American military strikes against Cartel targets in Mexico?
Some Republicans are proposing targeting cartels in Mexico. A bill has even been introduced proposing a formal declaration of war against the cartels. However, without Mexican approval for specific strikes on Mexican territory, and without Mexican cooperation, this would be seen as an act of war. In the past, Donald Trump offered his Mexican counterpart help in the form of sending the US Military after the cartels. The Mexican side did not agree with Trump’s idea.
From NewsNation:
For decades, the drug war has included covert U.S. operations inside Mexico aimed at monitoring cartel activity, as well as various instances of military surges along the American border.
The idea of deploying the U.S. military into Mexico as a means to combat cartels has garnered support from Republican senators like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ohio’s J.D. Vance, along with a few other members of Congress, and the top two GOP presidential nominees.
On Capitol Hill, a bill has been introduced that proposes formally declaring war on the cartels, which could potentially enable actions such as the dropping of bombs on targets within Mexico.
Former President Donald Trump has proposed implementing a naval blockade. This idea was highlighted following the recent incident where Mexico’s naval forces captured a submarine.
The “narco sub” was leaving from the coast of Mexico City, carrying an estimated three and a half tons of a substance suspected to be cocaine.
GOP opponent Ron DeSantis also supports lethal force in repelling the cartel-fueled drug supply that has claimed thousands of American lives. “Look, we’re going to use whatever leverage we have to ensure that this issue is brought to a conclusion,” DeSantis said.
U.S. military involvement is warranted and could prove to be effective in curbing the cartel-fueled drug supply that’s claimed thousands of American lives, according to one cartel expert.
Truth or fiction? NewsNation has more information here.
Category: Military issues
Tough call.. One could certainly argue that by failing to control the cartels that Mexico is allowing them to wage war on the US.. and add in multiple instances of Mexican military firing across the border…would certainly have political fallout, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing to do..
As a bonus think how well napalm would work on the drug fields…
As well as Paraquat did?
This has bad idea written all over it. Shades of Poncho Villa, at best. And you can only declare war on governments. Build the wall.
It’s been over 50 years since we declared war, although we’ve arguably had a few since then- poverty, drugs, terrorism. We did scuff a lot of folks up using the classic ‘authorization for the use of military force’. The AUMF passed after 9/11 is still in effect and has been used for all sorts of stuff- if we can somehow tie the cartels to AQ or terrorism in general we can just use that.
Also, it’s kind of hard to tell, but it seems that the AUMF for Iraq is still in effect- the House and Senate both passed the repeal in March but I’m not sure of the current status.
“the House and Senate both passed the repeal”
Macht’s nichts. The important question is was there an Executive Order?
Ist vichtig…
Executive orders don’t matter here. AUMFs are law and can only be repealed by approval of both houses and the Presidents signature.
Executive orders are completely different. They are directives to the Executive Branch, and they don’t have the weight of law.
According to the War Powers Resolution the president can only unilaterally use military force for 60 days without Congressional approval- thus the various AUMFs since WWII.
The point is that we apparently have two still in effect- the general GWOT AUMF, which generally gives POTUS authority to use force against anyone he can tie to terrorism: https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf,
…and the AUMF used to authorize the Iraq War: https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-joint-resolution/114/text which arguably give POTUS the authority to use force in places like Syria even if it does not involve terrorism.
This is not a good thing because essentially the president has a blank authorization to use force without notifying Congress or gaining approval as long as he can come up with a tie to terrorism.
Sarcasm is my default option
“the use of remarks that clearlymean the opposite of what they say, made in order to hurt someone’s feelings or to criticize something in a humorous way:”
Put it back in it’s cage.
