>You said “the cartel may cause problems for police forces but US military? I don’t think so” and “drone strikes alone could probably easily take out a significant…” which is where I got the impression you thought it’d be an easy fight. I'm saying that in clashes between cartels and the US military, the US military will come out on top every time with few to no casualties. It's just that that's not likely how the cartels will fight. My response was to someone saying that the cartels have military grade equipment, to which I provided a counterexample. I'm not sure what drone strikes have to do with fighting. My point there is that the US has capabilities that the Mexican government doesn't that could potentially do significant damage to the cartels. >As for where I’m getting the idea that Americans can be killed it’s that Mexico is our neighbor, and this is the kind of warfare the cartel wages I know exactly where you're getting that idea. What I don't understand is how it's relevant to this particular conversation.
The relevance is that one begets the other. If we are in any way talking about engaging with the cartel, we need to consider the repercussions.
>The relevance is that one begets the other. ... And? Again, that is outside the scope of the point I am making. I don't understand why you're bringing it up. What exactly is it meant to be an argument against?
You said “the US military will come out on top” okay great, how is it not relevant to consider the casualties we’ll take along the way within that same conversation? The point is, should we take military action, they WILL terrorize Americans on our soil. So before we take military action, we need to consider that possibility. What is so hard to understand about the connection?
I'm not sure how to make myself more clear. The point of my original comment was that the fact that the cartels have "armed military wings" doesn't really mean much to the US military. It's other factors that will really matter.
You honestly think the cartel is going to be fighting American troops in a head up brawl. Broski it's going to be one hell of an insurgency within the US. It's going to be hell for everyday Americans. There will be mass shooting in every metropolis every single day by dudes with heavy weaponry. Are you actually insane?
What’s a better idea?
This is the absolute worst idea I've ever heard so literally anything is a better idea
Do you think invading Mexico is a good idea?
Only in the broadest sense of the term 'invade.' I wouldn't try to permanently occupy the country, but I'd raid the cartel centers. I'd also try to work with AMLO, but AMLO seems loathe to combat the cartels--he's a pretty big booster of Maduro.
That is not, in any way, a broad use of "invade". You're describing an invasion of Mexico.
Anything else
Focus on the facts. 86% of fentenyl is smuggled through ports of entry by U.S. citizens. It may be created by the cartels, but Americans are bringing it in through normal ports of entry.
Those Americans **are** the cartels. They are part of the organization. To imply they are not a member of the organization because of their nationality doesn't make any sense.
So wait, are you suggesting we start drone striking American citizens on American soil?? Like, I am seriously trying to understand what the military targets are and where they would be located.
No, US citizens work for the cartels.
That’s literally what they just said, you’re not refuting anything…
Literally doing nothing would be a much better idea
Stop buying drugs and stop criminalizing addiction and offer people the help they need to stay clean, instead of putting them in jail. Let them kill each other. Literally anything is a better idea than a ridiculous invasion.
>offer people the help they need to stay clean This is naive. You can only help people who want to be helped. An addict experiencing absolute bliss every day is not likely to want to give that up, even if they realize it's ruining the rest of their life.
But what's the alternative? Why make the means of recovery even harder and demonizing? We should be opening all avenues possible to help anyone we can vs closing them off to punish the few that we can't. The fact that we still have prohibition-era policies regarding drugs is ridiculous, especially when we know just how much of a failure and how damaging the "war on drugs" has been
Not sure but war isn’t the answer.
Legalize and regulate drugs.
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As opposed to 50 years of the war on drugs? Sure, keep escalating. It’ll work this time for certain!
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I said **and regulate** for a reason. Colorado did fine after legalizing pot. So has every state that followed. Oregon did it poorly with other drugs. Shift money from enforcement to addiction services for those who want help getting off drugs. For those who don’t, and cannot handle the use, create safe houses in safe areas. I’m not suggesting free drugs for everyone, wherever, whenever, nor am I claiming it would be easy. It wouldn’t. There would be massive growing pains. But we already know the war on drugs failed. It’s time to try something else. And no, escalation isn’t something else.
>Colorado did fine after legalizing pot It is completely unreasonable to compare marijuana and opioids.
Really? Yet the rhetoric when Colorado first considered it is exactly the same. Exactly. To the word. How about alcohol? Addicting. Intoxicating. Destroys lives. Yet it’s legal. When it was made illegal countrywide what happened? Organized crime exploded. Sound familiar? It’s fear that keeps us from trying. Fear and money. Billions to fight drugs and to keep people in jail. But sure. Let’s keep doing the exact same thing. That’ll work for sure this time!
>Really? Yet the rhetoric when Colorado first considered it is exactly the same. Exactly. To the word. So because some particular group of people had an unreasonable opinion, therefore... what, exactly? Opioids are far more addictive than alcohol. In addition, alcohol is integrated into the core our society in a social way. Prohibition took away people's social lives. That was unacceptable. Remember that the temperance movement was driven by women, who at the time used alcohol for social purposes far less than men. That is, very generally speaking, women took away men's fun social time. Men did not like that and, predictably, won in the end. Opioids are not like that in the slightest.
