Lindsey Graham suggests invading Mexico to fight the cartels.

[Coughdrop addict]

We invaded Afghanistan to fight a terrorist organization that the local government was in cahoots with. That turned into a 20 year farce which resulted in a return to status quo and nothing accomplished. The Mexican government is in cahoots with the cartels, any military action against said cartels would inevitably result in a fight with the Mexican government's forces and occupying the vast swaths of the country that are under cartel control.

I believe the desire on the right to attack Mexico, just like Russia's reasons for attacking Ukraine, is governed by a desire for money and power. Alleged concern for dead Americas is incidental or a fig leaf over darker intentions.

More than likely this will all blow over soon and the right will go back to feeling victimized because a history book in a red state was found to mention Jim Crow.

[alhoon]

So cartels often kill each other over ethnic or religious reasons?

Btw you are under the assumption the US will have to occupy Mexico. You can take military action against cartels without a single US soldier stepping foot in Mexico.

Cartels are large, well armed militias that kill each other over profit reasons. THAT is what makes them similar to the myriad ethnic groups.

I am under the assumption that the USA will have to occupy parts of Mexico because Mexico will fight. The Mexican army is poop and they will fight (and fold) like Iraq did. Then, you will have a very well armed insurgency (the Cartels), backed by foreign countries. And I remind you that the Cartel people are hiding their bases in the mountains and have a lot of combat experience fighting each other.
All in all, you cannot win against the Cartels with bullets.
USA cannot make even a significant dent without occupying large parts of Mexico. That's what I am trying to tell you.

As was already pointed out, comparisons to Afghanistan are simply uninformed.

As already pointed out, denying the comparisons with Afghanistan is simply wrong.
I clarified to Vanoi that the similarities are brutal, hidden, braindead militias with connections in every stratum of society. And unlike the Afghans, the drug cartels also have money.

Even if it did, that doesn’t make Mexico the next Afghanistan. It would look more like the previous umpteen Latin American interventions the US military has launched in the last century plus, including Mexico. There may be many reasons why a military solution is or isn’t the most effective, but “what about Afghanistan” almost certainly isn’t one of them.

But this is the point I made to Vanoi: Sending 100 soldiers to burn down the villa of a drug lord will do nothing for that problem like all those Latin American interventions the USA has launched!
The Cartels are embedded in ALL stratas of government, from the village priest to the federal government of Mexico!
Even if USA topples the Mexican government and installs a puppet regime, things will not change! You will have to go hill to hill, mountain to mountain, desert to desert and village to village in Mexico and rooting out drugs and the gangs!

That is simply impossible without an occupation.

Sure, sure, you can cow the Mexicans to do a symbolic move with a small intervention. Or you can take out a butthole and 50 of his cronies along with a drug factory and a few hectares of opium fields.
That is a drop in the ocean. You will see a 2% reduction of the drugs flooding USA for 1-2 years and then it will be exactly as it was. The opium fields will be replanted. Another butthole will find another 50 cronies and put up another factory.

THIS is what I am telling you. It is not an "one and done" thing. Aaaaall those Latin American interventions you mention didn't do crap about the drug problems. They were pretext to destabilize a regime or fight against those trying to destabilize a regime. Production of cocaine in all those countries wasn't really affected by the USA interventions.


Duterte is brutally fighting against the Cartels, in his own country and through many bloody battles and downright appalling police power abuses he has not managed to crush the drugs, just limit them somewhat.

[Vanoi]

Cartels are large, well armed militias that kill each other over profit reasons. THAT is what makes them similar to the myriad ethnic groups.

I am under the assumption that the USA will have to occupy parts of Mexico because Mexico will fight. The Mexican army is poop and they will fight (and fold) like Iraq did. Then, you will have a very well armed insurgency (the Cartels), backed by foreign countries. And I remind you that the Cartel people are hiding their bases in the mountains and have a lot of combat experience fighting each other.

Criminals don't have military training. Fighting against some another cartel gunman in his Chevy truck or the poor Mexican army isn't comparable to fighting the US army. When's the last time cartel gunman had to worry about tanks? Reaper drones? Actual artillery? At least the Iraqis and Taliban had experience fighting conventional armies. Cartels are just criminal. They don't even compare to insurgents.

And what foreign country is able to arm the cartels? Any arms that are sent to Mexico would have to go by boat. No US rivals border Mexico. Good luck getting past both the US Navy and Coast Guard. Cartel members have an easier time just getting guns to the US.

All in all, you cannot win against the Cartels with bullets.
USA cannot make even a significant dent without occupying large parts of Mexico. That's what I am trying to tell you.