Good Idea Fairy (noun) – A mischievous and highly dangerous sprite that resides in office spaces; known for planting the seeds of faulty ideas within the brains of anyone around it. Good Idea Fairies feed upon the frustration and confusion created by the implementation and use of those ideas it suggests. They are most often found in government and military workspaces, comprised of low to medium concentrations of underachievers, sub-performers and boss ingratiators. The feeble-minded, inexperienced, and easily confused are often targeted by the Good Idea Fairy. It also causes the brains of those affected to become addled, unable to tell a good idea from a bad one, and utterly incapable of hearing actual good advice.
Rout them from the AO or do the PowerPoint.
I take offense at your implication that Lindsay Graham is the Good Idea Fairy…..he hasn’t had a Good Idea in years.
Drugs, Poverty, Terror, GITMO, ‘Energy crisis’, Global warming, AIDS, Gangs, Cancer, etcetc.
This is a incomplete list of things our government has declared ‘war‘ on and/or appointed a ‘tzar‘.
Now ask yourself, do we have more or less of these things?
FDR started this fuckery, need I say more?
Outfuckingside the size and scope of federal governments powers, Lindsay Graham! You fucking fruitcake.
Now, now, now, Good Sir. Those wars were never won because there wasn’t enough money spent on them. Not to worry, tho. As soon as the grubermint wins the war on climate change it will be a balmy 69 degrees world wide and everyone will be cool and calm.
Expecting another shipment today from MP Supply. Who’s got the deal of the day on 7.62X39, probably steel case? Asking for a fren’.
Prepare.
When you leave the border wide open why bother going down there?
Dividends, ya knob!
SecDef Darth Raytheon Austin will do what he’s told, wage war on all the fronts!
meme.
(Oopsed the attachment of, I wish I could attach an image with ‘edit’. If anyone has instructions, lmk)
Anxiously awaiting to see these instructions myself.
“The ‘narco sub’ was leaving from the coast of Mexico City, carrying an estimated three and a half tons of a substance suspected to be cocaine.”
Mexico City is about 160 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
So cartels have developed a submarine that can traverse land, then enter the water?
Impressive.
Yeah, as soon as I read “the coast of Mexico City” I thought “somebody hasn’t looked at a map lately.”
All terrain vehicle.
Not to mention the 7349′ altitude.
That’s an advantage… the trip is all downhill.
First close the border down tight and go after the American Rino/Dem Cartel with a good house cleaning before any talk about striking other Countries, just a thought!
Troops on all American borders will be good training too.
https://ndsn.org/july97/goats.html
Tom Clancy and Harold Coyle wrote novels on this.
This has Bad Idea written all over it.
Mr. Clark and Ding Chavez unavailable for comment.
If you launch this get ready for guerilla warfare as never seen before in this country.
Assassinations, power and communication interruptions. After that everything goes to hell. That’s what the power brokers want so they will have an excuse to suspend your civil rights.
Agree with all the above.
And it’s been proven time and time again that a multitude of our ‘countrymen’ will gladly let this happen and facilitate TPTB in doing so.
Insert adage about snitches and stitches here.
‘Broken Arrow’ when?
This publication might be handy to have around…
Also FM 5-250
My dream is for the fed up world to finally fall upon our shores, sending waves of MBTs and APCs down our interstates. As a result Nasty Girl units and what remaining Fed troops clear out their storages to handout to We, the People, in order to slow the advance.
There’s a couple bridges on I-384 in CT I’m calling dibs on right now. I figure if done correctly that stretch of road can trap an armor brigade in a miles long kill box.
Zeros out their MTOE.
Isn’t or wasn’t there a meme or comment recently about yard gnomes and tannerite?
Posted on Boomer’s Sunday by our own KoB, see here (link):
Odie, I don’t recall seeing such comment or meme, so I had AI image generator create a meme of yard gnomes and Tannerite.
Roh dog found the one I was thinking of
You will need to fashion those special charges they taught us in SF school.
And we should also be reminded of and practice this truth:
Like an insurgency, right? We could implement a counter-insurgency strategy and give it a cool acronym. Maybe even pen a field manual.
Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies (fas.org)
Whatever could go wrong?
What else would we call efforts to defeat an insurgency?