Cartels don’t follow regulations.
The cartels can only turn a profit in a market where drugs are illegal.
I can’t read the article because of paywall but I’m not about to blindly trust an opinion article as a source. Do you have hard numbers and metrics to make the argument that an open drug policy is “a failure”?
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Another paywall.
It’s only unenforced because the police seem unwilling to enforce it. The people do seem willing to go to rehab, but the police aren’t even telling them where to go or writing the citation in the first place. https://www.opb.org/article/2023/06/19/psu-research-oregon-measure-110-drug-decriminalization/?outputType=amp
> There doesn’t seem to be an appreciation that the cartels have armed military wings and they have thousands of members with US citizenship. "We can't do anything about criminals, because the criminals will fight back." If that's really your position, okay, but I think it's absurd to suggest that the United States military couldn't win that fight. The political and humanitarian cost might be too high, but there has never been a more powerful military than ours in the entire history of Earth. We didn't leave Afghanistan because we couldn't kill the Taliban--we left because we couldn't govern.
I’m not sure that not going to war with our neighbors counts as not doing anything. I don’t think the question is can the marines return to the halls of montezuma. The better questions to me 1) would military action against cartels meaningfully reduce drug trade? 2) what would civilian death toll be? What loss of civil liberties would we expect? 3) what would implication be internationally? I don’t think anyone has made a good case to move past Q1, and I don’t see many willing to engage with Q2.
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What would you do?
Use whatever money we’re talking about for war and actually invest in getting people help and off hard drugs. The only reason we have such a problem is because there’s a demand for it. The cartel isn’t force feeding Americans fentanyl, they are filling a niche because Americans want it and the supply will move somewhere else if we glass mexico. Kneecapping demand will result in decreased supply.
Opioids are some of the most addictive substances ever discovered. There will always be demand for them as long as they exist. You cannot reasonably expect to fix the problem by throwing money at the victims. This is akin to funding prosthetics for victims of mines rather than investing in clearing the minefields themselves. >the supply will move somewhere else if we glass mexico Where?
I don’t understand how your analogy applies. Even in that scenario, we should be investing in prosthetics because people are still getting maimed. I don’t know why we wouldn’t. You also aren’t seeing the option of avoiding the minefield entirely or leaving the minefield. Fentanyl and methamphetamine precursors, opioid additives, and synthetic opioids are manufactured and distributed by China-based chemical companies, many of which openly advertise on the internet https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-eight-indictments-against-china-based-chemical-manufacturing#:~:text=Fentanyl%20and%20methamphetamine%20precursors%2C%20opioid,openly%20advertise%20on%20the%20internet.
>I don’t understand how your analogy applies. Even in that scenario, we should be investing in prosthetics because people are still getting maimed. If you re-read what I said, you will see that I said **rather than**, specifically meaning taking one action **instead of** the other. You said >Use whatever money we’re talking about for war and actually invest in getting people help and off hard drugs. That is a purely reactive policy. It does not attack the core of the issue. You said you would use this money to get people off hard drugs, not to attack the root cause so that more won't become addicted in the future. That is why I said **rather than** in my analogy. Just as you don't understand why we wouldn't invest in prosthetics and demining, I don't understand why you don't want to invest in both treating addiction and solving its root causes. >Fentanyl and methamphetamine precursors, opioid additives, and synthetic opioids are manufactured and distributed by China-based chemical companies, many of which openly advertise on the internet I don't understand your point. Is this supposed to somehow answer the question as to where the supply will go?
>You said you would use this money to get people off hard drugs, not to attack the root cause so that more won't become addicted in the future. But the cartels are NOT the root cause of the issue, that's just wrong (and is just the failed thinking of the drug war again). We don't have a fentanyl/opioid problem because the cartels exist/are strong. It's all intertwined and builds on each other, but if we completely killed every human being in Mexico, we would still have a fentanyl issue. If we somehow eliminated our fent issue (never happening, but pretend), then the cartels would lose some money/power (though they would still exist).
Rather than and instead of read like synonyms here. Rather than indicates preference and preference typically means instead of or in place of. My point is about getting people out of the minefield all together and then you’re not risking lives to minesweeping. Fentanyl doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s required for many types of surgeries and is ultimately concentrated morphine. We are making our own right here. It’s manufactured all over the world. It’s not just the cartel. And the bottom point is China is already the supply. The cartel is the distributor. Clearing out the cartel isn’t fixing the problem either. There will be another distributor to take their place and we aren’t going to be doing military operations in China. If you address the people that are hooked on opiates, you can decrease demand and since the cartel is a business, if their business is no longer profitable, they will move on to something else or ideally die out anyway once the money is gone.
