5 ms·

The US government spends trillions on the military, what stops them from descending with a crapload of police forces into a city like this and putting an end to

by jiofih 6y ago

The US government spends trillions on the military, what stops them from descending with a crapload of police forces into a city like this and putting an end to it?

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
International law? And, also, just "law". One of the better developments of last few decades is that national borders are, for the most part, no longer subject to violent change. That's due to territory simply losing importance: raw materials are insignificant, economically, compared to the fruits of intellectual labor. Borders have also become much more porous: the conflict in Northern Ireland, for example, lost much of its significance when it became commonplace to commute across the border every day. Then, a once-mighty nation took the lead in establishing what's called the "rule-based international order": You may conquer some territory with your oh-so-mighty territory. But whatcha gonna do with it when nobody is going to reconise it and you can't sell anything produced there in international markets? There's been enough regression in these efforts in recent years. No matter how grating it may be to see criminals getting away, it comes nowhere close to being significant enough to go back to might-is-right.
- voisin 6y ago
  Petty concepts that have never stopped the US Government before. /s
  - tsjq 6y ago
    LOL !
- warriormonk5 6y ago
  Norman Angell argued almost the exact same thing as you-- in 1909. Doubled down on this argument in 1933. "The Great Illusion". He was wrong -- both times. :)
  - nl 6y ago
    It's extremely unclear what you think Angell was arguing for and what you think he was wrong about. "The Great Illusion" argued that economic integration made war unlikely. He was wrong in that he hadn't realized how much people wanted something that went against their interests. But he learned that lesson well: "From the mid-1930s, Angell actively campaigned for collective international opposition to the aggressive policies of Germany, Italy, and Japan. He went to the United States in 1940 to lecture in favour of American support for Britain in World War II"[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Angell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Angell
    - warriormonk5 6y ago
      My only point is that I see similar echoes of that argument from the comment I replied to, and I firmly disagree with that stance. We got a small taste of how isolated nations are when this pandemic kicked off. It's amazing it didn't degrade further.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > national borders are, for the most part, no longer subject to violent change. This is nonsense. - China and it's neighbors are on the brink of war over water diversion - China seized the 9-dashed line islands over navigation and fishing rights, and all of its neighbors are in an arms race - Armenia just lost disputed territory a couple months ago. - Britain and the EU are entering a cold war over fishing rights.
baybal2 6y ago
If you didn't know, that was attempted quite a number of times.
jmnicolas 6y ago
The US government can't secure its own prisons where it has full control, what make you believe it would do better in a Mexican city?
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  The US does do better, empirically. I am certainly not endorsing GP’s position, but your false equivalence is a distraction.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    It really doesnt, especially when controlled by income the US does a worst job.
    - jokethrowaway 6y ago
      I'd rather live in an American city then in a Mexican city. Granted, I'd pick a European city over both (albeit that's country dependant, Southern Europe city life is getting considerably worse)
      - jmnicolas 6y ago
        And as a European I'd pick a Japanese city any day. So I guess the grass is always greener somewhere else :)
      - cambalache 6y ago
        Controlled by income? I will pick Mexico every single time. At 800 USD/month you can live a middle class life in plenty of very nice and safe places in Mexico. Try that in America.
        smabie 6y ago
        That's not what "controlling for income" means. So let's make this clear, you would rather make $843/month (median) in Mexico vs $3714/month (median) in America?
praptak 6y ago
What makes you think the US government has any motivation to do anything like this?
maxlybbert 6y ago
The US has spent money trying to train police in other countries. Unfortunately, the main motivation has been stopping the drug trade, so most of that training has been militaristic.
pjc50 6y ago
You saw how that worked in Iraq. The US can't even provide security without murdering bystanders in its own cities.
sto_hristo 6y ago
You're fighting cancer. Sure, the US can break all laws and go do a 100% clean sweep of that city, but the area around it will still be contaminated. US will have to leave eventually and this will open the door to new criminals who will simply see it as "free real estate." If people themselves (the immune system, if you wish) don't make an effort like this woman did, no intervention will help them, Earthly or Divine alike. At best the US can bunker up and make an effort to contain them. Close to a trillion have been spent on Afghanistan for almost a decade. That much effort was needed to throw off an easily identifiable terrorist state. How will Afghanistan last until it collapses again? Because it's only a matter of time.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  > How will Afghanistan last until it collapses again? the US has already struck a deal with the taliban, and the afghan government is formally negotiating with them right now. so probably not long...
intricatedetail 6y ago
If it ends then how cops will be making money on the side (e.g. declaring half of the actual drug bust and pocketing the rest or getting protection payments from gangs)
sonotathrowaway 6y ago
The blood and memory of people who have already paid for that arrogance in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, hopefully.
zarkov99 6y ago
Public opinion.
hyeomans 6y ago
Sovereignty of Mexico state. Imagine this was reversed. I believe we live in a narco-state where government works for the cartels. This does not exclude US authorities, search for Garcia Luna and ties with DEA operatives/israel companies
dragonwriter 6y ago
> The US government spends trillions on the military, what stops them from descending with a crapload of police forces into a city like this and putting an end to it? “Military” and “police forces” are different things. But, in either case, doing so would both start a war with and further destabilize Mexico. There's a reason the US usually does this to countries far from its own borders, separated by oceans, or both, so that the blowback when popular support collapses and the ongoing cost in blood and treasure becomes intolerable is born by people that are remote from the US (in both the target country and it's neighbors.) Aside from those pragmatic concerns, the same considerations also have a moral dimension, though that's less consistently reflected in policy decisions.
knolax 6y ago
US police aren't even well liked in America. What makes you think they'd be welcomed in Mexico?
tim333 6y ago
The US helped out with putting El Chapo in jail in the US. In Mexico every time they locked him up he'd got out again. Seems a similar problem in the story - you find the killers and they just break out of jail and come for you. Maybe the US could expand its prison for Mexicans service? If they imprisoned fewer Americans there'd be loads of room.
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  The US can't let their prison cells go to mexican citizens when they are needed for hard working americans with families.
sumedh 6y ago
That strategy did not work for Afghanistan.
emmelaich 6y ago
Building the wall will inhibit smugglers. We'll see if it reduces the cartels income. What the USA should not do (again) is "purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  Of course the wall is going to reduce cartel income. It's your fantasy world, and you can make it happen!
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Building a wall will have nearly no impact on smugglers. The portion of material that comes on foot over the wall is a vanishing fraction. It's primarily a way for coyotes to extract a bit more extra value.
3131s 6y ago
They are friends with the Sinaloa cartel guys.