Says you. You only need to control access to the US. Kill cartels ability to move their product. Control border access and sea access.

[irontaino]

Criminals don't have military training. Fighting against some another cartel gunman in his Chevy truck or the poor Mexican army isn't comparable to fighting the US army. When's the last time cartel gunman had to worry about tanks? Reaper drones? Actual artillery? At least the Iraqis and Taliban had experience fighting conventional armies. Cartels are just criminal. They don't even compare to insurgents.

False, many cartel members are recruited from the military...they're often even American trained. These aren't petty street gangs we're talking about, these are well armed and funded organizations with strong paramilitary wings.

Any arms that are sent to Mexico would have to go by boat. No US rivals border Mexico. Good luck getting past both the US Navy and Coast Guard. Cartel members have an easier time just getting guns to the US.

You don't need US rivals, just lots of money (cartels have this in spades). Guns have been flowing in from Central America and Colombia while the US remains the top contributor.

You only need to control access to the US. Kill cartels ability to move their product. Control border access and sea access.

Not really possible without an occupation, especially with the overland routes from Central and South America.

[alhoon]

Criminals don't have military training.

You vastly underestimate the Cartels. First, they have military training. Second, they have training in extreme brutality that knows no bounds. As part of their training, some cartels have their goons kill a member of their family for no reason other than initiation or sleep next to corpses. These are completely dehumanized persons.

Third and most important: Similar with the Iraqi insurgents or the Taliban, the cartel gunners will hide among the population. You know, like in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, insurgents etc had to worry about arty, drones etc etc. And yet, they were delivering casualties to the USA troops. Sure, it was like 1 USA soldier dead for every 20 insurgents or something. But in the end, the insurgents remained and USA left.
Which is what you will see in Mexico. A chevy driving by a bar and suddenly machine-gunning the place. IEDs on the road. Snipers taking out Americans.
Also, the cartels are notoriously indifferent to side-casualties. A cartel member would throw three grenades in a restaurant with 4 soldiers and 50 random bystanders and call it a victory. They do such things.

Now, what foreign country will arm the Cartels: USA for example. It's no secret that the USA latin gangs have deals and dealings with the Cartels. They will be carried to Mexico by the same ways that drugs come out.
"Cartel members have an easier time just getting guns to the US." <=== that's what they will do.

"You only need to control access to the US. Kill cartels ability to move their product. Control border access and sea access."
Only that eh? You think that is easy? There's huge demand for drugs in USA. Ways will be found as they have been found in the past.

That said: Yes, better border control WILL cause a dent. And that's veeeery different than a military operation inside a sovereign country to kill a local mobster that will be replaced within a month.
So, instead of Graham suggesting idiotic "Special operations" to de-drugify Mexico, he should be suggesting funds for more drones to patrol the border, better and faster vehicles for the border patrol guards and more patrol guards.

False, many cartel members are recruited from the military...they're often even American trained. These aren't petty street gangs we're talking about, these are well armed and funded organizations with strong paramilitary wings.



You don't need US rivals, just lots of money (cartels have this in spades). Guns have been flowing in from Central America and Colombia while the US remains the top contributor.

Or... well, what Irontaino said.

Not really possible without an occupation, especially with the overland routes from Central and South America.

There we disagree. USA can very well do a better job of its OWN borders and that does not require occupying anyone.
Except if you mean routes for drugs to reach Mexico which I doubt USA senator Graham cares about. I was under the impression the target was to limit the flow of drugs to USA, not to Mexico.

[irontaino]

There we disagree. USA can very well do a better job of its OWN borders and that does not require occupying anyone.
Except if you mean routes for drugs to reach Mexico which I doubt USA senator Graham cares about. I was under the impression the target was to limit the flow of drugs to USA, not to Mexico.

I was talking more about the flow of guns into Mexico, keeping the cartels armed. I do agree the US maintaining it's own border to stem the flow of drugs and guns would be more effective than a military intervention.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Anything to trick Democrats into believing border security is the anti-racist option, I guess. Reminds me of Biden tweeting about the importance of border security the other day - in contrast to Republicans - just days after a federal judge officially described the impact of Biden’s policies on border security as having turned the latter into “little more than a speedbump” and ordered the Administration to start following the law. Maybe an expansion of Trump’s military deployment at the border, which the Biden Admin has quietly extended despite terminating the state of emergency and cutting funding earlier that same year, would be an effective compromise.

So, instead of Graham suggesting idiotic "Special operations" to de-drugify Mexico, he should be suggesting funds for more drones to patrol the border, better and faster vehicles for the border patrol guards and more patrol guards.