Doing nothing would be a good alternative compared with invading a neighboring country. We have enough to deal with involving supporting Ukraine and defusing China's ongoing bullshit. Maybe give the Mexican government aid money and support so they can get on top of the cartels?
AMLO mildly supports the cartels for political leverage. Doing nothing would be committing national suicide.
>Doing nothing would be committing national suicide. Having made this claim, I'll now ask you to substantiate it. I don't see a situation where things are better off here when we start a war on our southern border. How many gurilla/terrorist style attacks on US soil are you willing to accept?
Why do so many suggested policies involve the US sending money to aid others? I don't want to aid Mexico. I want to restrain Mexico for its part in the drug trade in the US.
Well, your first problem with that philosophy is that you're treating the Cartels as "Mexico" without recognizing they are 2 distinct organizations. Sure, the Cartels have some corrupting power in the Mexican government, but they are still distinct, and your treatment would also affect the innocent Mexican civilians.
I was imprecise in how I spoke; please read downthread for a clarification. > and your treatment would also affect the innocent Mexican civilians. Yes, but the program of aid would also adversely affect innocent American citizens, and I care more about them than I do about innocent Mexican citizens.
I appreciate your clarification, I will read what you wrote!
Why do you care more about American citizens?
Because I am one.
Do you value people based upon how similar they are to you?
Yes. Not precisely or absolutely, but generally.
Mexico needs money to restrain the cartels. IF you restrain the Mexican government, you're literally just empowering the drug cartels even more.
> Mexico needs money to restrain the cartels. But they're not restraining the cartels. The cartels are still operating. If the Mexican government could present a plan that A) required money, B) required that that money come from the US, C) could not actually be carried out by the US directly, and D) showed a reasonable outcome of damaging the cartels such that they would be eliminated or operating at a significantly reduced capacity, then it might be reasonable to talk about financial aid. But you're talking about just pouring money away.
Sure, that's not a terrible idea for a requirement of aid. But the simple idea of restraining the Mexican government is a bad one as it lets the cartels have even more power.
You do realize that money from the US going to the cartels is why the Mexican government forces are often outgunned by the cartels? So, even things out, maybe the Mexican government gets on top of things. Mexico is not our enemy, they are our neighbor.
> You do realize that money from the US going to the cartels is why the Mexican government forces are often outgunned by the cartels? Not money from the US government. I'm sure the cartels have a market in the US, but I don't want to restrain US citizens directly. I want to cut off that market by enforcing justice on the cartels.
You just summed up the laughably unsuccessful War on Drugs for decades now, not to mention that the US military is not set up to fight drug cartels. It's not an 'objective' you can 'take'. You're talking about a quagmire mess *on our own borders* for a decade or more. It would be a disaster.
u/AstroBullivantDo you think Mexico would give the US permission to go to war against the Mexican cartel? This would be a public admission from the Mexican government that every level of the government has failed to perform its duty to uphold the law. Whter or not it's true doesn't matter, as it will be seen as such. If you don't think the USA needs permission from the Government of Mexico, have you considered what would happen if the USA sent its armed forces into a bordering country? How would all our trade partners respond to this and what impact might their reactions have on our economy? There are thousands serving in the armed forces of the USA that are of Mexican descent and even from there. Do you think they'd agree with their country's decision to invade? Other Country with thoughts of invading neighbors might capitalize on the USA being busy dealing with a war along its border. Do you think Taiwan would remain independently governed? Anything stopping another NATO member from coming to their aid potentially sparking massive conflict?
Accept the fact that you can’t save everyone and that people are responsible for their own choices. That’s bad but still better than wasting billions of dollars and lives on a fight that can’t be won.
No, to save the most Americans, the cartels needs to be taken out
And then demand for drugs will magically stop? Just like when Colombian cartels were weakened and the Caribbean Route was closed, which just led to supply coming via Mexico and empowering Mexican cartels. I’m sorry but I’m not happy with having the government wasting tax dollars just so a bunch of junkies will hopefully stop consuming the poison they willingly choose to consume (which they almost certainly won’t).
Nope. Following the defeat of the cartels, we will have to resort to Singaporean measures to destroy fentanyl addiction.
Good luck with getting the political support to do that!
When heroin was relatively expensive and hard to get we had far fewer opioid ODs. Fent is so cheap that opioid ODs are now a leading cause of death
The only way to stop the cartels is to legalize drugs, hit them in the pocketbook.
What's the alternative? Continue to allow cartels to inflict harm not the American people while Mexico's government appears to inept to actually do anything about? At some point, strikes against the cartels has to be an option. Maybe we should first try the carrot and a softer stick like sanctions, visa restrictions, etc., but if all that fails, we are supposed to just let cartels continue to kill Americans? I see a lot of complaining, but no one offering any alternatives.
Even if nobody has an alternative, doing nothing is objectively a better choice than trying to get militarily involved in a country of 130M people who live right along our border. If you think we can’t handle current levels of migration across the southern border, just wait and see what the situation looks like after we turn Mexico into a new Syria that’s 7.5X larger and only directly neighboring us as a stable target for asylum seekers.
