If you are unaware of the story of the day, here’s a synopsis from the editors of the Wall Street Journal:
The slaughter Monday of three Mormon women and six children, all American citizens who were longtime residents of Mexico, brings home a cruel reality of America’s neighbor to the south. Drug gangs control huge swathes of the country, and the government in Mexico City is too often overwhelmed by the criminal firepower and money.
The women and children were attacked by gunmen as they traveled in SUVs in the northern state of Sonora in broad daylight. Mexican officials said Tuesday that it could have been a case of mistaken identity. But according to survivors who hid in a nearby woods, one of the women was shot outside her vehicle with her hands up. It seems more likely that the murders were a warning from drug cartels to everyone in the region, and especially to Mexican officials, that the gangs are in charge.
and here’s their recommendation:
But if Mexico can’t control its territory, the U.S. will have to do more to protect Americans in both countries from the cartels. The Drug Enforcement Administration should be able to find out the identities and locations of those who ordered or carried out Monday’s murders, and ensuring their demise would be a signal that U.S. justice has a long reach. A U.S. military operation can’t be ruled out.
What do you think should be done in response to these murders?
- Nothing
- Warn Americans living or travelling in Mexico that it’s a dangerous place and they’re on their own. Otherwise nothing.
- Keep doing what we’re doing now—provide the Mexican government with intelligence, cooperation, and support as requested. Otherwise nothing
- Warn the Mexican government that, unless they apprehend those responsible, we will suspend intelligence, cooperation, etc. Otherwise nothing.
- Arrest or eliminate those responsible via covert action
- Deploy the U. S. military to create a cordon sanitaire from the U. S. border to 150 miles to its south.
- Put the entirety of Mexico under U. S. military occupation
- Other (specify)
B, C.
H –> long term, support the Mexican government in its efforts to grow economically. With economic power come the resources to fight the cartels and all the social ills that cause them.
I think D, E, F, G would make the problem worse.
What if the main “social ill” causing the growth in power of the cartels is the large number of men who have gone to the north for work?
H. AMLO is in a war, whether he knows it or not. Offer logistical assistance to help him win it any way he can, Geneva Conventions be damned. If he refuses the help, he’s on his own, and so are any American citizens venturing into the war zone on their own.
Even more important, do something radically different regarding drug addition. Perhaps legalize all drugs, but punitively penalize use at work or in public. Punishment to be confinement to a drug colony, similar to the notorious former leper colony on Molokai. This would apply to all current drug addicts. Heartless? Perhaps. But it’s also heartless to force people who are NOT addicts and have done nothing wrong to twist their existence around those who are. Much of California is now Squalor City, and the addicts and their dealers have effectively more rights than ordinary citizens. The US is like an Ebola patient in the early stages of the disease; the cell walls are being broken down. We cannot wait until the nation dissolves into a dying goo of social protoplasm out of fear that a few demented people’s rights might be violated. By doing so we’re violating the rights of the others.
“The Drug Enforcement Administration should be able to find out the identities and locations of those who ordered or carried out Monday’s murders”
Would be interested in Andy’s take on this. Even knowing who bin Laden was, it took 10 years to find him. Heck, we sometimes can’t find killer in our own country.
Otherwise, I am not overly interested in spending a lot of time or money on Americans who decide to live in risky areas in other countries. (Why not spend more on Americans living in high risk areas in the US, like where drug overdose deaths are so high?) I do think that we should look at efforts to make it harder for the cartels to make a living. We could make a more serious effort at interdicting drug and human trafficking by increasing efforts at points of entry. Maybe emphasize going after criminals who are here illegally since we dont have endless resources. Maybe even legalize or decriminalize pot everywhere.
Steve
As far as drug enforcement is concerned, IMO we’re well on our way to the worst of both worlds: legalization and a substantial black market (hence no reduction in trafficking crime).
Sometimes? Sometimes ?!? In Chicago the homicide clearance rate is about 15%. Nationwide it’s under 50%.
