Right- it’s not so much a question of if we can do it, or if we can get away with it, but rather what the expected consequences would be.
Going into Pakistan to capture or kill OBL is something that few in the international community are going to decry, all else being equal. It wasn’t any sort of land grab, etc… just a special-ops mission to get one man.
If we did something similar- say El Chapo had ordered several successful hits on Mexican judges, and we decided to send the SEALs or Delta Force to go abduct him, I suspect the response would be much the same. Maybe some token griping about it from the Mexican side, but not much else.
Now if we did something similar, but as a campaign of systematic special ops raids to eliminate cartel leadership, I’m not sure how that would play out. On one hand, the Mexicans would probably not like us running riot in their country. On the other hand, having someone else wipe out the cartels for them in an effective fashion would be a godsend, I suspect. Especially if there’s no collaboration so that their own families are safe.
But if we just basically invaded? They’d cry foul, and so would the rest of the world.
Agree. However, the short term view the US keeps using WRT illegal drugs will continue to not work. Wipe out the current cartels and a new set of them will emerge to fill the void. As mentioned above, the only way to defeat the cartels is to rob them of customers, and the best way to do that is legalization of the products they are profiting from. Sadly, tho, I think they are moving away from traditional substances like cocaine and marijuana and pushing fentanyl thru their distribution channels now. I am not sure legalizing fentanyl is a good idea. Legalization may have worked to kill the drug trade in times past, but now I am not sure it will have the intended effect.
If you legalized natural opium based products there would be no need for fentanyl unless you were suicidal. Same with cocaine, they both are already strong enough when uncut (and too strong sometimes). If consistently made FDA approved level product were always legally available, there would be no need to seek out man made variants.
If made legal then it could be taxed and the proceeds going towards getting people help to come off the drugs when they were ready. Or not, without the issues that come with it being illegal (jail, social stigma, theft, ect) many people could actually be functioning, productive people at some level above being a street junkie.
But that discussion is for another thread. End of hijack please.
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