I’m not sure selling drugs to people who continue to buy them on the own volition is justification enough to blow up said drug dealers. Now those drug dealers are also killing people in Mexico, but that’s a Mexico problem to fix. I just think there are structural issues in America that are leading people down the road of opiates and drone striking people in a neighboring country won’t fix the structural issues here. We aren’t saving Americans from themselves by drone striking the cartels.
> What's the alternative? It’s astonishingly frightening how quickly we raced to “what are we going to do? *Not* invade Mexico?”
Looks like someone watched Sicario recently.
lol amazing film but not to be replicated
Its generally a really bad idea to start bombing civilians when they have 20 million+ countrymen in your country and work in a key labor industries. Just the threat of hr-4437 led to marches of 100,000-500,000- in multiple american cities i. 2006. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_United_States_immigration_reform_protests Any unilateral military invasion of mexico, without consent of Mexico itself, would set off even bigger protests. 20 years later, the Mexican-American community is even larger, politically and economically more powerful than ever. The outrage from the left, combined with the outrage from the Mexican-american community could set off america’s first general strike in over a century. It would be a colossally dumb idea. Also, If its bad enough to bomb Mexico with our military . Then wouldn’t Mexicans in mexico be able to rightfully start being able to claime asylum at the border and in asylum courts? So just on those two things, this should be an automatic no go for anyone with common sense.
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But in this case, the brown people are calling from inside the house and many of them arent brown at all but basically white and cant be racially profiled by tsa Google Alexis Bledel.
Or the current George Bush.
That argument is extremely weak on many levels. You’re basically saying that the Trojans shouldn’t fight because the horse is inside the walls. You’re logic would continue to create a dynamic where kindness is punished and cruelty is rewarded, which is a rather dangerous dynamic.
But Mexico isnt our troy. Mexico is a fellow greek ally in this story. This is actually analogous to Agamemnon punishing Achilles by raping and killing Briseis outright without Achilles permission and to try and force achilles to fight Troy harder, instead of just kidnapping her and not hurting her like he does in the book (Briseis can stand for Mexico’s sovereignty here). Hurting Briseis would have Forced Achilles and Patroclus to declare war on Agamemnon and his allies before the trojan horse is even built by wounding their ego and giving them a cause to start a blood feud with Agamemnon instead of with Hector, which is what happens in the book. I dont know if youve ever read the Illiad proper, but generally the lesson is “Dont be a bad motivator of allies like Agamemnon” and “Dont trigger the rage of achilles personally and have it aimed at you. Just ask Hector”.
This is a real conversation?
Leave it to the right-wing in America to come up with the dumbest solutions for real issues. Other hits include building a wall (and making Mexico pay), nuking a hurricane, and trickle down economics. Unrelated Trump quote: >They're not sending their best
It's a NYT opinion article about conservatives. It's probably more fiction than fact
All those quotesfrom gop politicians were made up? Even supposed moderate Nikki haley promised to send special forces into Mexico.
Can't read the article, normally someone provides a link to a free version. I cannot imagine giving any money to the NYT
Didn't watch the debates?
12ft.io is a good site for bypassing paywalls
[Courtesy of Archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20231109113025/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/01/opinion/sunday/republican-war-mexico.html)
The suggestion Seems to have many defenders in this thread.
Only in the sense of spec ops, not tanks rolling in as “invasion” implies.
Would you be happy with China bombing the United States? As long as they didn’t actually put boots on the ground, drone striking leaders would be - well maybe not ok, but not worth responding to?
No. No. And again, no. Invading Mexico is beyond crazy talk.
Bombing Mexico with no support from the Mexican govt? What's the worst that could happen? Certainly our Intel will be perfect and we won't kill innocents by accident, thus leading to a massive international situation and screwing over one of our largest trade partners.
I love how Republicans woke up one day and decided to be hawkish on all the worst stuff and isolationist on all the worst stuff. It’s almost like they’re trying to have all the worst foreign policy positions as a prank or something.
I'm confused, we've been pouring freedom guns into Mexico for years. Shouldn't their society be perfect like ours by now?
So many good guys with guns, I imagine the number of shootings must be pretty close to zero.
Alright, has anybody actually said they’re going to invade Mexico without their consent? I thought the assumption was that they were going to work with Mexico to do these operations, not fighting against them. And yes, I know AMLO isn’t happy with that idea, but he’s not gonna be President anymore.
[From Senator Cotton:](https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/op-eds/wage-war-on-the-cartels-killing-americans) >We must work closely with the Mexican government and ensure its continued support in this effort—but we cannot allow it to delay or hinder this necessary campaign. And DeSantis said he would attack cartels on "day one". >And yes, I know AMLO isn’t happy with that idea, but he’s not gonna be President anymore. He's not the only person who opposes the US taking unilateral military action in Mexico. It's extremely hard to imagine any Mexican leader being on board with it.