Congressional Republicans put together border security bills and agendas all the time, like this one and this one, and the Democrats don’t vote for them. The Democrats don’t want to do border security, and the situation has become so dire that military options have been on the table since at least as far back as the Trump Admin. It will take a combination of military and non military coordination on both sides of the border to improve things. If Mexico doesn’t want to help since their president recently dismissed American concerns as “propaganda” and insisted Mexico is “safer than the US,” we will have to secure both sides of the border on our own at some point. It’s either that or accept a status quo where the border is practically nonexistent.

[irontaino]

Anything to trick Democrats into believing border security is the anti-racist option, I guess. Reminds me of Biden tweeting about the importance of border security the other day - in contrast to Republicans - just days after a federal judge officially described the impact of Biden’s policies on border security as having turned the latter into “little more than a speedbump” and ordered the Administration to start following the law. Maybe an expansion of Trump’s military deployment at the border, which the Biden Admin has quietly extended despite terminating the state of emergency and cutting funding earlier that same year, would be an effective compromise.

Congressional Republicans put together border security bills and agendas all the time, like this one and this one, and the Democrats don’t vote for them. The Democrats don’t want to do border security, and the situation has become so dire that military options have been on the table since at least as far back as the Trump Admin. It will take a combination of military and non military coordination on both sides of the border to improve things. If Mexico doesn’t want to help since their president recently dismissed American concerns as “propaganda” and insisted Mexico is “safer than the US,” we will have to secure both sides of the border on our own at some point. It’s either that or accept a status quo where the border is practically nonexistent.

You wanna stop the violence? You wanna stem the flow of refugees? There's only one real solution: decriminalize/legalize and regulate all drugs. The war on drugs has been an unmitigated disaster, the only winning move is not to play the game. Beefing up border security or a military operation would just be a band-aid.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Democrats aren’t going to legalize all drugs any time soon, so instead of throwing out the idea as a panacea, maybe they could actually come up with a border policy, or at least stop blocking Republican ones. I mean, if we’re talking pie in the sky, I suppose we should just annex Mexico too, thus dramatically shortening the border solving illegal immigration while at it.

The cartels have anticipated legalization anyway and diversified a long time ago. Their top revenue streams include natural resources and various kinds of extortion/theft/corruption in addition to drugs. The biggest profits aren’t from weed either. This isn’t 1995. Are you suggesting fentanyl and meth should be legal? Are you going to make meth and fentanyl so cheap and plentiful there’s no market for Latin American product? Why is that a good idea/how will you mitigate the negative effects? Why is expanding access to the opioid crisis preferable to border security/military action?

For more than half a century, Tijuana has been a manufacturing hub — churning out electronics, medical devices and components for aircraft and cars from factories on the doorstep of the US. But Bejarano is a link in a newer cross-border supply chain: synthetic drugs.

“For the cartels in Mexico, the biggest profits now come from methamphetamines and fentanyl,” says Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

US authorities say Mexico is already the source of 90 per cent of the illicit drugs crossing the border. As Mexico prepares to legalise marijuana, analysts say the lucrative trade in fentanyl will continue to boom, posing a headache for new US president Joe Biden as deaths from synthetic opioids, and drugs laced with them, continue to rise.

On that basis, the trend is worrying. While UN data show a 10-fold plunge in marijuana seizures in Mexico in less than a decade — from 2.3m kg in 2010 to 231,000kg in 2018 — fentanyl seizures rose nearly 500 per cent last year to 1.3m kg, according to Mexico’s defence minister.

https://www.ft.com/content/a667a8b6-...3-b83897df323e

[Vanoi]

False, many cartel members are recruited from the military...they're often even American trained. These aren't petty street gangs we're talking about, these are well armed and funded organizations with strong paramilitary wings.

Oh man American trained cartel members. Remind me, how much military experience does the Mexican Army have again? Oh wait, none. My point stands firm here. The vast majority of cartel members have no military training. Those that do do not have experience fighting convential armies in any capacity.

I'll ask this again. When is the last time cartel members faced off against tanks, artillery, and reaper drones?

You don't need US rivals, just lots of money (cartels have this in spades). Guns have been flowing in from Central America and Colombia while the US remains the top contributor.

If only small arms won you wars. M-16s aren't going to put a dent in the US Army.

Not really possible without an occupation, especially with the overland routes from Central and South America.

Last time i checked not single Central American or South American country broiders the US. Controlling the US-Mexican border does not require the US to control the Mexican-Central American borders as well.