by jiofih 6y ago

The US government spends trillions on the military, what stops them from descending with a crapload of police forces into a city like this and putting an end to it?

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago

International law? And, also, just "law". One of the better developments of last few decades is that national borders are, for the most part, no longer subject to violent change. That's due to territory simply losing importance: raw materials are insignificant, economically, compared to the fruits of intellectual labor. Borders have also become much more porous: the conflict in Northern Ireland, for example, lost much of its significance when it became commonplace to commute across the border every day. Then, a once-mighty nation took the lead in establishing what's called the "rule-based international order": You may conquer some territory with your oh-so-mighty territory. But whatcha gonna do with it when nobody is going to reconise it and you can't sell anything produced there in international markets? There's been enough regression in these efforts in recent years. No matter how grating it may be to see criminals getting away, it comes nowhere close to being significant enough to go back to might-is-right.

voisin 6y ago
Petty concepts that have never stopped the US Government before. /s
- tsjq 6y ago
  LOL !
warriormonk5 6y ago
Norman Angell argued almost the exact same thing as you-- in 1909. Doubled down on this argument in 1933. "The Great Illusion". He was wrong -- both times. :)
- nl 6y ago
  It's extremely unclear what you think Angell was arguing for and what you think he was wrong about. "The Great Illusion" argued that economic integration made war unlikely. He was wrong in that he hadn't realized how much people wanted something that went against their interests. But he learned that lesson well: "From the mid-1930s, Angell actively campaigned for collective international opposition to the aggressive policies of Germany, Italy, and Japan. He went to the United States in 1940 to lecture in favour of American support for Britain in World War II"[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Angell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Angell
  - warriormonk5 6y ago
    My only point is that I see similar echoes of that argument from the comment I replied to, and I firmly disagree with that stance. We got a small taste of how isolated nations are when this pandemic kicked off. It's amazing it didn't degrade further.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> national borders are, for the most part, no longer subject to violent change. This is nonsense. - China and it's neighbors are on the brink of war over water diversion - China seized the 9-dashed line islands over navigation and fishing rights, and all of its neighbors are in an arms race - Armenia just lost disputed territory a couple months ago. - Britain and the EU are entering a cold war over fishing rights.

baybal2 6y ago

If you didn't know, that was attempted quite a number of times.

jmnicolas 6y ago

The US government can't secure its own prisons where it has full control, what make you believe it would do better in a Mexican city?