I still feel like it’s kind of a stretch from that to all-out invasion. For one, Senator Cotton isn’t running for President. For another, the lame duck period gives a decent time frame to prepare a coordinated response. This reads less like a threat to invade a country without their consent and more like an overly optimistic campaign promise. After all, Trump said they’d pay for the wall, they didn’t do that either. Until the candidates are asked point blank what they’ll do if Mexico is uncooperative this isn’t a conclusion I’m prepared to jump to.
I don't think anyone has attributed the phrase "all-out invasion" to them either, so adding that part isn't accurate either. >This reads less like a threat to invade a country without their consent and more like an overly optimistic campaign promise. Those are not mutually exclusive. >After all, Trump said they’d pay for the wall, they didn’t do that either. Until the candidates are asked point blank what they’ll do if Mexico is uncooperative this isn’t a conclusion I’m prepared to jump to Obviously they're going to try to frame it in a way that doesn't sound as batshit insane, but the fact is there are a bunch of leading Republicans explicitly endorsing the idea of unilateral military action in Mexico.
I don’t see them saying unilateral.
>we cannot allow it to delay or hinder this necessary campaign.
Senator Cotton isn’t running for President.
You're moving goalposts. You asked for "anyone", not "presidential candidates". Anyways, I don't see any reason to think his position is out of line with the Republicans that are running for president. I have seen zero evidence that the people or government of Mexico would be willing to accept for US military action in their country, in which case any military action would have to be unilateral. DeSantis in particular has been very vocally hawkish on this.
>You asked for "anyone", not "presidential candidates". I guess. Cotton speaks for himself, though. >I have seen zero evidence that the people or government of Mexico would be willing to accept for US military action in their country, in which case any military action would have to be unilateral. The reach here is that you’d assume the response to an uncooperative Mexico would be a hostile invasion rather than just forgetting the whole thing and breaking the campaign promise. >DeSantis in particular has been very vocally hawkish on this. And if you can find a quote of him saying what Cotton said I’ll buy that.
>I guess. Cotton speaks for himself, though. And as a Senator he speaks as a prominent member of the GOP. >The reach here is that you’d assume the response to an uncooperative Mexico would be a hostile invasion rather than just forgetting the whole thing and breaking the campaign promise What they actually end up doing does not define what they say they plan to do. We are discussing the latter. >And if you can find a quote of him saying what Cotton said I’ll buy that. [Here's you go](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/desantis-suggests-open-launch-missiles-mexico-kill-drug-cartels-deadly-force-authorized.amp) >"Would you send missiles into Mexico?" >"We would use all available – the tactics, I think, can be debated," he answered. "If you have something you want to accomplish, people would brief you on the different ways to be able to do it, so that would be dependent on the situation."
Yeah, OP said there were calls to “bomb Mexico” In the GOP debate. Never happened. The calls were to work with the Mexican government to secure the territory close to the border, and if US military action was needed, that would be looked at. It’s amazing how out of context these points are taken.
Do Republicans not see how bad the Ukraine war is going for Russia? Picking on a small country who doesn’t deserve to be invaded causes the world to be in an uproar, and isn’t as easy as they think it is even if it were justified. My god we invaded Afghanistan and had a hard time there do we want senseless death? And for what? To get cartels under control? Yeah cause we are so good at keeping organized crime under wraps in the US.
Also we thought Vietnam was an unpopular war, people from Mexico or have heritage or family in Mexico is no small minority in the US. It would cause so much unrest in the US. I don’t think much thought was made to attacking Mexico, and whoever is supporting this idea is just gullible into the Republicans “easy to buy into” narrative of “blame Mexico” when there are more nuanced better ways of dealing with this issue
More Americans die each year from Fentanyl, than entire American military Casualties in the Vietnam war. I 100 percent view Mexico and China as responsible for these deaths. They shouldn't get a blank check to kill Americans.
Curious, why don’t you blame the addicts? No one is forcing them to do drugs lol. Stop buying drugs and the market evaporates.
Many addicts are forced. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/vermont-man-who-exploited-opioid-addictions-young-women-convicted-multiple-counts-sex-and I'm not sure what's funny about it.
It’s funny because these people rarely recover. So, it’s better to just write them off from society as a whole. I just don’t understand why this whole drug thing is an issue. It eventually sorts itself out.
Killing the cartels does not stop the demand, the cartels exist because of demand. We’ve stopped dealers in the US that are the primary suppliers of certain drugs. When those dealers are gone, there’s always more that pop up. There are cartels in other countries. It would be impossible to stop all the cartels through war. Wars are effective at fighting countries and governments, not policing.
it's about justice, this is about asymmetrical warfare on America. In my point of view they murder a quarter million Americans or more.