A: Probably the only viable option.
B: Already doing that
C: Sure, it’s leverage if nothing else.
D: The Mexicans will round-up the usual suspects. Pointless
E: We don’t have the intel for this
F: There’s no clear geographic line to hold that is better than the Rio Grande. But take all of Baja so we can get Cabo.
G: Why not? We’ve done such a great job with this in other countries.
H: https://youtu.be/aCbfMkh940Q
Having tangentially worked on operations to find various so-called “high value targets” it is extremely difficult when we’ve got forces on the ground that can provide intel from local sources and networks we’ve developed over time along with direct intelligence gained from raids against group safe-houses etc. We have none of that in Mexico.
If the gange leadership is practicing even rudimentary operational security, they’d be very difficult for us (the US) to find, especially independently of Mexican government cooperation.
” and a substantial black market (hence no reduction in trafficking crime).”
I think that is a good point. Even when we legalize it we are so worried about the sellers doing something wrong we are making it so expensive it still pays to have a black market. We need to really legalize it then treat it like alcohol. (Glad you appreciated the understatement above. Seldom gets appreciated on the internet.)
Steve
Use the Army, (not guard units) to clear a 25 mile deep buffer zone south of the border, 1800 miles long. Repatriate our Hispanic economic refugees to that zone. Execute your option B. And,
“large number of men who have gone to the north for work”
is a brilliant insight. The decent, young, energetic Mexican men who might save their country have an easier option. Mexico needs them.
The fundamental problem is drug use in this country. That is what finances the Mexican cartels and gangs and what motivates them. The flood of drug money to Mexico is more than sufficient to corrupt nearly all the of the Mexican police and much of the Mexican military. So the cure starts with getting Americans to stop using drugs.
That raises the issue of why people used drugs. A number of years ago the blogger at Classical Values observed that people use drugs because they are in pain, partly physical but mostly psychological. The psychological pain used to be largely restricted to the immiserated black slums, and those are still cesspits of drug abuse and other crimes. But the globalists have wrecked our industrial economy, and now significant numbers of whites are using opioids, fentanyl and other potent narcotics. That pain can be cured by a determined effort to rebuild the economies of the slums and Midwest. Fat chance.
Legalization of criminal activities like prostitution and drugs and gambling never eliminates the criminal sector. There is no example anywhere where legalization did eliminate it. The basic reason is the legal product is always more expensive than the illegal product because of taxes and restrictions and there are some classes of product that cannot be legalized, e.g., child prostitutes and heroin.
I believe the situation in Mexico is hopeless unless the border is totally closed both to people and goods. Only that will cut off the cartels’ and gangs’ money supply.
While I agree that psychic pain is an important part of the picture, I think the underlying factor is deeper. Wealth is also part of the equation.
The countries with the highest rates of substance abuse are Russia, Estonia, the U. S., Greenland, and the Republic of Ireland. followed by Mongolia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Kazakhstan, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. That there is a cultural component is obvious.
You can eliminate crime categorically by making everything legal, cf. The Purge. IMO the cure is worse than the disease. Repealing Prohibition did not eliminate the gangs. They just changed to different illegal activities.
@ Bob Sykes:
I agree with most of your post, except that economic privation causes despair, causes depression. causes drug use. Seems to me that the prosperity here in the US enables drug abuse and the physical< mental decline of the user.
Problem with reducing drug use here is the decline of faith and family, plus the new problem of immense, well established wholesale and retail franchises of the cartels all across the US. young people can't avoid exposure to the culture.
Close the border.
Make a long list of the problems associated with that. I don't think any of them eclipse the drug and cartel influence problem.
Wrong! Forced “faith and family” are two good reasons for taking drugs in the first place. What will take a war to end is the privilege granted to faith and family over non-belief and individualism.
@Jimbino
The validity of that comment is arguable. But valid or not, your tribe will never inherit the earth.