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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   36654 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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Help me understand an argument about the US-Mexico relationship

A friend and old-coworker recently posted in a group chat an article quote

«Trump … mulled sending military special forces into Mexico to fight drug cartels» [I couldn't find the article by quote, but maybe it's from a Mexican source]

They think that if that were to happen “both the general population and government unofficially would side with the narcos (for different reasons).” Radicalization and bad things would follow. Firstly, I thought these things already happened. Was Sicaro not just exaggerated for effect, but complete fiction?

We diverted for a bit into the politics of Mexico under the cartels. It was fun to be reminded that there still are areas not even the military will go into without cartel approval, that AMLO used to visit El Chapo’s mother regularly, that any information given to federal agencies or even directly to the president was pretty much immediately relayed to the cartels. Apparently, cartel-unfriendly political candidates are routinely assassinated. So the state seems to have been completely captured by the cartels. They have also deeply infiltrated the local and federal law enforcement agencies. The cartels have their own military equipment, intelligence agencies maybe, air force?, submaries (not armed though I hope?)

Still, even without local police or federal government involvement (who I understand most are assets of or actual narcos) I assumed the DEA/CIA/FBI still did shit to keep things in check, at least around the border and inside the US. Well actually, cartels are expanding into Colorado these days.

Enter Trump's executive order Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

My friend was incensed, thinks that any action by special forces would be war, that the Mexican people and government will rally around the cartels, there would be terrorist attacks and sabotage by cartels/Mexican immigrants.

I’m afraid here is where I lost my cool a little bit. Paraphrasing:

Me

Do what you want in your country, seems like the people voted for this [probably not true given political assassinations/voter intimidation], but imo the US is within its rights to target the cartels that operate around/across the borders.

M. Bridge

If the USA starts a war with the neighbor to the South, that will not go well for anyone

Me

Not a war, just a special military operation ;)
This won't be a "war" because the Mexican military won't do shit
I imagine there might be an ultimatum delivered to the cartels, escalating to raids and precision bombing of cartel compounds/assets.

M. B

surely you're joking

Me

Why are the cartels so precious to Mexicans that an attack on them is an attack on their country and their pride?

M. B

because narcos have weapons, money and more

Me

and they also have military equipment, submarines, and more
But much worse signals intelligence, no f-35s, precision bombs or satellites, etc

M. B

that's still war

Me

Actually it's not war, there's just this new American cartel called "forces especiales" that has weapons, money, and more and that has the support of the president and that operates across the US-Mexico border
But if the Mexicans want to call it war then so be it

M. B

🤦

Me

I hope that cooler heads will prevail; Lebanon did not call it war when Israel fought and decapitated Hezbollah

M. Oldschool

There's actually an ex-Mexican special forces cartel trained by the CIA in insurgency/counter insurgency tactics that became the most violent cartel.

Me

[Mugatu: I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!]
I understand that Mexico is a cartel-run state, but why should America's cartel, the actual US government/military, not insist that they fuck off our borders
"we'll feel bad and consider going to war with you if you don't allow our muderous kidapping raping drug-and-people-trafficking home team do whatever it wants?"
Is that the argument?

I guess what I want to know is, Am I The Asshole?

War with the cartels would go really badly for the US IMO. It's not that the US lacks the firepower or the manpower or the wealth, they lack the political capacity and will to execute these kinds of imperial military operations. The US military is best at defeating conventional forces in conventional wars (preferably massively outmatched ones like the Iraqi army). They are not good at imperial wars and suppression campaigns. They are not good at regime change or stabilization or propping up a puppet government.

If cartels are so easy to beat in Mexico, why can't the US wipe out the drug dealers in America? For a long time I've been saying 'just get rid of the drug dealers to solve the problem'. The US has the technical capacity to track down the drug dealers, they have drones and spies and informants and everything you'd need. Drug addicts can find drug dealers, how hard can it be? There are literally open air drug markets in major US cities! The US doesn't have the political capacity to do it, they don't have the legal capacity and the willpower to actually wage a war on drugs (as opposed to a pretend war on drugs).