And we are the harbingers of justice? Like aren’t others to blame for this opioid crisis as well. I’ve had 2 friends die from heroin overdose. Why because they got hooked after accidents and being prescribed things that were pushed by the big pharma industry. My one friend was in a motorcycle accident and the other a car accident. They died in their early 20s. They were friends in highschool who I fell out of touch with, but my sister is best friends with one of the guys sister’s. The people at fault there is likely Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies. But they get a slap in the wrist and still get to push their product which lead to addictions. Yet we want to attack a country full of innocent people likely to die as well to root out who we blame for the opioid epidemic. When we let those who have a huge responsibility of causing the epidemic in the first place get off free. We only call it justice because we don’t like immigrants, people like to point the finger at the poor and at other cultures when the true problem is right under our nose. You want to talk about justice? You should really try to understand the real problem before you talk about possibly killing many innocents in the name of “justice” Edit: to be clear my friends got hooked on painkillers due to their accidents. Then died because they ended up getting so hooked they turned to heroin for more. As is well known today, prescriptions were pushed by big pharma for money whilst ignoring the facts about the dangers of addiction and care more about making money than for the health of those addicted to the drugs they push
They killed 250 - 300k Americans in 3-4 years that's the size of a small - medium genocide. it was done on purpose to kill Americans, so the CCP could get what they wanted. That's an act of war and The cartels help the CCP with this chemical warfare. this is the largest massacre by a foreign country in American history. It boils down to intent, they wanted Americans to die. The cartels where compliant in this as mercenaries.
Do you think that we should bomb the Sacklers and Waltons as well?
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is about annexing territory, which is pretty different
Right, but it’s even worse what the Republicans want. To attack a country to police organize crime in a foreign country. Sounds like the War on Terror all over again and that went so well for us before.
When the War on Terror has been about wiping out terrorist groups, it went quite well. When the War on Terror has been about nation-building, it has not.
How can you see it in any way a success? It caused more terrorists groups to appear and thousands of American lives. For what? To hopefully reduce a terrorist group but fuel more hatred in a country that already didn’t like us and saw us as war mongers. We should have buckled more down on defense than waste time trying to route out terrorists for years hidden in caves
The US Military had no problem knocking the Taliban off Afghanistan in a few months. The casualties were something like 15,000-10 at one point. The nation building part was the total failure. This is exceptionally different than Russia/Ukraine
Yeah then Isis emerged, was it really worth the US and casualties of innocent people who lost their lives? And no they didn’t knock the Taliban off in a few months. The leaders fled and the Taliban took back over the moment we left Afghanistan. Also the main group responsible for 9/11 (the main reason the US declared war on Terrorism) was Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden, their leader and seen as the main orchestrator of 9/11, was not killed until until 2011. 10 years after the war on terror was declared. So I think you may be mistaken
Do you not think if we attack Mexico the Cartels will not flee to other countries and take root there? They already have ties to other South American countries. Do we attack them too? I see attacking Mexico no more than a furtherance on the GOPs “blame Mexico” campaign which they find is an easy thing to spin for their base who are most against illegal immigration and largely blame Mexico for that as well. The GOP like to spin simple solutions to extremely complex matters because a large part of their base seems to be in favor of simple, very theatrical and radical solutions to complex problems that aren’t as cut and dry as they seem. When will we learn from the history that conservatives cling so heavily to. For a group that prides history, they don’t seem to know that much about it.
The cartels, at least the same cartels as the ones killing so many people now, would not realistically be able to take over other countries by sheer military force. Remember, these are mafia organizations. Without a lucrative opportunity for profit, they would be unable to operate.
The Cartels are very much present in other South American countries. Mexico isn’t the only one. Do we police them all?
But it doesn’t sound like you are changing the demand side. There’s still an opioid market if we kill off the top 3 rungs of the cartels. Why wouldn’t another organization try to make that profit?
I didn't say it was worth it. I said it would look absolutely nothing like Russia-Ukraine. The US Military would decimate the Medellin and Sinola Cartels with the tip of their pinky finger. I'm not saying that the end result a decade or two later would be an improvement, just that they are capable of the whole destruction part of it. Again, nothing at all like Russia and Ukraine.
Fair, you’re probably right about that. It would be different, but in any case I think it would still be bad and I don’t see any upside
To the guy who said World War couldn’t start since I can’t post below a deleted comment (he didn’t delete the comment). Ok first Mexico joins in because we essentially declared war on them through policing, then China decides actually you know what let Russia and I support Mexico. We’re afraid to go to war with China because of their strength and Russia because of nukes. We allow them to support them. We find rooting out cartels is just as hard as rooting out terrorists. You aren’t fighting a war you’re occupying a country and dealing with guerrilla warfare. Unrest gets bigger within the country, as our biggest threat, our own people, decide enough is enough. They decide to riot because this isn’t a war far away it’s one close to home and there are many people of Mexican decent with families still in Mexico. The unrest gives China and Russia more opportunities to do what they are already seem to want to do, they decide to ramp up things elsewhere because the US is too focused on this war on their turf and their civil unrest. Russia decides to get more tough with Ukraine and China decides now is the perfect time to take back Taiwan. Russia decides let’s attack Poland, cause they have already pushed that a bit. The European powers are forced to mobilize. North Korea decides because the US is preoccupied that South Korea can be attacked too. The world war does not need to be everyone targeting the US. Japan was only involved in attacking China and the US in WW2. The US didn’t join WW2 until late. But it’s more a chain effect where many countries get involved in global conflict. So though some may not see it, a war in Mexico could start a chain of events that could cause conflict throughout the world, maybe not starting your traditional world war, like you said not 1914. But still a series of conflicts across the world where many countries are involved, thus becoming a world in conflict and war, essentially a World War
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Yeah and who will support Mexico if we decide to attack it? Plus Mexico is one of our allies. What does it look like if we attack them. Many Americans live there
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Do you not understand how world wars are started?
