The US Military is Eagle-Eyeing Mexico. Because Drugs?
The recent extraction of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela (plus collateral damage) was partly justified on illegal drugs being trafficked into the US from that country, allegedly. Anyone paying attention should know that these were baseless excuses. Apparently unnecessary ones too, since all the other, more plausible reasons were openly discussed by the Trump administration as well (oil, regime change, etc.)
My take on that is that the narco narrative is part of a larger arch in an unfinished plot of potential interventions throughout LatAM.
When it comes to Mexico, almost no one would argue that drug cartels are not a real and serious problem (especially for Mexicans), or that fentanyl and methamphetamine are not flowing through the Mexico-US border. It is still possible to argue, however, that here too the drug trafficking narrative coming out of American government and media is again an excuse.
Illegal drugs, an American industry
All industries have several moving parts. Let’s mention a few relevant ones:
- Material extraction (or in this case precursors) and procurement
- Financing and capital investment (e.g. on weapons and vehicles)
- Distribution (logistics, transportation, warehousing, etc.)
- Marketing, sales/retail, and customer support
When it comes to certain illegal narcotics in the Americas, while production and wholesale distribution have been pushed to countries like Mexico, the rest of the chain remains in the US. Importantly, this includes almost all of the market-making demand (e.g. millions of opioid addicts created by Big Pharma), a southbound “Iron River” of hundreds of thousands of easily trafficked firearms , and a necessarily massive distribution network into every American city, town, and suburb…
In Mexico, the saying goes that “drugs grow legs after crossing the border”.
It’s hard to believe that any of this can be controlled by evil criminals hiding in some mountain south of the US/MX border — The question is then who and where exactly are the American cartels? But that’s another story…
So, if say 70% of the Americas’ narco industry exists within the US (with Canadian money laundering, apparently), then if Washington D.C. was serious about combating drugs they would probably act more decisively at home. On the other hand, I suppose that its much easier to blame foreigners than fixing the US health care system, addressing police/military corruption, confronting the banks and the NRA, long etc.
What is this about, then?
That is of course the $60 billion dollar question…
Section WIP! I’m publishing this now as it feels imminent that US military operations (probably with reluctant participation of Mexican authorities) will take place. Refer to updates below…
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UPDATE 1: The US Air Force shows up in Toluca, Mexico; Multiple narco convicts are then extradited from that city’s notorious maximum security prison in “joint op”.
UPDATE 2: Alleged “cartel drone” signaled as the cause for the FAA’s unprecedented (albeit ultimately brief) shut down of the airspace around the remote El Paso, TX.
UPDATE 3: New drug-focused task force of the US military (JITF-CC) linked to major drug war operation in (mainly) western Mexico.
Mexico has never done more
In recent years especially, … WIP
…not to say that it is enough (for the sake of its own population).
Annex: An apology, kinda.
As Mexican and first-gen immigrant to the USA, this is a particularly worrying situation for me; One that’s difficult to separate from identity. It sometimes feels as if I am expected to pick sides — annoying even when I’m not a big believer in the notion of modern nationality to begin with.
I had this realization recently, as a US-born relative reminded me that “you are an American too, whether you like it or not”. The potential implication that I am somehow failing at ‘being American’ by not approving the violent and hypocritical foreign policy coming out of D.C. startled me a little. I just hope my relative is never reminded that they’re Mexican too, whether they like it or not (by the ethnicity police).
I’m the first proponent of the enlightenment values associated to the founding of the US of A. “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” ? Sign me up… But what we have today is a suspended constitutional order (typically under the guise of ‘national security’, esp. post 9/11), segregated rule of law, and a lack of democracy: controlled elections (failed two-party system), a Congress neutralized by corporate money, and obsolete checks and balances.
It is precisely because I grew up in a country where democracy was* basically theater that all of this is frustratingly familiar.
Of course I hope I’m wrong and that even if the means are nefarious, at least the outcomes of a US intervention somehow leads to the end of the narco scourge — without breaking something else — in Mexico.
*Mexican democracy has definitely progressed since, although mainly at the federal level and within the Legislative and Executive — coincidentally, opposite to what’s happening in the US, where its the states and local levels that remain more democratic, and with a weakened/politicized, but still robust Judicial.
