The focus of the news is once again on Donald Trump because the GOP primary is starting to heat up a beat. But quite apart from Trump, the larger picture of who and what the GOP stands for nowadays is quite alarming. A policy paper — titled “It’s Time to Wage War on Transnational Drug Cartels” — authored by the Center For Renewing America, “outlines possible justifications and procedures for the next Republican commander-in-chief to “formally” declare “war against the cartels,” in response to ‘the mounting bodies of dead Americans from fentanyl poisonings.’”
The paper is not just something to comfort Donald Trump when he’s sitting around Mar-a-Lago bored and wants to fantasize a military coup. No, it’s targeted at the “next Republican commander-in-chief” and let’s face it, eventually there will be one. The pendulum of politics always swings back the other direction. Eventually there will be somebody in the White House with an R behind his or her name. And then look out. We could seriously be at war with Mexico again, and in this century. Rolling Stone:
In a nod to Mexico’s status as a sovereign nation, the paper calls on the U.S. to “conduct specific military operations to destroy the cartels and enlist the Mexican government in joint operations to target cartel-networked infrastructure, including affiliated factions and enablers with direct action.”
However, that “enlistment” of the Mexican government comes with a massive caveat: “It is vital that Mexico not be led to believe that they have veto power to prevent the US from taking the actions necessary to secure its borders and people,” the paper reads.
The Mexicans are going to love this. As if we didn’t alienate them enough in the four years that Trump was in power. Mexico opted to stop a lot of trade with the United States and conduct it with Argentina instead, to our economic detriment. After this policy paper goes the rounds, I wonder if they’ll do exactly what the Republicans want, which is close off the borders for good — not for purposes of controlling drugs, but simply because they want nothing further to do with the American people and I can’t say as how I blame them.
The document cautions about the “risks” of ongoing international wars, but it takes very little off the table in terms of military action. “The goal is to crush cartel networks with full military force in as rapid a fashion as possible. This means expanding the role beyond Special Forces, targeted strikes, and intelligence operations to include elements of the Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard,” it recommends, in a chapter presumptuously labeled, “Tier Four: Victory Phase.”
It’s unclear if Trump would be willing to go as far as the CRA paper advocates, but he has been especially keen on sending Special Forces to Mexico and has been talking up the idea for months.
The fixation with military action on Mexican soil is not limited to Trump, however. The CRA paper is credited to Ken Cuccinelli, a former Trump official who now backs Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to be the next president of the United States.
This is United States foreign policy in the making, folks. You thought we dug ourselves a grave when Dubya was in office and invaded Iraq and before that with Ronnie Raygun and Iran Contra. Starting a conflagration like this one with our good neighbor to the south makes those two operations look somewhat sedate. At least they took place a bit removed from American soil, not right in our own backyard.
Do not dismiss this as being too ridiculous. Look at who else is on board for this.
Republican congressmen Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) announced legislation to authorize the use of military force against fentanyl trafficking cartels in Mexico. The move garnered support from Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr, who penned an approving op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Pro-Trump House members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) have echoed these ideas, as well.
Plus Lindsey Graham and John Kennedy have been talking about this for a while. And don’t forget, earlier this month, House Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer called Trump’s failure to bomb Mexico, as outlined in Mark Esper’s book, “a mistake.”
Unbelievable as all this may seem, you would do well to consider it a preview of coming attractions the next time we find ourselves with a Republican administration. The seeds have been planted and the only question is, how far along will this madness actually go?
There is no limit to how low the republiQanons will sink! This has been proven over and over again!!
And this would make us different from Russia, how?
It’s an act of war. Aggression. Against a *neighbor*.
The morons writing this “policy” paper seem to be under the impression that it’s so easy to “take out the cartels” when they don’t remember how tough it’s been to stop the drugs on THIS side of the border.
Sure, the “cartels” are getting it into the US but they’re not selling the stuff to the users on the street (and the hoity-toity neighborhoods).
And, they also kind of forget that when one drug “dries up” on the street, it just leads to another one taking its place. Take out the Mexican cartels and we get the Colombians or the Bolivians or the Peruvians all ready to step up and fill in the gap. (And, of course, there will always be our own home-grown dealers–the folks who were at the top of the drug chain when we were in the middle of the meth epidemic.)
“Well, we took Texas, California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, etc (about 42% of Mexico in total) – so why not just grab another bit of territory?”
Doctrine of ‘Manifest Destiny’ (translation – if it’s beside us, it’s OURS)
Anything the Cooch touches is bs.But Fat Donnie doesn’t understand international law which makes the person who invades the villain. Of course,Trump.did call Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a “genius” move and longs to emulate his hero, Vlad.
This will do little to stop the flow of drugs across our borders. The GOP just wants to kill Mexicans.
The GOP just wants to ramp up the war machine because they aren’t personally profiting ENOUGH from our lack of war.
I have no doubt the clowns on the right are all on board with this. It even fits in with their cost saving measures since we border the dam country. Nothing makes a republican happier than to tell a foreign country to get fucked we are invading your asses. Now this wouldn’t be a bad idea if we got permission to go in and do this. But that hasn’t worked before because you had the government people fighting on like the top half and you had them moving drugs into the country on the bottom half. And that’s where the rub still is. The amount of drugs that cross the border every day wouldn’t be able to do it without people in government helping them get through. If you don’t think that’s true I got a couple bridges and some beach front property I know you would love. Here’s a piece of information from someone that worked in shipping. Now, let’s say I have a ton of drugs to ship. To put that in perspective we will roughly distribute my product onto 4 pallets. Now these pallets would be full because pallets generally hold 5 to 700 lbs. of goods safely. Now, I no the average person probably never has seen a pallet so the the average pallet is around 3.5 by 4.5 feet. Now my pallets will be stacked around 3.5 to 4.5 feet high. I know that’s a lot to take in. So I will make it simple here. Everyday I’m taking 4 cubes 4 foot in a square across a border that’s supposed to be secured so tight you couldn’t get a flea across. Now for you people that are mathematically challenged. This means everyday I’m moving a package the size of a smal to medium sized car across the border. Now either I’m the luckiest sonofabitch around or I’m getting help. My money is on my getting help because my the dam unluckiest sonofabitch on this planet.