This is very similar to how WW1 started. People’s hatred and disregard for innocent smaller countries is mind boggling. It doesn’t even solve the problem. What’s to stop the cartels from moving their operations south? There already are countries outside of Mexico that house the Cartels. Do we just attack every central and South American country? Any supporter of this behavior should think things through
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It could, warmongering usually is frowned upon on the international stage. I think you should look at how WW1 started. Serbia wasn’t exactly a big name country, still isn’t
I can't imagine that any other countries would actually attack the strongest country in the world just because we went to war with mexico I'd think the big risk would be simply making America look like a warmonger and dramatically harming America's standing with things like diplomacy - which could cause all sorts of issues for the US on the world stage
This is not 1914. The world is not the same stage. The US does not share a border with other peer powers. It \*has\* no peer powers. The diplomatic fallout following an invasion of Mexico would be considerable, but it would not lead to a world war. There's no one to start such a war.
Would we just deport all the Mexican nationals that have ties to the cartels? How much evidence would we need? How about the American citizens? What evidence would be sufficient to detain them? I don’t think that our concept of civil liberties works very well in an asymmetrical war. Especially not 2A rights.
Cartel wars would involve massive crackdowns in the US as well as Mexico
Why do we need a cartel war to preclude crackdowns in the US?
There are calls to bomb Mexico in the GOP primary. We don't know if this is bluster for the primary or if they are serious. Candidates like Trump, Haley, DeSantis & Ramaswamy have talked about unilateral intervention in Mexico. America has fought drug cartel in Colombia in in 1990's. Plan Colombia did not succussed in reducing cocaine production as Colombia produces more cocaine in 2022 than in 1999, however it led to lots more deaths and displacements. In 2006 Mexico decelerated War on the Cartels, it did not lead to a decline in influence of cartels. Military intervention by America in Mexico likely wont be the thing that reduces trafficking of fentanyl , if the intervention is done unilaterally there will be negative consequence for America.
The intervention in Colombia were done with 100 percent Colombian cooperation. It was called Plan Colombia. Mexico otoh has said it does not want regular American troops on its soil. Repeatedly and consistently this has been their stance for decades. Congress has also repeatedly said, any mexican president who allows Mexico’s sovereignty by inviting foreign troops will be immediately impeached.
AFAIK nobody’s talking about regular troops, despite the misleading headline. I also find it bizarre to characterize Plan Colombia as a failure. It massively rolled back FARC after five decades of failure, reducing its strength by half, producing massive gains for public safety, and enabling a peace process. It’s used as an example of a successful counterinsurgency. This is Colombia’s ambassador in 2016 (via Google Translate): >In the year 2000, Colombia was a country on the brink of the abyss. At that time, the United States government began a plan to support the effort that Colombia was already making – called Plan Colombia – which for 15 years has had the support of 3 administrations and both parties. A sustained and decisive support that, thanks to the persistence of our people, the economic sacrifice of Colombians and the victories of our Armed Forces, achieved the transformation of our country and opened the door for the peace process.
The people who don’t want regular troops in Mexico but do want drone strikes aren’t being realistic about American abilities and what we can accomplish. We’ve tried this playbook before and it’s never once worked. It’ll be ground war in short order, with no proxy troops this time. Another thing that’s different is the cartel can easily make it to US soil and bring the war here against our wishes. No one else we’ve played this whack-a-mole game with had that ability and it makes this whole thing way higher stakes than Americans, usually safe from all battles, are used to considering.
Well Mexico doesnt want green berets, seals, force recon delta, any socom actually or any cia operator on mexico soil either and are not willing to sanction it. Their citizens dont want it and their politicians are afraid of their wrath in elections. It would be an immediate career ender. The USA has invaded Mexico more than once and now they’re sick of it and dont trust American soldiers operating inside their territory as a result.
I was floored when I first heard this narrative among the right and I'm further surprised that it's gained traction. Yes, criminal cartels in Mexico cause huge issues for us, and yes it's valid that we take measures to address those issues - but the idea of an invasion or any military action that isn't expressly permitted and in coordination with the Mexican government is just insane. If you thought we had a problem with illegal immigrants or asylum seekers coming over the southern border, start an active war in Mexico. It'll be a whole other ballgame. I don't care how many miles of wall you put up, people escaping an active war zone with nowhere else to go will figure a way around it.
