ANALYSIS – When word leaked in 2022 that former President Donald Trump had asked advisors about using U.S. military force against drug cartel labs in Mexico, the anti-Trump media and defense intelligentsia went into a tizzy.
They went apoplectic again when Trump, in January of this year, declared that if reelected, he would “order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.”
Now with Joe Biden‘s border in chaos, 100,000 Americans dead from fentanyl overdoses, and the most recent kidnap and murder of American citizens in Mexico, a growing group of Republican lawmakers is expressing its dissatisfaction with the ongoing, impotent U.S. law enforcement response to the drug cartels.
They are also asking for the U.S. military to step in.
And the cartels appear worried.
As Tom Rogan writes in the Washington Examiner: “The current U.S. strategy, wherein the U.S. gives the Mexican government a lot of money to pretend to confront the cartels and arrest the odd leader in advance of a U.S. visit or aid package, is patently ridiculous.”
So, two Republican members of Congress, Dan Crenshaw, Texas, and Michael Waltz, Fla., have introduced legislation to authorize U.S. military force against the most deadly Mexican drug cartels.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham is proposing the same thing, saying at a press conference Wednesday with Senator John Kennedy that he wants the U.S. to unleash its “fury and might” on Mexico’s cartels.
Though he added that the U.S. military should not forcibly enter Mexico, which makes me wonder if Graham thinks the Mexican narco-government would simply allow our forces entry.
These anti-cartel efforts recently found support from former Attorney General Bill Barr.
Tied to the proposals to allow the use of our military is the call to designate Mexican drug cartels ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’ (FTOs), which would open a host of avenues for the U.S. to strike at the groups, both financially and legally.
This is also something Trump has proposed.
On Wednesday, Senators Rick Scott and Roger Marshall reintroduced the ‘Drug Cartel Terrorist Designation Act,’ (the Act) which would provide the U.S. government with additional power to fight the drug cartels.
The Act would start by formally designating four of the most dangerous Mexican cartels as FTOs: the Reynosa/Los Metros faction of the Gulf Cartel; The Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas; The Jalisco New Generation Cartel; and The Sinaloa Cartel.
Other cartels could then follow.
Of course, Mexico’s corrupt socialist president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) quickly pushed back saying that these GOP demands threatened Mexican sovereignty.
AMLO went so far as threatening his own intervention in the U.S. elections, adding that he would ask Americans of Mexican and Hispanic origin not to vote for Republicans if their “aggression” continued.
But the Mexican government’s reaction was predictable.
More interesting was how the cartels responded to these new calls for U.S. action against them.
Interestingly, they quickly released the remaining two live U.S. hostages recently kidnapped in Matamoros near Brownsville, Texas. Two others were killed.
But the cartels went a step further – the Gulf cartel’s Scorpions faction wrote an apology to the residents of Matamoros. And not only that but turned over the murderous kidnappers to Mexican authorities.
According to the Daily Caller, the letter stated that the criminals involved went against the cartel’s rules of “respecting the life and well-being of the innocent.”
The letter added: “We have decided to turn over those who were directly involved and responsible in the events, who at all times acted under their own decision-making and lack of discipline.”
Five of their members were then reportedly handed over.
This uncommon response seems to show that the cartels fear a direct (covert or overt) U.S. military intervention against them inside Mexico.
What specific military or paramilitary actions the U.S. could or should take against the cartels is a topic for another piece.