You vastly underestimate the Cartels. ​First, they have military training. Second, they have training in extreme brutality that knows no bounds. As part of their training, some cartels have their goons kill a member of their family for no reason other than initiation or sleep next to corpses. These are completely dehumanized persons.

Some cartel members have military training. That does not mean they have experience fighting armies like the US Army. Brutality means nothing alhoon. Wagner is brutal too and they still die by droves in Ukraine. Being dehumanized doesn';t mean you are bulletproof. It doesn't mean you can suddenly stop tanks. A hellfire missile will still blow you to pieces, brutal or not.

Third and most important: Similar with the Iraqi insurgents or the Taliban, the cartel gunners will hide among the population. You know, like in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, insurgents etc had to worry about arty, drones etc etc. And yet, they were delivering casualties to the USA troops. Sure, it was like 1 USA soldier dead for every 20 insurgents or something. But in the end, the insurgents remained and USA left.

The Taliban had support from the Pakistani government and hid in their country. The Iraqi insurgents had support from Iran including sophisticated bombs and weapons. And of course military experience. Mexico has neither. The Iraqis and Taliban inflicted losses because of their years of experience fighting in war and support they received. Cartel members don't have either of that.

And do remember. The US left Afghanistan for political reasons, not because the Taliban were inflicting too many casualties. In Iraq? The insurgents are dead. The Iraqi government stands tall. Those Iraqi insurgents lost in the end.

Which is what you will see in Mexico. A chevy driving by a bar and suddenly machine-gunning the place. IEDs on the road. Snipers taking out Americans.
Also, the cartels are notoriously indifferent to side-casualties. A cartel member would throw three grenades in a restaurant with 4 soldiers and 50 random bystanders and call it a victory. They do such things.

I'm shaking in my boots. You do realize the cartel needs support of the local populace right? Thats how insurgencies work. Killing the local populace erodes your support. Cartel members can't very well hide among the populace if that very populace rats them out. As it is now many villages in Mexico form their own self-defense militias to fight against the cartels. You are vastly overestimating the support cartels have in Mexico.

"You only need to control access to the US. Kill cartels ability to move their product. Control border access and sea access."
Only that eh? You think that is easy? There's huge demand for drugs in USA. Ways will be found as they have been found in the past.

Did i say it was easy? Yes drug demand exists. You still have to get those drugs across the border. Land use and sea use are the easiest and most efficient ways.

[irontaino]

Democrats aren’t going to legalize all drugs any time soon, so instead of throwing out the idea as a panacea, maybe they could actually come up with a border policy, or at least stop blocking Republican ones. I mean, if we’re talking pie in the sky, I suppose we should just annex Mexico too, thus dramatically shortening the border solving illegal immigration while at it.

The cartels have anticipated legalization anyway and diversified a long time ago. Their top revenue streams include natural resources and various kinds of extortion/theft/corruption in addition to drugs. The biggest profits aren’t from weed either. This isn’t 1995. Are you suggesting fentanyl and meth should be legal? Are you going to make meth and fentanyl so cheap and plentiful there’s no market for Latin American product? Why is that a good idea/how will you mitigate the negative effects? Why is expanding access to the opioid crisis preferable to border security/military action?

You wanna stop the violence? You wanna stem the flow of refugees? There's only one real solution: decriminalize/legalize and regulate all drugs. The war on drugs has been an unmitigated disaster, the only winning move is not to play the game. Beefing up border security or a military operation would just be a band-aid.

Bolded for clarity. Decriminalization =/= legalization. The opioid crisis is a health issue, not a criminal one. Same with methamphetamine. But also sure, legalizing and heavily regulating these would put the hurt on the cartel's income. It's very clear that the current way isn't working and that drugs have already won the war on drugs.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Bolded for clarity. Decriminalization =/= legalization. The opioid crisis is a health issue, not a criminal one. Same with methamphetamine. But also sure, legalizing and heavily regulating these would put the hurt on the cartel's income. It's very clear that the current way isn't working and that drugs have already won the war on drugs.

Democrats aren’t going to decriminalize all drugs any time soon either. Evasion doesn’t help your case. While weed decriminalization did correlate with reduced flows from Mexico, it’s unclear whether this was caused by decriminalization or by the profitability of harder drugs like cocaine, meth and fentanyl. This is because decriminalization does not impact supply, which is what I asked about. More importantly, decriminalization causes higher rates of use which incentivizes increased supply and access. Weed is the new normal, with half of people under 30 reporting past year use, and a third reporting past month use. These are the highest rates on record. To rephrase my prior questions, does increasing the use, supply and access to meth and fentanyl, regardless of where it comes from, seem like a long term solution to you? Why is this preferable to border security/military options?

