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I personally don't think that's the whole story. They're likely going to act against the cartels to take out cross-border drone capabilities and are preparing f
by guerrilla 8mo ago
I personally don't think that's the whole story. They're likely going to act against the cartels to take out cross-border drone capabilities and are preparing for S-A retaliation as well.
- morpheuskafka 8mo agoA cartel using a SAM against a US civilian aircraft would massively solidify public opinion against them just like 9/11 or the Iran hostage crisis. The US has been trying to extent the "foreign terrorist" label and casus belli to drug activities forever to justify military operations (ex. the "arrest" of Maduro was for drugs, not oil/Cuba/political stuff). That would be a massive self-own on the cartels part. (And if it did happen, just like 9/11, it would be used as justification for anything even remotely immigration or drug related at every level.)
- trenning 8mo agoMy understanding over the US/MX cartel relations is performing an invasion and “act of war” would solidify asylum status claims by Mexican residents and throw a wrench into the whole immigration scheme every administration plays. But then again this time seems different, laws aren’t followed or upheld. Human rights are a fleeting staple.
- pjc50 8mo agoStarting a war with Mexico would be a pretext for interning everyone of "Mexican" ethnicity, citizen or otherwise, as was done to Japanese nationals.
- _heimdall 8mo agoIts mincing words a bit, but an attack targeting drug cartel assets wouldn't necessarily be viewed as a war with Mexico. It could lead to that for sure, and the Mexican government could declare it an act of war, but we did just see the US literally invade a foreign country and arrest their sitting leader without war being declared on either side.
- eesmith 8mo agoThe US hasn't declared war since World War II. I suspect Mexicans would view it as another Pancho Villa Expedition, which was also event where neither side declared war.
- _heimdall 8mo agoWe declared war on drugs and on terror, maybe AIDs and Covid as well? Though you're right, we haven't declared war on another state since WWII despite being in multiple wars over that time.
- eesmith 8mo agoI assumed when you wrote "war being declared" you meant in Constitutional sense which reserves to Congress the power to declare war. Not in the metaphorical "war on poverty" sort of way. FWIW, examples in addition to Maduro are Aguinaldo (Philippines), Noriega (Panama), Hussein (Iraq), and Aristide (Haiti). (Technically speaking, the US didn't recognize Philippine independence so didn't consider Aguinaldo to be its president, but instead a rightful cession from the Kingdom of Spain due to the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish–American War, where the US had made a formal declaration of war.) (Also, the US says Aristide's departure was voluntary.)
- filoeleven 8mo agoYet. It has certainly ratcheted up worldwide tensions, to put it mildly.
- 8note 8mo agoits a lot more expensive than the US properly controlling what weapons are leaving its borders. rather than arming the cartels to fight against the mexican government, thr US could just... not
- RupertSalt 8mo ago[flagged]
- ben_w 8mo agoFrom what I've seen in the news, and also in history books, and also from anecdotes from the family of a previous (American dual national) partner, I don't agree that Americans as a whole see the international border as "a bright line" nor "a defining point of jurisdictional change". Some Americans may, I don't know how many, but definitely not Americans as a collective.
- RupertSalt 8mo agoI tried writing a comment to explain the Chicano perspective, but since I am a non-Chicano American, I was just making things up. Suffice it to say that the Chicano experience and perspectives on nationalism are different than that of typical Americans. And that Americans cannot understand the political relationships or the border states or the Chicano enclaves without accepting that our perspective is not shared by them, and their worldviews on race, ethnicity, culture, territory, nationalism and legal status has led us to this point in 2026. Our national motto is "E PLURIBUS UNUM" and our structure is a republic with 50 states. But like the Internet is a network of networks, the United States is a nation of immigrants, where not everyone is playing by the same rules.
- guerrilla 8mo ago> A cartel using a SAM against a US civilian aircraft would massively solidify public opinion against them In what world is public opinion not universally against the cartels? It's hard to take you seriously after that.
- djcapelis 8mo ago> In what world is public opinion not universally against the cartels? It's hard to take you seriously after that. I think you’re getting tripped up by some specific wording and managing to miss the point the poster was making. The point should be taken seriously even if imprecisely articulated. While most folks are against the cartels, there’s a much wider range of belief on how much they warrant government or military intervention and to what degree we should be spending various resources on them. The historical state of play was(is?) that cartels are criminal organizations which are generally a policing matter that has escalated to specialized policing agencies and multinational networks of policing agencies. The marked escalation of the military into this is a more recent piece that is somewhat more controversial. One doesn’t have to be “in favor of the cartel” to ask questions about whether our military should be bombing boats or invading countries to ostensibly neutralize organizations that historically have been subject to policing operations. To go back to the parallel… the public wasn’t in favor of Al Qaeda before 9/11 either, but there was a huge difference in the level of response the public was in favor of after. It turned from an intelligence monitoring level of response into an active military invasion of multiple countries.
- vkou 8mo agoThe best part about bombing the boats is that the second strikes on them were war crimes, while the few survivors that were picked up... All ended up repatriated. If they were all drug runners, why weren't they put on trial? Why was so much effort made to sink all the evidence? Why did an admiral resign, when told to do this? Everybody involved, starting from the people pulling the trigger, to the people giving the orders should be getting a fair trial and a swift punishment for that little stint of piracy and murder. But these people all act like there is no such thing as consequences.
- sh34r 8mo agoI take it you don’t know much about the Troubles, then. The SAM missiles would be saved for returning ICE Air flights, not Delta.
- TitaRusell 8mo agoWhat does that even mean? Cartels can buy those DJI drones from China by the container load. Russia and Ukraine can't stop drones. Does the US have a secret weapon?
- dylan604 8mo ago> Does the US have a secret weapon? It sounds like that's what was being tested requiring the NOTAM. We just don't know if it did or didn't work. It could have failed so badly they decided to just shut it down, or it could have worked so successfully they decided no more testing was needed.
- guerrilla 8mo ago> Russia and Ukraine can't stop drones. Does the US have a secret weapon? That does actually seem to be what they are saying now, yes.
- anigbrowl 8mo agoWhat cross-border drone capabilities, drug deliveries? People are talking like the cartels are conducting Ukraine-style drone warfare and blowing up Americans on the regular. Let's stick to a factual baseline here.
- guerrilla 8mo agoWell, turns out I was right, so I can't help you there if you didn't understand what I said.