Invading Mexico to End the Cartels

[Birdjaguar]

DeSantis is all for invading Mexico on day one of his presidency to put the drug cartels out of business. Are there any circumstances under which you would approve of this kind of intervention?

The cartels are a serious problem that Mexico has failed to control. What would you propose as a way to solve the problem of the money and power the cartels generate and use to against the US and Mexico?

DeSantis said he would send Special Forces after the cartels in Mexico as president. Can he do that?​

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/26/politics/desantis-special-forces-mexico/index.html

 

[Arwon]

He's a fascist lunatic

 

[AmazonQueen]

Probably go about as well as the Pershing Expedition 1916-17 did.

 

[Kaitzilla]

DeSantis is all for invading Mexico on day one of his presidency to put the drug cartels out of business. Are there any circumstances under which you would approve of this kind of intervention?

DeSantis said he would send Special Forces after the cartels in Mexico as president. Can he do that?​

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/26/politics/desantis-special-forces-mexico/index.html

I don't think President DeSantis can do that without the OK from Mexico.
It would only be politically acceptable if the drug cartels went on a wild killing spree on USA territory.

There is enough fear down there of the USA doing exactly this kind of invasion of Mexico one day if a hothead is elected President.
What won't the CIA and USA do militarily?

Mexican cartel apologizes for kidnapping, killing Americans, turns over 5 it says responsible

A Mexican drug cartel turned over five members it says were behind the kidnapping and killing of Americans last week and left a note of apology.

www.usatoday.com

A Mexican drug cartel claiming its members were behind the brazen kidnapping of four Americans last week handed over five of the members and left a note of apology, Mexican media outlets and The Associated Press reported Thursday.

Photos circulating on social media show five men on the pavement with their hands tied – four of them shirtless – in front of a pickup truck, which has a handwritten letter of apology on the windshield.

The AP reported obtaining a copy of the letter from a law enforcement source in Tamaulipas, the Mexican state where the American travelers were attacked. Two of them were killed and another one wounded in a shooting Friday shortly after arriving in the border city of Matamoros for cosmetic surgery.

Desantis used to qualify that the military would only get involved if the cartels attacked first.
I guess his position changed?

Kind of like how the gender care stuff in Florida was first banned for only little kids, then quietly extended all the way to high school seniors months later.

 

[GenMarshall]

Only with a joint operation with the Mexican Government and their law enforcement agencies.

 

[Tee Kay]

Seems like a bad idea

 

[Birdjaguar]

Given the the extent that the Mexican cartels affect US life and support the worldwide suppliers of drugs and feeder stocks, is there a case for putting an end to them? How might it improve life in the US? Or would it not change anything and just move the drug profits around?

Would taking them down improve life in Mexico? The US has intervened to protect foreign resources it deems important; why not intervene to curtail one of our ongoing criminal influences?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Given the the extent that the Mexican cartels affect US life and support the worldwide suppliers of drugs and feeder stocks, is there a case for putting an end to them? How might it improve life in the US? Or would it not change anything and just move the drug profits around?

Would taking them down improve life in Mexico? The US has intervened to protect foreign resources it deems important; why not intervene to curtail one of our ongoing criminal influences?

Because it would be morally wrong?

I know that this is frankly a joke argument because there is absolutely no time in human history that a government has ever done or failed to do something based of morality other than as an excuse. But still, I feel it needs saying.
So repeat after me:

• Invading other countries is bad.
• Murdering people because you think it might things better for you is bad.
• War is bad.

Feel free to add more to the list.

---

Or if you want to be cynical about it how do you think such a war and the resulting refugee crisis would effect the united states? Half of Mexico is already trying to cross over into your country without an all out state of war demolishing their nation.
At best you'd be stuck with a lengthy occupation and refugee crisis and at worst you'd pull out and leave Mexico in an even worse state than it was and ripe for the picking by central american cartels AND still get a refugee crisis.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Given the the extent that the Mexican cartels affect US life and support the worldwide suppliers of drugs and feeder stocks, is there a case for putting an end to them? How might it improve life in the US? Or would it not change anything and just move the drug profits around?

Would taking them down improve life in Mexico? The US has intervened to protect foreign resources it deems important; why not intervene to curtail one of our ongoing criminal influences?

Because it wouldn't work. When has a military attempt to deal with drugs resulted in anything other than a disintegration of the state into a corrupt mess? You'll just drive the prices up. You have to deal with the demand, not just the supply.

 

[Joij21]

The second one is the only sane one here. Obviously you need to work with the Mexican regime and gain their consent so it doesn't look like an imperialist take over.