[alhoon]

If only small arms won you wars. M-16s aren't going to put a dent in the US Army.

Again, you don't understand. Nobody says the Cartels can set up brigades and fight tanks and apache helicopters.
What they can do is what the Taliban and the Iraqi insurgents did: Hide and then machine-gun a few soldiers as they stand at the gate of their base. Set IEDs to blow up a passing vehicle. Etc.

No, we are not saying the Cartels are going to defeat the USA army. We're saying the Cartels will not stop because the USA army controls the cities or because they would have 10000 casualties per year just to kill 500 USA soldiers and 1000 Mexican enforcers per year. And we're saying that USA opinion will very quickly turn sour at the 500 dead soldiers per year and billions in support of the USA "Special operation to de-dragify Mexico" for a 10% decrease in the volume of drugs in USA.

It is not worth the cost or the blood and it will not be effective because controlling the cities will not be effective. Similarly, blowing up factories as soon as they are discovered will not be effective as the factories are not easy to discover while they are easy to set up.

That does not mean they have experience fighting armies like the US Army. Brutality means nothing alhoon. Wagner is brutal too and they still die by droves in Ukraine. Being dehumanized doesn';t mean you are bulletproof. It doesn't mean you can suddenly stop tanks. A hellfire missile will still blow you to pieces, brutal or not.

Yes, they don't have experience fighting armies like the USA army... and they will not fight the USA army. What they do have experience in, is street by street warfare, sabotage, corruption and hit-and-run tactics.
A hellfire missile can certainly blow you to pieces along with your AR-15. Sure. Or better blow you and your 2 buddies up along with your guns and your truck. Nobody argues that.

Now, on the logistics:
3 AR-15 and a truck: 30,000$ (if the truck is not simply stolen...)
Hellfire missile: 150,000$.

But of course, they couldn't find more goons, could they? Well, yes they can.
Just the Sinaloa Cartel has OVER 100K members. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel has 15K members.

And here's some more sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_drug_war

I'm shaking in my boots. You do realize the cartel needs support of the local populace right? Thats how insurgencies work. Killing the local populace erodes your support. Cartel members can't very well hide among the populace if that very populace rats them out. As it is now many villages in Mexico form their own self-defense militias to fight against the cartels. You are vastly overestimating the support cartels have in Mexico.

Again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_drug_war
The Cartels have killed or kidnapped about 400K people in the past 15 years. They have besieged cities.
The way they keep the popular support? Through fear. When you hear stories about people burning children alive while their parents are forced to watch, and you know the police and the army are corrupt, you are VERY unlikely to turn over the cartel member to the USA soldiers, "just" because you lost a leg and your brother was killed in a random battle. There are worse things that will happen to you and your loved ones if you speak.


And then, consider this:
The Cartels have lost 40,000 soldiers or so (fighting each other, the police, the army and USA interventions) and 120K members have been detained in the past 15 years.
And their power is growing.

The USA showing up and occupying cities won't stop them cause their production is not in the cities.
The USA showing up in greater force and killing 5000 more of them per year would mean they will simply fight less between themselves and the Mexican police and army and... things would be mostly the same. However, USA will be tied in a swamp, paying billions to support an operation with low effects in the drug production. Spending 100-200 billions and losing 2000 American soldiers in 5 years in Mexico for a 10% decrease in the drugs arriving to USA? No, it's not worth it.

[irontaino]

To rephrase my prior questions, does increasing the use, supply and access to meth and fentanyl, regardless of where it comes from, seem like a long term solution to you?

Rephrasing it as a loaded question, huhh? Decriminalization is the only long term solution. Controlling the supply, treating addiction as a health issue instead of a criminal one, and offering programs for users who want to quit. No different than what we do with cigarettes or alcohol.

Why is this preferable to border security/military options?

Regulation, that's why. Prohibition has only increases demand for illicit product, and the violence that comes with it. We've seen this with every historical example.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Rephrasing it as a loaded question, huhh? Decriminalization is the only long term solution. Controlling the supply, treating addiction as a health issue instead of a criminal one, and offering programs for users who want to quit. No different than what we do with cigarettes or alcohol.

Regulation, that's why. Prohibition has only increases demand for illicit product, and the violence that comes with it. We've seen this with every historical example.

Decriminalization and regulation are about the law, not supply. Repeating yourself isn’t much of an explanation, and comparing meth and fentanyl to cigarettes and alcohol betrays the ignorance of your assertions. Asking questions about the proven consequences of your proposal is anything but rhetorical.

