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And a lot of that violence spills over the border into the US. Bloody cartel murders, extortion, and such are common in the southwest US and beyond. The Mexican

And a lot of that violence spills over the border into the US. Bloody cartel murders, extortion, and such are common in the southwest US and beyond. The Mexican government and politicians are all somewhere in between being controlled by the cartels and too scared to do anything about them. That is casus belli, legal grounds for war, by any reasonable understanding of international law.

erdos4d 4y ago
If the US actually started using its military to hit these guys, what would stop them from sending a thousand guys into a large chemical or nuclear plant and creating a disaster that wiped out a city, or more? I find this sort of jingo rhetoric disturbing because the US has never faced an enemy with thousands of troops inside the US and the funding of a nation state. I can imagine an idiot like Trump actually starting something like this up.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  The same thing that prevents any enemy from sending a thousand guys to any other sensitive site - men with guns (and intel and air support and armor). Occasionally the cartel and Texas guard do exchange fire.
  - erdos4d 4y ago
    You think that if a thousand cartel guys showed up at a nuke plant with the intention of melting it down that armor and airstrikes would help matters? I think that would just help them actually.
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      Do you think a thousand people will make it that far? Intelligence services will detect and stop them before they reach such a size. This isn’t something the government hopes doesn’t happen: it’s something they actively work hard at everyday to ensure doesn’t happen.
      - erdos4d 4y ago
        I absolutely do think they could. They operate vast smuggling networks in the US right now with near impunity, as one proof of this capability. Also, US intelligence is pretty bad when it counts. It didn't catch 9-11 or the fall of Afghanistan or the Soviet Union. Why would it detect a raid on a nuke plant?
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      ...Yes. If you kill the people attacking the sensitive site, they will be unable to attack the sensitive site on account of being dead. A thousand man force is a battalion. The cartels have no real armor and no air support. No heavy weapons. No training. The US Army fields 31 brigades. A brigade is 5 battalions. For every cartel member in your theoretical force, there are ~149 trained, armed, active duty service members in deployable condition for combat roles. That doesn't include artillery, sustainment, the US Airforce or the US Navy. I am also not including guard teams which are another 27 brigades. Your theoretical cartel force would also have to go through the Texas State Guard (1,700 people) and US Border Patrol.
    - helloworld11 4y ago
      The Mexican cartels are notably wary of messing with U.S police agents and police/military/border security agencies. There are isolated cases of very foolish sicarios or smaller, more irresponsible organized crime cells playing at threats against U.S border agents or at U.S agents inside Mexico but it's rare and often discouraged brutally by the larger cartels. The simple reason why is they know that with the U.S government, the subversion they regularly practice with pathetically corrupt Mexican authorities works much, much less and goes completely out the window if a U.S police agent dies by their hands. The U.S government strongly underscored this with the cartels by spending decades and God knows how much money diligently pursuing every last person they could find who had any connection to the Kike Camarena murder. The lesson hasn't been forgotten by the bigger cartel bosses, even today.
- ifsothen 4y ago
  It's not "jingo rhetoric." Many of the government leaders south of the border are literally in cahoots with the cartels to commit thousands of murders a year, either directly or through peddling fentanyl, in the US. The rest of them have decided to go along with it out of fear. That is an act of war. The US should respond wisely and carefully, but people should remember these are literally ongoing acts of war committed against us. And what you propose the cartels would respond with is unlikely to work and would only elicit the directed ire of the US at the particular groups that ordered it, so would not be a rational move. We are spending billions of dollars and killing many Russian soldiers and civilians to fight Putin, but Mexico is responsible for more American deaths and mayhem than Putin ever dream of.
  - soperj 4y ago
    In this sense, Americans funding the cartels through drug buying is also an act of war.
  - chasd00 4y ago
