What should America's Response now be considering the recent actions of the Drug Cartels abducting and murdering 2 of 4 Americans?

2023-03-07T15:52:56-05:00

The tragedy of the deaths of 2 of four Americans at the hands of Drug Cartels operating in Mexico begs the question - When is enough - enough?

Some are calling for US Military intervention to level the head of the snake and place "salt" on the body of the snake to desiccate its mobility and striking capacity.

Some are calling for less aggressive means.

These links were interesting to review:

- https://www.storybench.org/visualizing-mexicos-drug-cartels-roundup-maps/

- https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R41576.pdf

- https://edac.unm.edu/projects/meth_labs/

- https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-008-20%20Fentanyl%20Flow%20in%20the%20United%20States_0.pdf

- https://kfor.com/news/interactive-map-tracking-cartel-arrests-across-the-country/

- https://ktla.com/news/nexstar-media-wire/nationworld/dea-drug-cartels-using-snapchat-other-social-media-to-target-children/

- https://trone.house.gov/2022/08/30/how-two-mexican-drug-cartels-came-to-dominate-americas-fentanyl-supply/

- https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/pjifea/map_of_meth_labs_per_county/

- https://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs43/43386/43386p.pdf

- https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13 [login to see] 3-2

- https://www.randoxtoxicology.com/illicit-drugs-costs-the-usa-more-than-740-billion-annually/

It is interesting how we know so much and somehow can do so little.........

Again, I'd just like to say - If "We the people of the United States,..." are to work to form "...a more perfect union..." then how can we continue to tolerate a government that speaks to "equity" and at the same time excludes it population from the capacity to enjoy "...domestic tranquility..." by not being able to effectively and efficiently "...provide for the common defense..." in such a manner so as to be able to "...promote the general welfare..." that leads to greater capacity to "...establish justice..." so that everyone who seeks the protection of the law know that the power of good law well administered without political despotism can help '...secure the blessings of liberty..."; then why the ##$%@##@$#$^#$&#$^#$*@Q@ cannot 535 members of Congress, #s of those in the Executive Branch, and the obviously delusional members of some in the Justice Department not honestly recognize the very Clear and Present Danger in both the US Southern and Northern Borders and along all three coast lines?

Is it that hard for those who call themselves leaders to - actually led???

Of course, the answer is simple ..........................

BTW check out this follow-on post regarding cartel etc. asset seizures. Interesting read!
(https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/what-should-be-done-with-seized-assets-from-the-drug-cartels-including-rogue-opportunistic-doctors-pharmacist)

What do you think?

Just saying.............

Visualizing Mexico’s drug cartels: A roundup of maps – storybench

Response by MCPO Roger Collins made Mar 7 at 2023 4:03 PM

2023-03-07T16:03:49-05:00

Loudly advertise the dangers of traveling to Mexico, if possible deny Americans from traveling to Mexico. We can not protect our citizens if they leave our borders.

Response by COL Randall C. made Mar 7 at 2023 4:12 PM

2023-03-07T16:12:36-05:00

I think Tom Clancy was onto something with Clear and Present Danger...

Response by LTC Trent Klug made Mar 7 at 2023 4:53 PM

2023-03-07T16:53:08-05:00

I'm all in with COL Cudworth and his post.

That said, if this folks didn't do their due diligence before they traveled, then it's on them. There's no way my family will go anywhere in Mexico given the current violence there.

Response by CWO4 Terrence Clark made Mar 7 at 2023 6:55 PM

2023-03-07T18:55:27-05:00

You do not have to cross the nominal international border to place yourself in harms way. Those of us who live south of the Frontero Nuevo - a line drawn from Los Angeles through Phoenix, White Sands, San Antonio and Houston have ample evidence that the cartels are already here.

Response by SPC James Neidig made Mar 8 at 2023 2:14 AM

2023-03-08T02:14:02-05:00

Mexico Is A Corrupt Country From The Federal Level Down To The Local Level, The Cartel’s Run The Country Not The Elected Leaders.
I Read These Stories About American Citizens Going To Some Foreign Countries And Getting Arrested For Stupid Crimes Or Getting Killed And Wonder Why ?
If You Go To Some Of These Countries Such As Mexico, Iran, Russia Or China You Get What You Deserve.
Simple, Don’t Go To Countries That Are Not Even Safe For Their Own Citizens

Response by CPT Lawrence Cable made Mar 8 at 2023 8:00 AM

2023-03-08T08:00:13-05:00

Since I seldom voice my opinion :^).

Quit worrying about policing the World, pull our troops out of NATO and places like Syria and station them on the southern border.
Impose of 50 mile deep no immigrant zone since the Cartels both use the illegals as mules and make money ferrying them across.
Actively target the Cartels since the Mexican Government seems to be unable to do it.
Make drugs like opium, heroin, fentanyl. etc, sales a capital crime.
Make use of those drugs a crime that gets you sent to mandatory resident rehab. I'm pretty cynical about the effectiveness of most rehabs, but they are off the street and probably won't OD during the rehab period. That would also clear up the so-called homeless issue.