Spending 100-200 billions and losing 2000 American soldiers in 5 years in Mexico for a 10% decrease in the drugs arriving to USA? No, it's not worth it.

Where are you getting these estimates from? The US suffered ~2000 KIA in 20 years in Afghanistan, not 5, and that’s assuming the US would even put boots on the ground. ISIL had tens of thousands of fighters throughout the Middle East at its height a few years ago. The US military has deployed less than 10,000 troops on the ground against ISIL during that time as part of coalition forces at a cost of around 15 billion dollars (not 200) and suffered less than 100 KIA while ISIL has suffered nearly 1000 times that many. Despite having controlled thousands of square miles of territory and ruled over millions of people as recently as 2017, ISIL is now relegated to pockets of Syria where less than 1000 US troops remain engaged.

So, we’re not even talking about comparisons to other terrorists anymore. You seem to insist that the Mexican cartels are some of the most potent military forces on the planet and would immediately unite into an insurgency more powerful than the Taliban or ISIL, for reasons which are entirely unclear, and under the assumption the US would launch the sort of operation that isn’t even being proposed at any official level. Why?

[irontaino]

Decriminalization and regulation are about the law, not supply.

Decriminalization and regulation reduce the demand for illicit supply.

Repeating yourself isn’t much of an explanation, and comparing meth and fentanyl to cigarettes and alcohol betrays the ignorance of your assertions. Asking questions about the proven consequences of your proposal is anything but rhetorical.

It's not like prohibition has failed every single time it's been tried, right?

[alhoon]

Where are you getting these estimates from? The US suffered ~2000 KIA in 20 years in Afghanistan, not 5, and that’s assuming the US would even put boots on the ground. ISIL had tens of thousands of fighters throughout the Middle East at its height a few years ago. The US military has deployed less than 10,000 troops on the ground against ISIL during that time as part of coalition forces at a cost of around 15 billion dollars (not 200) and suffered less than 100 KIA while ISIL has suffered nearly 1000 times that many. Despite having controlled thousands of square miles of territory and ruled over millions of people as recently as 2017, ISIL is now relegated to pockets of Syria where less than 1000 US troops remain engaged.

So, we’re not even talking about comparisons to other terrorists anymore. You seem to insist that the Mexican cartels are some of the most potent military forces on the planet and would immediately unite into an insurgency more powerful than the Taliban or ISIL, for reasons which are entirely unclear, and under the assumption the US would launch the sort of operation that isn’t even being proposed at any official level. Why?

While USA was bombing ISIS, the Syrian, Kurdish and Persian Militias (yes, the evil Persians that USA kinda-supported in 2014 against ISIS...) were fighting on the ground. USA doesn't have such allies to fight the cartels in Mexico ... unless they align with other cartels.

The situation is more similar to Afghanistan or the Iraqi insurgents of the Iraq war 2003-2011. And the numbers of casualties during that insurgency were 4600 according to the DoD.
Afghanistan war that caused 2500 casualties +3500 American mercenaries (including soldiers rebranded as mercenaries) doesn't share a border with USA nor there are well connected Afghani gangs in most major USA cities with tons of cash.

So... the 5000 dead in 5 years is realistic. And how much did USA spend in those two wars?
Iraq war: 780 B$

Afghanistan war: Well, this is trickier. I see total costs of over 2 trillion $, but these include reconstruction money and other money sent to Afghanistan as help.

The good news for Mexico war special operation is that... Mexico borders the USA. No need to transport countless people, tanks, planes and ammo in the other side of the world. It would certainly be cheaper than Iraq or Afghanistan. Thus... I give an estimation of 25% (1/4th) of the costs of the Iraq war.


And you will need boots on the ground as I said before to Vanoi, because just flying over and bombing cities won't stop the cartels. It will simply raise anti-Americanism all around the world and bring you next to a war with Mexico. I wouldn't be surprised if USA found some countries in Latin America and Asia placing sanctions on USA. I wouldn't consider it impossible for the EU to sanction a few USA politicians and companies over this.

The financial cost alone, of the war and of the lost revenues (Mexico is a good customer), would be prohibitive and thus such "special operation" is not going to get greenlit by Congress.
A symbolic bombing of 50 cartel goons in a valley or desert? Perhaps. Anything substantial that would remove 30,000 Cartel members (to make a dent) within 2-3 years?
No. No way. That's a faaar bigger operation.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Decriminalization and regulation reduce the demand for illicit supply.