The strategic decision to counter an insurgency should not be confused with the tactics used or the national will to support it.
The doctrine in the COIN manual was pretty solid, it’s just that we didn’t have the will as a nation, mainly because no one ever really had a good answer to the classic question of strategy: ‘to what end?’ Without a clear strategic objective we ended up just killing as many bad guys as we could find (see Afghanistan).
That said, I think defeating the cartels might fall more in the FID lane than COIN.
There have been a few successful COIN operations in history, but they lasted decades, were led by civilian authorities, and happened before mass media was there to ‘inform’ the citizenry of the counter-insurgent nation.
The Brits pulled off Malaya using tactics that would never be approved today, as did the French (Trinquier argued that torture is fine as long as it is carefully targeted…). The Indians pulled off at least one.
And it is always good to remember that most insurgencies have legitimate grievances. Removing those legitimate grievances helps a lot.
Exactly. The essential idea behind COIN doctrine is that success is ultimately tied to the political will of the people. Military force should be used sparingly and precisely. You can’t force people to love you at the point of a bayonet.
The price of blow will go sky high.
See what I did there?
The premise being missed here is that as long as there are idiots who will take the drugs, there will be suppliers. So many people look on at the drug issue as if it is a nonviolent victimless crime, and that is not the point. Stomp on the demand and the criminals will have to go somewhere else to sell their poison.
Maybe we could come up with something really innovative and determined, like say, a War on Drugs? 🙄
Marijuana won the last war. The US had to give up many cities. Atlanta, New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago, Denver, pretty much every city in California, Houston, Dallas, Austin. There is now a perpetual cloud of weed smoke lingering over all of those cities, probably more those are just the ones I know about that surrendered.
And wouldn’t you know it, they just found out that marijuana heavy usage causes all kinds of mental and physical illness. But so does alcohol. The problem is now everything smells like urine AND marijuana.
Except get hard on people, slamming them, instead of slapping them on the wrist. People commit crimes, little or big, based upon whether or not they can afford to pay the price. If there is little pain in the punishment, they will not hesitate to do it. Look at the totality of the crimes as well, pushers whose dope kills someone, get mandatory death penalty, for example. then CARRY IT OUT. Make prisons much less hospitable environments for criminals.
Mixed feelings. I’ve got no problems with smoking cartel members, but…. My real question is how the narco sub navigated the Potomac and how close it got to Hunter before making the drop?
Beside the fact it’s a bad idea and not feasible at that… Hell yeah!
You pretend like those are things that matter to Democrats.
“The idea of deploying the U.S. military into Mexico as a means to combat cartels has garnered support from Republican senators like Lindsey Graham…”
No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!!
I’ve got a better idea! Since we cannot use our military in the US (posse comitatus and all that) why don’t we use UN peacekeepers, someone else’s military, along the border? Since a military involvement is evidently necessary, who could possibly object to having armed foreign troops running around our country? Sure, there may be some unfortunate incidents, but what’s a little collateral damage?
We currently use all sorts of Foreign Internal Defense (FID) tools in Mexico- intel sharing, training their security forces, providing equipment, etc. Kind of like Ukraine but it’s easier to hide the money.
Illegal Drugs are a conundrum.
There are phenomenal amounts of money made by producing and importing them.
This profit brings in people no matter how harsh the penalties.
Drugs ruin lives and kill Americans by the thousands.
Attacking cartels will only open up the business to Mexican Mayors and police chiefs.
Killing them will only bring in different players ad infinitum.
Yet the war on drugs is costly and ruins thousands of lives.
Legalizing them (or ignoring enforcement) and allowing public consumption has destroyed the downtowns of Seattle, Portland and San Francisco.
Open air drug markets are a hazard to law abiding citizens.
So what to do?
An easier solution would be to hire mercs and have them conduct anti-drug raid and destruction operations. You get plausible deniability, and if mercs get killed it’s the cost of doing business, and no U.S. service personnel get sent home in a body bag.