Don't keep ANY of it secret. Show it on the evening news.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 8 at 2023 8:26 AM

2023-03-08T08:26:18-05:00

End the drug war! Nothing will hurt the cartels and stop violence more than letting legitimate companies with quality control processes manufacture and distribute products and they can call the police if there are issues without fear of reprisal.

Response by SSgt Christophe Murphy made Mar 8 at 2023 9:33 AM

2023-03-08T09:33:55-05:00

The problem is that it is nowhere near being cut and dry. Mexico is full of dozens of cartels. All scrambling to be relevant. You remove one from the equation another pops up in it's place. There isn't a central "villain" to aim your crosshair at. It's a pile of random thugs doing thug things. The solution is not as simple as sending in the Military to eliminate a target. It's way more complex than that because there are large areas within Mexico where cartels openly move and operate just like a Policeman here in the US does while on the beat. State Dept travel advisories exist for a reason because there are parts of the world where your safety isn't guaranteed.

Response by Lt Col Jim Coe made Mar 8 at 2023 11:30 AM

2023-03-08T11:30:24-05:00

CPT Lawrence Cable has great ideas. We need the House to pass a Authorization for use of military force to destroy the cartels in the US and in Mexico with or without the Mexican Government help. Then fund the campaign to kill the cartels. Essentially dare the Democrats to vote against the AUMF in the Senate and President Biden to veto.

Then develop and implement a plan to destroy the Cartels. In the US work with other Federal Agencies. Maybe even de

Response by MSgt Steven Holt, NRP, CCEMT-P made Mar 9 at 2023 3:02 PM

2023-03-09T15:02:12-05:00

I dunno CPO Nate S.. I think the issues here are deeper than that. A lot of individuals refuse to take responsibility for their own actions any more. Willingly walking into an area with high crime, especially violent crime, is not the wisest of decisions. The other issue is the Cartels themselves. They control just about the entirety of Mexico and Latin America (overtly or clandestine). Chop one down and 10 more jump in to fill the void. I don't have a good answer to the problem. Scorched Earth policies isn't the way to win friends and influence people. Tactically, it's the most likely to succeed. Politically, it would be a disaster for the US as a whole.

Response by Lt Col Timothy Cassidy-Curtis made Mar 9 at 2023 8:44 PM

2023-03-09T20:44:03-05:00

Buy Mexico. Not buy Mexican products. Buy the whole dang country.

Response by SSG Dennis R. made Mar 9 at 2023 10:44 PM

2023-03-09T22:44:46-05:00

What actions do other countries take against the US whenever their visiting citizens are murdered here?

Response by MSgt Michael Smith made Mar 17 at 2023 1:40 PM

2023-03-17T13:40:00-04:00

Seriously, how many times has the USA tried drug interdiction with military forces and succeeded? The answer is NEVER. It does not work that way. You simply cannot be effective with a large scale military response, when the enemy operates in a covert environment. We did it throughout the 1980s and it failed miserably. We tried to do it in Afghanistan with burning poppy fields and such, and it failed miserably. We tried stopping the drug trade in Somalia and it failed. The bottom line here is that the U.S. military machine is designed to fight armies, not shadow wars.

Response by TSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 29 at 2023 3:52 AM

2023-03-29T03:52:04-04:00

Use the full weight of the military and use strategic and tactical assets to destroy the cartel. But more importantly: stop/forbide/ban all Americans from traveling to Mexico untill the job is done.

Response by SSG John Gillespie made Apr 17 at 2023 1:26 AM

2023-04-17T01:26:09-04:00

First off, "equity" as the current left-leaning political and intellectual elite classes use it has nothing to do with "equality" and is actually its antithesis. If you believe in the enlightenment principles upon which this country was founded, you will rightly reject the twisted doublespeak of that ideological and illiberal agenda. Left is right, good is evil, the National Socialist Party wasn't Socialist - Fascists weren't collectivist, left-wing socialists at all... no they were... individualist, right-wing Capitalists! That's right! Those dirty, dirty, individualists! (who happened to call their party the National SOCIALIST Party and were the ideological brethren of the also-genocidal Bolshevik Communists and Maoist Communists but.. Move along!)

That aside, I think that they are managing the collapse of the liberal order on purpose (enlightenment principles upon which our government was founded, not the American political ideology of the past century and a half or so) in service of their owners, the donor class - the would-be masters of the universe who've quite successfully been corrupting our government for decades. They don't even bother to hide who they are or what they intend anymore. The politicians still play at hiding what they're doing but you've really got to be completely not paying attention to not see that they are actively undermining our rights and expanding the bureaucracy at every turn.

