A Bad Idea Resurfaces: Using the US Military Against Mexico's Drug Cartels

[Judi Lynn]

by Ted Galen Carpenter Posted on April 25, 2023

There has been a recent flurry of proposals to have the U.S. military launch a full-scale war against Mexican drug cartels – primarily to stem the alleged fentanyl crisis. Former Attorney General William P. Barr initiated the latest campaign with an op-ed in the March 2, 2023, Wall Street Journal. "America can no longer tolerate narco-terrorist cartels," Barr raged. "Operating from havens in Mexico, their production of deadly drugs on an industrial scale is flooding our country with this poison. The time is long past to deal with this outrage decisively."

He praised a Joint Resolution that had been introduced in the House of Representatives that would authorize the president to deploy the US military against cartels inside Mexico. The danger that the trafficking organizations pose to the United States, Barr insisted, requires treating them as "national-security threats, not a law-enforcement matter." According to Barr, such "narco-terrorist groups are more like ISIS than like the American mafia."

He later confirmed that he wanted to use "special ops units" for missions in Mexico. Perhaps the most alarming and provocative aspect of Barr’s scheme was that it would not even allow Mexican officials to have a veto over the operation of foreign troops inside their own country. "It would be good to have the Mexicans’ cooperation," Barr conceded, but "I think that will only come when the Mexicans know that we’re willing to do it with or without their cooperation."

Other militant drug warriors promptly embraced the latest policy panacea. Just days after Barr’s op-ed appeared, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announced that he would introduce legislation designating the Mexican cartels as "foreign terrorist organizations" and giving the president an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against them. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) had proposed such a step in November 2022, and he now renewed that call.

More:
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2023/04/24/a-bad-idea-resurfaces-using-the-us-military-against-mexicos-drug-cartels/

[Judi Lynn]

1. We Shouldn't Use the Military to Fight Mexico's Drug Cartels

TERRIBLE IDEA ON SO MANY LEVELS

Trump and Republicans want to bomb Mexico to fight the “invasion” of fentanyl. Apparently, no lessons have been learned from the failed war on drugs.

Ted Galen Carpenter
Jeffrey Singer
Published Apr. 03, 2023 3:58AM ET

America’s lawmakers and policymakers are in a state of denial about the true cause of the country’s worsening drug overdose crisis. Like children unwilling to accept reality, they erupt into tantrums due to their inability to win America’s longest war, the war on drugs.

Political leaders have put forth a flurry of proposals to have the U.S. military launch a full-scale war against Mexican drug cartels to stem the fentanyl crisis.

“I’ve got legislation I’ll introduce soon to make drug cartels foreign terrorist organizations,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Fox News this week. “We need to put our military into the game to stop this, we need to destroy these labs on the ground in Mexico… the law enforcement model’s not working, we are literally under attack—there are more Americans being killed by Mexican drug cartels than ISIS, al Qaeda, the Germans and Japanese combined on the homeland.”

Graham has said he will introduce a Senate version of an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Mexico—Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) has already introduced a version in the House of Representatives.

More:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/we-shouldnt-use-the-military-to-fight-mexicos-drug-cartels

[Judi Lynn]

2. Should US send troops to fight Mexican drug cartels? It's not a good idea.

As long as there is demand for drugs in the United States, no military operation, even by highly trained U.S. forces, will prove effective in reducing drug trafficking.

Gustavo Flores-MacíasOpinion contributor

A growing chorus of voices has called for the deployment of U.S. troops against drug cartels, especially after the murder of two American citizens in Mexico.

U.S. Reps. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, and Michael Waltz, R-Fla., have introduced a joint resolution in Congress to authorize the president to use the armed forces for this purpose. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., pledged to introduce similar legislation designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said it was a mistake not to have bombed meth labs in Mexico when then-President Donald Trump asked his secretary of Defense about this possibility. Former Attorney General William Barr has even pressed for military action, "whether or not the Mexican government participates."

Blaming Mexico comes with a long history
The idea of blaming and punishing Mexico has been politically expedient – from the U.S. Army’s punitive expedition against Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution to Trump’s tweet in 2019 that it was time for the United States to “wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.”

. . .

There is growing evidence that the militarization of anti-drug efforts contributes to additional violence, without any long-term reduction in the demand or supply of drugs. It is also based on the false premise that drug trafficking organizations magically disappear at the border, as if only Mexicans participated in the multibillion dollar business, instead of having intricate binational networks that meet Americans’ demand of narcotics in the United States.

More:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/03/21/fentanyl-scourge-us-shouldnt-start-war-drug-cartels-mexico/11478156002/

[TreasonousBastard]

3. The problem is demand in the US, suppliers are merely satisfying...

that demand, like good little capitalists

And another half assed war won't stop that.

[msongs]

5. drugged up stoners in the USA are the root of the problem nt

[LuvLoogie]

4. Hell, it would be better than training them at The School of the Americas

A nice barrage of drone strikes on several haciendas and on a bunch of those convoys parading around the towns. Sink a few yachts.

I'd like to see that.