Hnrobert42 6y ago
The US does do better, empirically. I am certainly not endorsing GP’s position, but your false equivalence is a distraction.
- cambalache 6y ago
  It really doesnt, especially when controlled by income the US does a worst job.
  - jokethrowaway 6y ago
    I'd rather live in an American city then in a Mexican city. Granted, I'd pick a European city over both (albeit that's country dependant, Southern Europe city life is getting considerably worse)
    - jmnicolas 6y ago
      And as a European I'd pick a Japanese city any day. So I guess the grass is always greener somewhere else :)
    - cambalache 6y ago
      Controlled by income? I will pick Mexico every single time. At 800 USD/month you can live a middle class life in plenty of very nice and safe places in Mexico. Try that in America.
      - smabie 6y ago
        That's not what "controlling for income" means. So let's make this clear, you would rather make $843/month (median) in Mexico vs $3714/month (median) in America?

praptak 6y ago

What makes you think the US government has any motivation to do anything like this?

maxlybbert 6y ago

The US has spent money trying to train police in other countries. Unfortunately, the main motivation has been stopping the drug trade, so most of that training has been militaristic.

pjc50 6y ago

You saw how that worked in Iraq. The US can't even provide security without murdering bystanders in its own cities.

sto_hristo 6y ago

You're fighting cancer. Sure, the US can break all laws and go do a 100% clean sweep of that city, but the area around it will still be contaminated. US will have to leave eventually and this will open the door to new criminals who will simply see it as "free real estate." If people themselves (the immune system, if you wish) don't make an effort like this woman did, no intervention will help them, Earthly or Divine alike. At best the US can bunker up and make an effort to contain them. Close to a trillion have been spent on Afghanistan for almost a decade. That much effort was needed to throw off an easily identifiable terrorist state. How will Afghanistan last until it collapses again? Because it's only a matter of time.

leetcrew 6y ago
> How will Afghanistan last until it collapses again? the US has already struck a deal with the taliban, and the afghan government is formally negotiating with them right now. so probably not long...

intricatedetail 6y ago

If it ends then how cops will be making money on the side (e.g. declaring half of the actual drug bust and pocketing the rest or getting protection payments from gangs)

sonotathrowaway 6y ago

The blood and memory of people who have already paid for that arrogance in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, hopefully.

zarkov99 6y ago

Public opinion.

hyeomans 6y ago

Sovereignty of Mexico state. Imagine this was reversed. I believe we live in a narco-state where government works for the cartels. This does not exclude US authorities, search for Garcia Luna and ties with DEA operatives/israel companies

dragonwriter 6y ago

> The US government spends trillions on the military, what stops them from descending with a crapload of police forces into a city like this and putting an end to it? “Military” and “police forces” are different things. But, in either case, doing so would both start a war with and further destabilize Mexico. There's a reason the US usually does this to countries far from its own borders, separated by oceans, or both, so that the blowback when popular support collapses and the ongoing cost in blood and treasure becomes intolerable is born by people that are remote from the US (in both the target country and it's neighbors.) Aside from those pragmatic concerns, the same considerations also have a moral dimension, though that's less consistently reflected in policy decisions.

knolax 6y ago

US police aren't even well liked in America. What makes you think they'd be welcomed in Mexico?

tim333 6y ago

The US helped out with putting El Chapo in jail in the US. In Mexico every time they locked him up he'd got out again. Seems a similar problem in the story - you find the killers and they just break out of jail and come for you. Maybe the US could expand its prison for Mexicans service? If they imprisoned fewer Americans there'd be loads of room.

CyberDildonics 6y ago
The US can't let their prison cells go to mexican citizens when they are needed for hard working americans with families.

sumedh 6y ago

That strategy did not work for Afghanistan.

emmelaich 6y ago

Building the wall will inhibit smugglers. We'll see if it reduces the cartels income. What the USA should not do (again) is "purposely allowed licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arrest them" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
Of course the wall is going to reduce cartel income. It's your fantasy world, and you can make it happen!
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
Building a wall will have nearly no impact on smugglers. The portion of material that comes on foot over the wall is a vanishing fraction. It's primarily a way for coyotes to extract a bit more extra value.

3131s 6y ago

They are friends with the Sinaloa cartel guys.