    a war with Mexico (or any significant military intervention) means 1000x more people stream over the Southern border compared to now.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      And the practicalities of a war would necessitate an effort to stop that, to prevent the spread of enemy combatants behind the front line. Even if you search everybody passing through the border for weapons.. ...it's America. They can get weapons here. The inevitable result is a massive human rights disaster, that makes the present status quo look like paradise.
    - ifsothen 4y ago
      It's would actually be really easy to completely close the border if there was the political will for it. The US spends way more money on frivolous things every year than it would take to fully militarily fortify the entire border.
- teddyh 4y ago
  > If the US actually started using its military to hit these guys, what would stop them from sending a thousand guys into a large chemical or nuclear plant and creating a disaster that wiped out a city, or more? I mean, yes, they could, but would they? What would be the realistic result of such an action? Would the US then stop and go “Well, I guess we’ll have to stop antagonizing the cartels.”. I would guess that such a thing would instead be a Pearl Harbor moment, and I think the cartels know this, too. The cartels don’t want to act out your personal nightmare scenario; they want to do things to make the US stop bothering the cartels. Instead of mindlessly scare-mongering, figure out what that action would be, and ask yourself if a war with the cartels is worth it. It might or might not be, but be realistic about it.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > I would guess that such a thing would instead be a Pearl Harbor moment, and I think the cartels know this, too. What else might that war teach us? There are 10 million Mexican-Americans by birth in America, and 37 million by ancestry. If America went to war with Mexico, I fear there would be efforts to intern Mexican-Americans as Japanese-Americans once were. Such a war is a horrible idea for everybody. It would create conditions in Mexico and America that are far worse than the present status quo.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Interning 47M people out of 333M, especially when those 47M represent a large portion of younger, working age people, does not seem like it would go well.
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        Certainly not, it would be a disaster.
    - ifsothen 4y ago
      Are you saying that Mexican immigrants and descendants in the US would be loyal to the Mexican government?
MichaelCollins 4y ago
> That is casus belli, legal grounds for war, by any reasonable understanding of international law. Perhaps. But anything the US Military could do about it would only make the problem even worse. It being a legal reason for war is irrelevant because it isn't a rational reason for war.
- ifsothen 4y ago
  I don't know. Commando raids on cartel leadership sound good to me. Assassin drones too. Just start taking these people out. Put the fear of God in them.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > Just start taking these people out. Put the fear of God in them. Cartels have been doing this to cartels the entire time. They inflict violence on each other far more brutal than the American military would dare. They've flayed family members of their rivals alive to "put the fear of God in them". More of the same isn't going to solve anything.
    - ifsothen 4y ago
      It's not more of the same. It's the cartels vs. the NSA's intelligence gathering apparatus, the US military's precision assassin drones, etc. Cartels don't have those at their disposal.
wavefunction 4y ago
Common? That's some outrageous hyperbole. Claims about casus belli against Mexico, America's largest trading partner? Now you've indicted your own intellectual capabilities.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  It’s not hyperbole if you’re at all familiar with Mexican-American history. The US has invaded Mexico before for almost this exact same reason.
pjc50 4y ago
I guess Iraq worked so well, the US wants to occupy Mexico? Again?
joe_the_user 4y ago
And a lot of that violence spills over the border into the US. Bloody cartel murders, extortion, and such are common in the southwest US and beyond. One might imagine that but one would do well to actually investigate whether it's true. I visited El Paso, Texas a few years ago. It has one of the lower murder rates for cities of it's size in the US. It's directly across the border from Cuida Juerez, a city with one of the highest murder rates in the Western Hemisphere. It's actually quite remarkable how contained the horrible violence in Mexico is. 12th lowest here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
random314 4y ago
Are you sure the United states cares enough about drugs? The Sacklers are still free and wealthy. The war on drug keeps the prison industry and slave supply rolling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traffi...