So? It increases overall supply and use. How is that going to change where the drugs come from? Even if it does somehow over X number of years, why is that preferable to border security or military action against the cartels? Decades of consensus has established the link between drug use and crime. Half of violent criminals and a third of property criminals use drugs, and a fifth committed their crimes specifically to get money for drugs, according to DOJ surveys. Half of homeless people report drug use caused their situation, according to a 2019 UCLA survey. Increasing drug use is not a solution to the border crisis.

Afghanistan war that caused 2500 casualties +3500 American mercenaries (including soldiers rebranded as mercenaries) doesn't share a border with USA nor there are well connected Afghani gangs in most major USA cities with tons of cash.

I’m not sure how reiterating your unsubstantiated assertion that Mexican drug cartels are more powerful than ISIL or the Taliban is any more effective than the uninformed speculation accompanying it. The fixation with Iraq and Afghanistan rather than any of the other counterterrorism operations the US military is engaged in dozens of countries around the world suggests the rhetorical goal of the comparison is more important than the comparison itself.

The financial cost alone, of the war and of the lost revenues (Mexico is a good customer), would be prohibitive and thus such "special operation" is not going to get greenlit by Congress.

Then why are you going on and on about it? No one in the US government has proposed occupying Mexico. Neither has Vanoi or I.

[irontaino]

So? It increases overall supply and use. How is that automatically going to change where the drugs come from? Even if it does somehow over X number of years, why is that preferable to border security or military action against the cartels in the meantime? Decades of consensus has established the link between drug use and crime. Half of violent criminals and a third of property criminals use drugs, and a fifth committed their crimes specifically to get money for drugs, according to DOJ surveys. Half of homeless people report drug use caused their situation, according to a 2019 UCLA survey. Increasing drug supply and use is not a solution to the border crisis.

Alcoholism is also rampant in violent crime and homelessness, should we use military action against alcohol companies? It's a quantifiable fact that the war on drugs has failed in every conceivable way. The same way the 18th amendment failed in every conceivable way.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Alcoholism is also rampant in violent crime and homelessness, should we use military action against alcohol companies?

Are alcohol companies terrorist organizations? If not, then your comparison is irrelevant.

It's a quantifiable fact that the war on drugs has failed in every conceivable way. The same way the 18th amendment failed in every conceivable way.

Ah yes, what will solve everything is for meth and fentanyl to be enjoyed “responsibly” by “21 year olds only” at bars, restaurants and family dinner tables across the country, just like alcohol, because that’s how hard drugs work. Not only does this have nothing to do with the supply of drugs from Mexico, it fails both as a regulatory and practical comparison. The demand for any product or service is driven underground by prohibition. That observation isn’t a self-evident justification for decriminalization, otherwise nothing would be illegal.

The first consequence of drug prohibition is more overdoses and drug-related illness. This is perhaps best illustrated with an example comparing how information is transferred when a drug is legal versus how it is transferred when a drug is illegal.

People aren’t being killed by meth or fentanyl because they don’t have reliable information about the price or purity. They’re being killed because meth and fentanyl are toxic, addictive and potent, far more per volume than alcohol and cigarettes, or cocaine for that matter.

This is not the only way that prohibition can increase overdoses. On the supply side, prohibition leads sellers to create, transport, and sell more potent materials because prohibition’s added costs incentivize higher-potency drugs and their higher value per unit. For example, under prohibition, suppliers will tend to offer heroin compared to marijuana, since heroin is more valuable per unit (heroin sells for around $450 per gram, while marijuana sells for between $10 and $16 per gram in the United States).

Irrelevant. Weed has been 30-40 bucks for an eighth since forever, and it’s not like there’s a recreationally safe concentration of meth or fentanyl to enjoy with your dinner. But to take Cato’s observation to its logical conclusion, how is bringing heroin down to 10 bucks a gram a good idea? Why is increasing drug use a good idea? The question that is never answered.

Likewise, drug dealers will tend to sell more potent versions of all drugs. For instance, someone selling marijuana will likely provide a product with higher concentrations of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of marijuana, as they can earn more money per unit.17

A similar shift to more potent substances occurs on the demand side. Because prohibition raises drug prices, users seek more bang for their buck. That is, since the overall cost of obtaining drugs is higher, more potent drugs look relatively cheaper than weak drugs. If we assume that drug users rationally respond to risk and look to maximize their satisfaction or high from every dollar spent, this has three important implications.

First, users will likely switch from lower potency to higher potency within a given type of drug (for example, from marijuana with lower to higher concentrations of THC). Second, users may switch from low-potency drugs to harder drugs (such as from marijuana to cocaine). Third, users are likely to employ ingestion methods that increase the effectiveness of drugs (such as injecting rather than smoking a drug). Taken together, these information and potency effects mean that prohibition likely increases drug overdoses.