None of this serves actual voters. It only serves their own interests and those of unelected government officials and those who might use the government to control society. We've seen this play, many times before. It was never supposed to happen here. Alas, generations of good men doing nothing and all that.

I think that this issue with the cartels is one part of a greater campaign of lawlessness which is meant to soften us up to get us to accept ceding even more of our rights in return for "security" in exactly the same way as they did with the decades of terrorism leading to 9/11. If you're an authoritarian playing the long game and wanting to get into being able to peek into places the 4th Amendment says, summarily, "pound sand", what better excuse could you have than simple inaction against rank criminality? It's the gift that keeps on giving. We've got FBI fabricating plots with their "informants" to entrap citizens and make their careers, get promotions, etc. Perverse incentives. Why not this too?

Our Government has become and is patently LAWLESS. As the old saying goes, the fish rots from the head. WE are paying the price for it with our blood and the blood of our children.

So, yes, as a matter of principle, I think we should clean house and remove the threat to our children and communities in the only effective way in which that end will be attained.

That does NOT mean that it stops with crushing a few cartels south of the U.S. / Mexico border. The problem is within our own border, in our own halls of government. These wholly corrupt, bought and paid for politicians are the reason our children, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers are dying untimely deaths BY THE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS EACH YEAR.

THEY ARE THE DOMESTIC ENEMY, NOT YOUR NEIGHBOR. ORGANIZE YOUR COMMUNITY AND VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE. HOLD THEM TO ACCOUNT FOR THE BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS.

Response by CW3 Thomas Gray made Apr 20 at 2023 6:51 PM

2023-04-20T18:51:41-04:00

Way over due to take the gloves off!!! We can’t fight cartels making $60 billion while we’re spending $2 billion to mitigate. Time for whole of government approach ensuring the current agencies DEA, HLS, etc…lead those efforts.

Response by SSG Christopher Sorrow made Apr 23 at 2023 5:32 AM

2023-04-23T05:32:33-04:00

There are towns who have no police support, folks driven from there homes and many used and abused for the end of those involved in the cartels. Sounds alot like Afghanistan and Iraq while I was there. Mexican government would support our help to go in and decimate them and leave so we could have more trade and a stronger alliance I'm sure.
I feel like to many people are scared to speak up, or take action including those in power. I'm not scared are you?

Response by BG Edward Burley made Jun 17 at 2023 4:33 PM

2023-06-17T16:33:02-04:00

We don't intervene militarily because two Americans were murdered in France, or the UK, so why the urgency to do so in Mexico? The real truth is the highest rate of un-natural death for Americans per capita is in Thailand, with 80.5 deaths per million visitors. https://time.com/4250811/travel-safety/#:~:text=What%20it%20also%20reveals%20the,causes%20while%20abroad%20each%20year. Vietnam (33.8), Costa Rica (30.8), the Philippines (28.7), and Australia (27.8) all rank in the top 5. It may seem popular to cry "let's invade!" every time we hear of events we're unhappy with overseas, but that's not how things work. Instead, we should work to increase military and diplomatic cooperation and training to make local police stronger and to remove the causes of crime. As for the drug cartels, we've fought for 50+ years to eradicate them here and abroad with limited success. Combining strong law enforcement (which has been our traditional response) with eliminating the socio-economic causes which create markets for drugs here in America may be the answer.

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Response by PO1 Mike Meehan made Jul 12 at 2023 12:35 PM

2023-07-12T12:35:17-04:00

I don't agree with ANY of these available answers. Roping people into a corner by only providing them with BS politicized answers is everything that's wrong with this country today. You're more interested in scoring a "gotcha" and gaining support for your point than in actually understanding the issue. The idea of using the "full weight" and "strategic assets" includes nuclear weapons folks. You gonna be the one to suggest that we "Nuke El Chapo"??
Does anyone believe that there may be solutions short of applying military force to the issue? I sure do.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 12 at 2023 4:54 PM

2023-07-12T16:54:45-04:00

You have not included the option for those of us who believe those dumbas*es shouldn't have been down there in the first place. Lets get real. How many of "us" (RP members) would waltz into a warzone in a failed state? We shouldn't do anything because of these four ignoramuses'. However we should wipe the cartels from the face of the earth in a similar manner to the extirpation of the Barbary menace in the Mediterranean.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 13 at 2023 12:18 AM

2023-07-13T00:18:46-04:00

One of the dumest things I seen here on RP.

Response by LtCol Robert Quinter made Jul 13 at 2023 7:14 AM

2023-07-13T07:14:46-04:00

There is precedent for use of the military to protect our citizens dating back to the Barbary Wars. If the Feds have become to diplomatic for direct intervention, we need a review of the basic governmental responsibilities.