erdos4d 4y ago

If the US actually started using its military to hit these guys, what would stop them from sending a thousand guys into a large chemical or nuclear plant and creating a disaster that wiped out a city, or more? I find this sort of jingo rhetoric disturbing because the US has never faced an enemy with thousands of troops inside the US and the funding of a nation state. I can imagine an idiot like Trump actually starting something like this up.

vorpalhex 4y ago
The same thing that prevents any enemy from sending a thousand guys to any other sensitive site - men with guns (and intel and air support and armor). Occasionally the cartel and Texas guard do exchange fire.
- erdos4d 4y ago
  You think that if a thousand cartel guys showed up at a nuke plant with the intention of melting it down that armor and airstrikes would help matters? I think that would just help them actually.
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    Do you think a thousand people will make it that far? Intelligence services will detect and stop them before they reach such a size. This isn’t something the government hopes doesn’t happen: it’s something they actively work hard at everyday to ensure doesn’t happen.
    - erdos4d 4y ago
      I absolutely do think they could. They operate vast smuggling networks in the US right now with near impunity, as one proof of this capability. Also, US intelligence is pretty bad when it counts. It didn't catch 9-11 or the fall of Afghanistan or the Soviet Union. Why would it detect a raid on a nuke plant?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    ...Yes. If you kill the people attacking the sensitive site, they will be unable to attack the sensitive site on account of being dead. A thousand man force is a battalion. The cartels have no real armor and no air support. No heavy weapons. No training. The US Army fields 31 brigades. A brigade is 5 battalions. For every cartel member in your theoretical force, there are ~149 trained, armed, active duty service members in deployable condition for combat roles. That doesn't include artillery, sustainment, the US Airforce or the US Navy. I am also not including guard teams which are another 27 brigades. Your theoretical cartel force would also have to go through the Texas State Guard (1,700 people) and US Border Patrol.
  - helloworld11 4y ago
    The Mexican cartels are notably wary of messing with U.S police agents and police/military/border security agencies. There are isolated cases of very foolish sicarios or smaller, more irresponsible organized crime cells playing at threats against U.S border agents or at U.S agents inside Mexico but it's rare and often discouraged brutally by the larger cartels. The simple reason why is they know that with the U.S government, the subversion they regularly practice with pathetically corrupt Mexican authorities works much, much less and goes completely out the window if a U.S police agent dies by their hands. The U.S government strongly underscored this with the cartels by spending decades and God knows how much money diligently pursuing every last person they could find who had any connection to the Kike Camarena murder. The lesson hasn't been forgotten by the bigger cartel bosses, even today.
ifsothen 4y ago
It's not "jingo rhetoric." Many of the government leaders south of the border are literally in cahoots with the cartels to commit thousands of murders a year, either directly or through peddling fentanyl, in the US. The rest of them have decided to go along with it out of fear. That is an act of war. The US should respond wisely and carefully, but people should remember these are literally ongoing acts of war committed against us. And what you propose the cartels would respond with is unlikely to work and would only elicit the directed ire of the US at the particular groups that ordered it, so would not be a rational move. We are spending billions of dollars and killing many Russian soldiers and civilians to fight Putin, but Mexico is responsible for more American deaths and mayhem than Putin ever dream of.
- soperj 4y ago
  In this sense, Americans funding the cartels through drug buying is also an act of war.
- chasd00 4y ago
  a war with Mexico (or any significant military intervention) means 1000x more people stream over the Southern border compared to now.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    And the practicalities of a war would necessitate an effort to stop that, to prevent the spread of enemy combatants behind the front line. Even if you search everybody passing through the border for weapons.. ...it's America. They can get weapons here. The inevitable result is a massive human rights disaster, that makes the present status quo look like paradise.
  - ifsothen 4y ago
    It's would actually be really easy to completely close the border if there was the political will for it. The US spends way more money on frivolous things every year than it would take to fully militarily fortify the entire border.
teddyh 4y ago
> If the US actually started using its military to hit these guys, what would stop them from sending a thousand guys into a large chemical or nuclear plant and creating a disaster that wiped out a city, or more? I mean, yes, they could, but would they? What would be the realistic result of such an action? Would the US then stop and go “Well, I guess we’ll have to stop antagonizing the cartels.”. I would guess that such a thing would instead be a Pearl Harbor moment, and I think the cartels know this, too. The cartels don’t want to act out your personal nightmare scenario; they want to do things to make the US stop bothering the cartels. Instead of mindlessly scare-mongering, figure out what that action would be, and ask yourself if a war with the cartels is worth it. It might or might not be, but be realistic about it.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > I would guess that such a thing would instead be a Pearl Harbor moment, and I think the cartels know this, too. What else might that war teach us? There are 10 million Mexican-Americans by birth in America, and 37 million by ancestry. If America went to war with Mexico, I fear there would be efforts to intern Mexican-Americans as Japanese-Americans once were. Such a war is a horrible idea for everybody. It would create conditions in Mexico and America that are far worse than the present status quo.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Interning 47M people out of 333M, especially when those 47M represent a large portion of younger, working age people, does not seem like it would go well.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      Certainly not, it would be a disaster.
  - ifsothen 4y ago
    Are you saying that Mexican immigrants and descendants in the US would be loyal to the Mexican government?

MichaelCollins 4y ago

> That is casus belli, legal grounds for war, by any reasonable understanding of international law. Perhaps. But anything the US Military could do about it would only make the problem even worse. It being a legal reason for war is irrelevant because it isn't a rational reason for war.

ifsothen 4y ago
I don't know. Commando raids on cartel leadership sound good to me. Assassin drones too. Just start taking these people out. Put the fear of God in them.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > Just start taking these people out. Put the fear of God in them. Cartels have been doing this to cartels the entire time. They inflict violence on each other far more brutal than the American military would dare. They've flayed family members of their rivals alive to "put the fear of God in them". More of the same isn't going to solve anything.
  - ifsothen 4y ago
    It's not more of the same. It's the cartels vs. the NSA's intelligence gathering apparatus, the US military's precision assassin drones, etc. Cartels don't have those at their disposal.

wavefunction 4y ago

Common? That's some outrageous hyperbole. Claims about casus belli against Mexico, America's largest trading partner? Now you've indicted your own intellectual capabilities.

edgyquant 4y ago
It’s not hyperbole if you’re at all familiar with Mexican-American history. The US has invaded Mexico before for almost this exact same reason.

pjc50 4y ago

I guess Iraq worked so well, the US wants to occupy Mexico? Again?

joe_the_user 4y ago

And a lot of that violence spills over the border into the US. Bloody cartel murders, extortion, and such are common in the southwest US and beyond. One might imagine that but one would do well to actually investigate whether it's true. I visited El Paso, Texas a few years ago. It has one of the lower murder rates for cities of it's size in the US. It's directly across the border from Cuida Juerez, a city with one of the highest murder rates in the Western Hemisphere. It's actually quite remarkable how contained the horrible violence in Mexico is. 12th lowest here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

random314 4y ago

Are you sure the United states cares enough about drugs? The Sacklers are still free and wealthy. The war on drug keeps the prison industry and slave supply rolling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traffi...