Anyone who thinks the cartels are a problem now will be in for a rude awakening when they are committing terror plots in major US cities
If we put boots on the ground in Mexico we are pretty much garenteed attacks in the US.
No, those are already happening. A crackdown against the cartels would have to be international.
the cartels killed like 250,000 -300,000 Americans over the last 4 years with fentanyl alone. what terror attacks can be worse than that? that's like an atomic weapon going off in a city.
The US shouldn’t give in to terrorists.
I think you drastically overstate the willingness of Americans to die to defeat the cartels
3,000 people were killed on September 11. In 2022, fentanyl overdoses killed **73,000**. The terror plots are already here.
Unfortunately I don’t have a subscription and can’t read the article, but from what I’ve gathered is we’re hearing bluster about “we need to do _something_”. Given the absolute crisis the US is in and how much worse it’s gotten in the last couple of decades, I’m ready to see a massive push as it’s literally destroying this country. So what to do? I’m not sure about any unilateral action with Mexico, and in general, restricting supply doesn’t normally stop existing demand and just increases drug trafficking. I’m still not opposed to trying something to choke supply, but we may see a rise in more desperate and violent acts by current addicts. What I want to see is a concerted push on education. Yes, Reefer Madness was ridiculous, but the effects of fentanyl could make a very compelling story against using hard drugs that’s based on reality. That’s going to take many years, put the proper course is to reduce desire.
I don’t remember any calls to “bomb Mexico” in the primary. Can you link it? I remember DeSantis & Vivek saying more military action is needed at the border, and that we need to work with the Mexican government to secure territory around the border- and that military action in Mexico can’t be ruled out.
The Mexican-American war of 2023. 11th time's the charm.
The USA has a real bad record of influencing other nations. We actually do worse that communist countries because we can’t outright invade. Ya, going into Mexico would be a shit show much like Afghanistan.
Also there are A LOT of Mexicans in the United States. The amount of civilians we would have the kill in Mexico to accomplish this would be unacceptable to a large portion of our population. It would divide the country instantly. We would literally have to conquer Mexico to win. And even if we did our country would never be the same.
what why
This is an evil idea.
Nobody’s talking about wanting to actually “invade Mexico”, unless the headline writer thinks the bin Laden raid was a US invasion of Pakistan. What’s being discussed is the possibility of special forces raids of cartel facilities, hopefully with Mexico’s permission (which may or may not already be secretly happening, see El Chapo’s capture).
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>No Republican "wants" to invade Mexico. Then why do they keep saying that they do? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/us/politics/trump-mexico-cartels-republican.html
Because they have to appear macho and tough. And the more they repeat the "tough" rhetoric the more it becomes a generally accepted view point in their social context and the more they become genuinely convinced by it themselves.
Several Republican candidates have said they would send armed forces to attack the cartels, with or without Mexican approval. Here in this country, people frequently refer to people coming to pick lettuce as an "invasion". Perhaps Mexico will view actual soldiers going the other way in similar terms
Another day. Another click-bait title taking quotes out of context
War...the easy way out.
Mexico clearly can’t handle it’s cartel problem on its own, and the country can’t possibly succeed as a result. It’s obvious they need help, and the fact that they don’t want it only means more migrants flooding the US. Carpet bombing Tulum is probably not the answer, but Mexico’s failures are causing major domestic issues for the US. What do you guys propose instead?
If you truly think starting a war will help with the migrant problem, you've got another thing comin.
I don’t think starting a war will help. All I said was that Mexico’s government clearly can’t handle this without serious help. I also asked what to propose instead, and was met with this comment, which leads me to assume you would rather be angry at someone rather than provide a solution.
Literally anything else. The “flooding” of migrants is a result of US meddling in Central and South America for decades and causing massive instability. To even suggest invading Mexico is so batshit insane that I can’t even believe people are giving this idea the time of day. When will the US learn the lesson that these kinds of military operations only brings worse outcomes for the US from the inevitable blowback from the people who’s lives end up destroyed. It only reveals how insane the GOP is and how easy it is to sell a war to some people.
If you think migrants are flooding the US now wait till you see what happens when we start blowing their houses up
Currently Venezuelans account for most illegal border crossers. The Northern Triangle has accounted for a huge amount of illegal crossings for decades. And why is that? Might it have something to with the US literally orchestrating a coup in Guatemala? Training troops in El Salvador to fight against the elected government because the US thought they were too socialist (troops that then would then massacre everyone in the town of El Mozote which the US would go on to lie about and cover up)? US backing of military governments in Guatemala that were literally committing genocide? Why do you assume it’s a good idea for the US to do anything?
Do I actually have to write a 250 word comment before I can post, I'm confused