How well did the US fare in the last campaign against a nebulous collection of unconventional forces in a drug-rich foreign land? After initial military successes, they fared very, very poorly. The lessons of Afghanistan should be applied to Mexico which is considerably larger. Plus the global balance of power has changed a lot since 2001 and not in the US's favour. Chinese pharmaceutical companies have been fighting a proxy war with Mexican cartels on the streets of Philadelphia (because they do have the kind of willpower and capacity I'm talking about): https://x.com/SantsPliego/status/1748496050543837404

China and Russia would leap at the chance to flex their muscles and make even more problems in the US's sphere of influence, tie them down and bleed them. The cartels would start acquiring MANPADs, ATGMs, explosives, cash, drones. Is the US capable of searching every Chinese cargo ship heading to Mexico?

How should the US act? Slowly build up political capacity step by step, don't leap straight to the end boss. Crack down on drugs at home before an ill-planned, hazy military action overseas. Fight where you are strongest and where the enemy is weakest, build up confidence and experience.

If cartels are so easy to beat in Mexico, why can't the US wipe out the drug dealers in America?

Dealing with the cartels in Mexico using military force is very different from dealing with them here in the United States because in the United States it is illegal to use surveillance aircraft and NSA SIGINT assets to hoover up reams of data and then act without warrants in response.

The cartels would start acquiring MANPADs, ATGMs, explosives, cash, drones.

Worth noting that this may happen anyway; the US already acts against cartels and they already have been caught with all of the above weapons except perhaps MANPADs (and I've been waiting for that any day now).

Is the US capable of searching every Chinese cargo ship heading to Mexico?

Maybe? Looks like they have around 1300 ships (and that it takes about one month to cross from China to Mexico, or two months round trip). Let us assume that the United States is willing to commit a small task force comprising an America-class LHA, a Burke cruiser, two Littoral Combat Ships (finally, a role they are halfway good at!), and two Legend-class cutters, plus a squadron of MPA aircraft and a squadron of Coast Guard or Marine helicopters operating out of San Diego. Let's further assume that the squadron and each of the ships can perform on average a single intercept a day, except the LHA, which we will assume can carry out up to four. That means the US could, with a fairly casual show of force, could intercept every ship in the Chinese fleet twice a year.

Now, I am not saying that fighting the cartels is necessarily a good idea. But I am saying that there's a huge difference between domestic law enforcement operations and the full eye of Sauron that the US can bring to a military operation and that analogizing US domestic drug operations probably isn't correct imho. I tend to think that the US government, if it approached the problem methodically, could "destroy" the cartels as organized groups, but that actually destroying drug production/trafficking in Mexico as a permanent problem is a commitment measured in decades that the US would grow tired of. From that perspective, I agree that it makes more sense to focus on the domestic side of things (we have a border for a reason!) However, a punitive mission against the cartels might make sense in certain context. I also think that Afghanistan only analogizes if we make an open-ended commitment or try to topple the government of Mexico and rule it instead. If "going to war against the cartels" means "a punitive expedition against the Sinaloa" with clear goals, then I think that's very different. You might recall that in 1989 the US invaded Panama over drug trafficking without getting bogged down in a 20-year counterinsurgency, but there we had a very clear goal in mind (capture Manuel Noriega).

Dealing with the cartels in Mexico using military force is very different from dealing with them here in the United States because in the United States it is illegal to use surveillance aircraft and NSA SIGINT assets to hoover up reams of data and then act without warrants in response.

Sure, but they do it anyway and manufacture chains of evidence, as Snowden revealed. So that's no excuse.

That's not at all what Snowden revealed, but lore was never meant to be real.

You're technically correct; this stuff was published by Reuters at the same time as Snowden but it at least purportedly isn't from that source. But the point stands; they do it anyway.

From your link:

Officials have stressed that the NSA and DEA telephone databases are distinct. The NSA database, disclosed by Snowden, includes data about every telephone call placed inside the United States. An NSA official said that database is not used for domestic criminal law enforcement.

The DEA database, called DICE, consists largely of phone log and Internet data gathered legally by the DEA through subpoenas, arrests and search warrants nationwide. DICE includes about 1 billion records, and they are kept for about a year and then purged, DEA officials said.

Regardless of controversies about parallel construction (which is already illegal), your own cite doesn't even purport to show what you claim it shows.

"Officials have stressed" that everything the officials were (and are) doing is legal, yes. But they cover it up anyway.

So, you have some other cite that demonstrates that they were using NSA data? Or is this just baseless speculation?

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