This is true of any market, legal or illegal. With increased drug use comes increased demand for more potent product, because that’s how drugs work. That’s exactly what happened following weed decriminalization. Average potency (THC) has tripled in recent years according to the National Library of Medicine, which is also associated with higher rates of dependence/abuse. The only reason this hasn’t killed more people than ever is because you can’t overdose on weed.

Proponents of prohibition argue that these policies disrupt and dismantle drug cartels. In practice, however, prohibition appears to promote cartelization of the drug industry. Recall that drug prohibition keeps some suppliers out of the drug market—those unwilling or unable to take the risks associated with operating in an illicit industry. Those individuals and groups that remain are those more comfortable with using violence and engaging in illicit activity. In a legal market for drugs, not only would the costs and benefits of using violence change (violence would be less attractive), but new entrants could more easily penetrate the market.

Lmao yeah, the problem with meth and fentanyl isn’t their proliferation by cartels, it’s that there aren’t enough entrepreneurs selling it out of their trailers. The sort of hot take you can only get from a libertarian think tank.

In 1971, two years before the creation of the DEA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that slightly more than 1 death per 100,000 people in the United States was related to drug overdose. This figure rose to 3.4 deaths per 100,000 people by 1990 (see Figure 1). By 2008, there were 12 overdose deaths per 100,000 people.27

A rather curious juxtaposition that seems to rely on the power of suggestion to evidence the conclusion, especially since the authors criticize drug restrictions from as far back as the late 19th century. Taken at face value, the same observation applies to the correlation between increased drug use and decriminalization. Surely neither you nor Cato is suggesting overdose deaths will decrease if there’s more, cheaper and not less, expensive meth and fentanyl around, but that’s the only possible conclusion of these comparisons.

Just as overdose deaths and drug-related illnesses increase under drug prohibition, so, too, does violence related to the market for drugs.

Feel free to explain how more meth and fentanyl use is going to lower violence. I suppose because so many more people are dead?

Just as alcohol prohibition gave rise to the American Mafia, the early prohibition of opium and other drugs in the late 1800s and early 1900s fostered the formation of Chinese drug gangs.

Gangs will make money any way they can. That’s how gangs work. In typical libertarian fashion, this is blamed on the existence of the modern state. Lolol.

Corruption in the United States related to the drug war is well documented. A 2009 report from the Associated Press found that “U.S. law officers who work the border are being charged with criminal corruption in numbers not seen before, as drug and immigrant smugglers use money and sometimes sex to buy protection.

I see human trafficking was slipped in without explanation but just as well, I don’t suppose the black market for sex and other labor is a reason to “decriminalize and regulate” slavery.

The militarization of U.S. domestic police is readily apparent from the legislation passed since the early 1970s. As noted above, those involved in any aspect of the drug market, interdiction included, are now more likely to encounter individuals with a comparative advantage in violence and face an increased frequency of violent actions. For police, this provides a strong incentive to adopt more forceful tactics.

I’m sure the police will voluntarily disarm when they have to deal with increased crime due to increased drug use as a result of decriminalization, and the justice system has to adjudicate turf wars between the 8th Avenue Meth Boys and Walgreens. The cities that tried defunding police post 2020 and reducing enforcement have spent alot of money and effort reversing course. But anyway, the observation that militarization is a response to increased drug traffic hurts, not helps, the assertion that the military has no role to play in combatting the source in ways law enforcement can’t or is not designed to.

The unintended consequences of the War on Drugs do not affect all groups equally. In the United States, it is well documented that these policies disproportionately impact minority communities, particularly blacks and Hispanics. Attorney and legal scholar Graham Boyd has referred to the drug war as the “new Jim Crow.”

Black people have the lowest rates of meth and fentanyl use. Racism canceled.

First, Portugal has seen no major increase in rates of drug use, and the country’s rate of use remains below the European average and well below the average in the United States. Importantly, the use of drugs among particularly vulnerable populations, such as adolescents, has dropped.

I don’t know if Cato knows what an outlier is, but that’s what they’re describing here based on their own framing. Weed use, supply and potency skyrocketed following decriminalization in the US, and alcoholism is also rising despite being completely legal and more socially acceptable than drugs. Clearly not the magic bullet being presented here.

While Cato’s approach is ideologically consistent, that doesn’t mean their Econ 101 hot take is any more compelling when applied to hard drugs than it would be when applied to organs, slaves, child porn or hamburgers made out of homeless people. It’s not about economic efficiency, it’s about securing the border.