I didn't choose the first option because while it may be nice to think there would never be a reason to go in, there might if the cartels start working with terrorists from the middle east and get involved in more destabilizing trades like trying to supply bad actors with nukes or chemical weapons. And the chemical weapons one is more plausible since they already have drug labs which could easily be converted from making drugs to actual chemical weapons like sarin, vx, chlorine, or mustard gas. Plus they probably already use chlorine as a drug feedstock and perhaps make mustard gas as a byproduct already, it's just a matter of will they trade some of the waste or excess feedstock to islamists who want to use it for more "terroristic ventures" rather than just using it to make drugs.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Is there an actual demand for fentanyl? Or is that just a dealer add in to spur addiction?

 

[Hygro]

Legalize cocaine. Buy direct. Invest in all drug route countries to replace lost revenue. Don’t have armed gangs with the most operating cash be the ones to fill the locals’ vacuum of their own loss of business.

There’s not a lot the USA can do that will make things better, but mafia needs to be stopped. Attacking militarily is insane. Using military assets to stop them can only have a place in specific circumstances that don’t exist right now.

The first thing we need to do is end our nearly unilateral pull of demanding illegal cartel run drug shipments that gave birth to this industry and these criminal organizations.

Then we can sort out what can be done once that is take care of.

 

[Joij21]

Is there an actual demand for fentanyl? Or is that just a dealer add in to spur addiction?

Both.

Dealer wants to make more money, it's an illicit business which is unregulated, so steps on the product to bulk up the volume but sells it away at prices that are high as though it were pure while at the same time ensuring addiction and repeat buyers for the product.

Demand because the dealer ends up creating the demand but also big pharma created a parallel demand of other addicts through easily giving away opioid medications via paying off doctors to push prescriptions to people who probably should have been prescribed something else instead.

 

[Hygro]

Is there an actual demand for fentanyl? Or is that just a dealer add in to spur addiction?

There is demand by opiate addicts.

But it’s more the political economy of Chinese gangsters unloading huge volumes in Mexico/Latin America that need to get moved

In China, any drug trafficking carries the death penalty. The incentive then is to make the most of the most potent most profitable stuff with no regard for its effects.

Cartels get the fentanyl, has to move it. There’s some demand but there’s so much supply and tiny amounts can spice up anything, and they have to move it.

 

[Henri Christophe]

I voted to US never have the power to invade Mexico to deal with drug cartels, even if Mexico support.

 

[Joij21]

Using military assets to stop them can only have a place in specific circumstances that don’t exist right now.

I agree I don't believe the circumstances exist right now for a military option, therefore I believe Desantis is stupid for saying he'll do it as soon as he's elected president.

However that doesn't mean in the future they won't change, hence I didn't chose "no, never".

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Honestly if you want to deal with drugs you have to deal with gangs. And if you want to deal with violent gangs you need to do what the Japanese did and make membership in a gang illegal on its own. Or better yet what I would propose and have all gang members carry collective responsibility for each crime committed by any other gang member in the furtherance of their criminal agenda. As in, if one gang member murders someone than you put ALL the members in prison for life.

Simply put make it too costly in terms of consequences for people to join and generally just physically destroy their organizations by physically destroying their members.

 

[Hygro]

I agree I don't believe the circumstances exist right now for a military option, therefore I believe Desantis is stupid for saying he'll do it as soon as he's elected president.

However that doesn't mean in the future they won't change, hence I didn't chose "no, never".

I voted "other" but you can see the slant of my other by the initial few posts I liked in the thread. But I agree that these extremely cruel dictatorial mafiosos leave forceful options on the table.

 

[Remorseless1]

Only a Navy puke would come up with such a stupid idea. Even if every cartel member in the hemisphere wss killed, someone else would take their place. It's no secret why this cartels flourish in impoverished or at least poor countries with weak governments at every level. And it's no secret that without the Norte Americano market, the cartels would wither and die. It's a complex problem that would years to accomplish.

Any kind of military intervention into Mexico, even if it was invited by the Mexican government, would cause a lot of rumbling among ordinary citizens in Mexico and whatever government that allowed this would be soundly defeated at the polls.

 

[Joij21]

Any kind of military intervention into Mexico, even if it was invited by the Mexican government, would cause a lot of rumbling among ordinary citizens in Mexico and whatever government that allowed this would be soundly defeated at the polls.

Yes but it's Mexico, so if the government there got so corrupt that they decided they need some USian intervention to control a problem even they can't get under wraps then I would argue they might suspend voting.

Mexico has a history of sliding into dictatorship anyway, multiple times even.