It sounds like the Trump Administration is planning on military strikes on Mexican soil (under the pretense of fighting drug cartels).
If these strikes are carried out without notification or permission of the Mexican government what do you think the results will be? Is this a defacto declaration of war? It’s only a matter of time before civilians (that definition will be tricky huh?) also get killed in the strikes. Will that change anything? Probably not with the administration or most Americans.
Another way to tackle fentanyl: It’s Sebastian Gorka vs. Stephen Miller as White House officials debate whether to go after Mexican drug cartels with military strikes, NYT’s Alan Feuer and Maria Abi-Habib report. Gorka’s camp wants to attack them unilaterally, while Miller and the Homeland Security Council fear that doing so without the cooperation of the Mexican government could imperil crucial coordination on limiting immigration. A Mexican delegation is in D.C. today to work on a security agreement.
The war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan set the precedent in international law that the right of states to use military force in self-defence also applies where the aggression comes from a non-state. This had been controversial before 9/11 but was pretty much universally accepted afterwards. So from an international law perspective, the argument to justify this would have to be that the drug cartels (now classified as terrorist organisations in the US) are non-state aggressors, and the military strikes constitute self-defence. Whether the argument would really fly (i.e., be accepted by the international community) is hard to predict and would depend, to a large extent, on the degree to which the Mexican government is able and willing to take care of the matter itself. But it’s at least a presentable line of reasoning.
What they are waiting for is plausible denability for the Mexican President to show that she had no choice but to allow a strike agaisnt a specific cartel target or targets. The targeting of Americans in Mexico is always a good excuse for the US to attack someone. Locating el Chapo’s remaining children and henchmen is also a good target, as they have been making threats agaisnt the Mexican President already because suprise, they got dirt on her.
The Mexican goverment would welcome a major blow agaisnt the cartels, but only one that removes the knowledge of their own involvemnt in crimes.
Strangely, I can’t find any information on the effect of Duterte’s war on drugs, other than the number of people killed. No information on whether, for example, total overdose deaths have changed.
On the other hand, it looks like there’s a theory that Duterte was killing people to support a drug cartel that he had a business relationship with. So…always the opportunity for grift in something like this.
I’m surprised Trump hasn’t jumped on board that idea already. Why should South and Central American gangs make all that money from drugs?
It might even help reduce addiction. We already know from how Trump ran his casinos that he is entirely capable of taking something addictive and making it into something nobody wants to touch. Trump Cocaine would be much the same, I imagine.
Well he wiped out the cartel in Ozamis City that was headed up by the mayor and his family. But he granted pardons to lower end operators. Now that town is full of scammers looking to fleece foreigners.
Ah, Sebastian Gorka. I remember he got booted from the first administration, relegated to firebrand conservative media on the fringe. I saw he’d been proposed for a new post; he hasn’t been confirmed, right? If he’s advocating a military policy here, it’s not yet from any kind of an official position?
Yes, but its so normal for the cartels to do that it doesn’t even make the news as a major story. Doesn’t mean its true, but it probably is to some extent. This has been going on for decades. In many ways they are two gangs fighting each other. They threaten each other all the time and often follow through on their threats.
I have no doubt that she would welcome Trump taking down the cartel, but she cannot just come out and announce that she supports it. They would harm her family if they couldn’t get to her directly, so she must play the political game of being outraged if the US strikes.
Take them down, yes very doubtful. Strike out at them for political purposes, definitly. He has a lot of support from his base to do just that. And the Mexican goverment will let him as long as they can figure out a way to use it to their advanatage.
A factual question: Are there, in fact, strike-at-able locations of the Mexican cartels, i.e. buildings that Mexican law enforcement knows of but does simply not have the firepower to raid?
Normally members of organized crime are civilians and are indistinguishable from the general population except for perhaps a few minutes/day in aggregate when they commit criminal acts in public. Is this different in Mexico?