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That's above my pay grade. So complicated; so many bought off police, agents, and officials on both sides of the border. I believe US intel itself is involved with the cartels. The CIA was involved in the opium trade in SE Asia for years to fund its black budget. As for the wall, you have drugs coming in by tunnel, drone, catapult. Fentanyl is pretty much impossible to stop due to how potent it is per ounce. I don't see it being stopped, frankly. Sad because several people I knew pretty closely have died from opioids.
I think the US could probably get away with both conducting drone surveillance and issuing letters of marque and sending in private contractors to assassinate any and all high-level cartel leadership (or even low-level foot soldiers), and aiding them with intelligence. Whether the contractors would have the actual ability to complete the mission without being killed or arrested is another matter. Mexico is huge and easy to isolate oneself in, and I doubt they're just going to make themselves sitting ducks, and they're masters at concealing the movement of their people and product. And of course, they might play tit for tat and assassinate US officials involved in / voting for the program. It's also possible that cartel-bribed people within the US government would reveal the identities and location of the contractors, which would hurt morale and make new recruiting difficult. Alternatively, they might be able to get away with bombing targets and assassinating leaders and not claiming responsibility, similar to what Israel has long been doing in Iran, though avoiding collateral damage would be absolutely critical. And in that case, you'd almost certainly have the cartels staging false-flag killings of civilians and then pointing the finger at the US military. Given the scale of death being caused by it, I wouldn't be opposed to capital punishment for fentanyl traffickers, that would be a simple start. There are many angles one could take but few are not problematic.
If there were easy solutions to the problems they would have already been solved. Every course of action creates distorted incentives and motives. And what most Americans gleefully ignore is that Mexico and its citizens are highly sensitive to allowing foreign soldiers or police units taking any action on its sovereign lands because of historical actions. Allowing the levels of DEA and FBI activities to occur already is a big sore spot but if you send down armed units looking to kill Mexican citizens all I can say is that will not end well.
If there were easy solutions to the problems they would have already been solved. Every course of action creates distorted incentives and motives. And what most Americans gleefully ignore is that Mexico and its citizens are highly sensitive to allowing foreign soldiers or police units taking any action on its sovereign lands because of historical actions. Allowing the levels of DEA and FBI activities to occur already is a big sore spot but if you send down armed units looking to kill Mexican citizens all I can say is that will not end well.
Well then it's up to Mexico to put it's own house in order but that said there are enough problems this side of the border unconnected with Mexico, school shootings being one of them.
Anyone who wants to get treatment for addiction there are numerous programs available to help them. Most dont take advantage of this so that's their problem to deal with. Using all means necessary to stop the influx from south of the border is the main objective. You are right about the people making money on this side of the border. 15 years mandatory sentence in prison plus confiscation of all property, proceeds to be used to fund addiction treatment programs.
The war on drugs has never worked and will never work. Stop the demand and your stop the trafficking. As long as people want drugs and will pay for them someone will move the drugs to market.
I don't buy this and it all seems like a recently concocted propaganda campaign. Maybe they're trying to keep any more money from leaving the US (retirees, tourism spending, etc.), given the big rise in relocations there post-covid. Mexico is a huge country with a diversity of people and environments. Sure there are dangerous cartel hotspots, but I can't imagine that's more than a tiny percentage of the country geographically.
We just did 6 days & nights of spring break in Mexico City as a family trip. It included a day at the pyramids of the sun & moon in Mexico State. We didn’t have a single problem. Of course you do have to make a plan and take precautions. The travel advisories for both Mexico City & State are at the same level as most of Western Europe. As a matter of fact the places you’ll go as a tourist are on par with all the best cities of the US and Europe and it was surprisingly clean. It is nothing like those awful border towns, and if you’re from south Texas you already know you go to Matamoros or Reynosa if you’re looking for big trouble. If I get some time I’ll write up more details in a new thread.
We just did 6 days & nights of spring break in Mexico City as a family trip. It included a day at the pyramids of the sun & moon in Mexico State. We didn’t have a single problem. Of course you do have to make a plan and take precautions. The travel advisories for both Mexico City & State are at the same level as most of Western Europe. As a matter of fact the places you’ll go as a tourist are on par with all the best cities of the US and Europe and it was surprisingly clean. It is nothing like those awful border towns, and if you’re from south Texas you already know you go to Matamoros or Reynosa if you’re looking for big trouble. If I get some time I’ll write up more details in a new thread.
Great that you enjoyed the trip and ignored the noise about Mexico. Just a fair warning these people raising a stink about it aren't looking to get educated or have their minds changed, they just troll Mexico endlessly. So when someone pulls out the whataboutism card we all know what's up.
The war on drugs has never worked and will never work. Stop the demand and your stop the trafficking. As long as people want drugs and will pay for them someone will move the drugs to market.
True but it still makes sense to make the smuggling of drugs into the U.S a very risky business with the prospects of "termination with extreme prejudice " as they say if caught and which might cut down the quantities being smuggled.
There are stories on the news that a drug to counter Fentanyl addiction is now making it's appearance on the market.
Great that you enjoyed the trip and ignored the noise about Mexico. Just a fair warning these people raising a stink about it aren't looking to get educated or have their minds changed, they just troll Mexico endlessly. So when someone pulls out the whataboutism card we all know what's up.
Yeah well none of your loved ones are hooked on Fentanyl are they.
Yeah well none of your loved ones are hooked on Fentanyl are they.
Did a Mexican create Fentanyl? Does a Mexican company make the chemicals for Fentanyl? Are city parks in Mexico overrun with addicts? Seems like an American problem to me...
Did a Mexican create Fentanyl? Does a Mexican company make the chemicals for Fentanyl? Are city parks in Mexico overrun with addicts? Seems like an American problem to me...
Labs in Mexico make the Fentanyl. Where the chemicals come from doesn't matter. The cartels wouldn't bother trying to sell it in Mexico. The big money is this side of the border
If it's coming largely from Mexico, you can't say it's just an American problem. Sure the American demand is contributing, but there's supply and there's demand, and without supply demand is meaningless.
That's like me saying that the US bombs the heck out of Afghanistan, but France made the bombs, and I don't see any dead Afghans in US parks, so it's an Afghan problem not a US problem. Uh, no; terrible reasoning.
You're also totally overlooking the fact that many if not a large majority of addicts do not want to use fentanyl, likely including a few people I know who OD'd, but it is being cut in with other drugs. So it's not just a matter of 'customer' choice.
Sure there are US war hawks who want to exploit the crisis to intervene in Mexico and set a precedent, but the bottom line is Mexico has a big responsibility. Like I said, it's a very complex issue and I don't have the answers, but you can't absolve Mexico of all blame. If they can't maintain rule of law and control the activities on their own territory, that's a problem.
That's not the point. It's a US problem and Mexicans are filling the void now. When the Colombian government shut down the Medellin and Cali cartels down did cocaine use stop?
If Mexico somehow stopped their cartels then it would be Colombia or Guatemala or Nicaragua or who knows who supplying the market. It's pointless to act like if only the Mexican government figured out how to close down the cartels the problem would disappear. The problems in Mexico are caused by US demand. The corruption in government in Mexico is caused by all the money that is there to bribe and ultimately threaten those who get in the way of drugs getting sent to the US.
Time for American residents to stop pointing fingers at others and look at where the real sources of the problems are. American drug companies are creating these drugs, yet they just pay token fines and say we are sorry but not really. Doctors prescribe them without acknowledging that so many people end up hooked. Where is the societal response to this that doesn't just say oh it's the Mexicans at fault for all this?
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