US victims of Mexican cartel massacre range from 8-month-old twins to 43-year-old mother
This happened Monday in northern Mexico, article HERE.
It’s time to take off the gloves… From a friend who is conversant with the situation south of the border…
On Mexico…Tourism, Commerce, and War
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It’s time to get ‘real’ about the U.S. Government’s relations with the the country of Mexico!
The deaths of several U.S. citizens yesterday in a drug cartel shoot-out in the Mexican state of Sonora, less than one hundred miles south of the U.S. (Arizona) Mexican border should be a wake-up call for anyone who remains in denial about what a clear and present danger Mexico and its ruling drug cartels is to the United States and its citizens.
Recent (in)actions and malfeasance by Mexico President Andres Manual Lopez Obrador (“AMLO” to those American hipsters who are ‘woke’ by applying cute nicknames to their cultural heroes – about whom they know nothing except that they seem ‘cool’ and ‘woke’ themselves) after the arrest and subsequent release of ‘El Chapo’s’ son in Culican, Mexico, last month, are evidence that he has ceded effective control of the social and political apparatus in Mexico to the bloodthirsty terrorists who control the drug trade there and in the United States.
There are simple elements to this situation that can no longer be ignored and swept aside by for purposes of political expediency or potential gain. There is enough blame to go around on both sides. There are also short and long term solutions to the problem.
SHORT TERM:
1. The killings of the American family (including small children!) are proof positive that Americans are not safe in Mexico. The U.S. State Department should immediately begin an official process to discourage American citizens from non-essential travel into Mexico. In addition, it should remind the thousands of Americans who are living as expatriates in Mexico that their lives are in potential danger and the American Government can do little to protect them. American tourism is the heartbeat of the national economy of Mexico and any significant reduction of such will have an immediate crippling effect on their economy which would require the government of Mexico (if there is one) to make some hard choices.
2. The president should immediately take steps to deploy the National Guard (and in the case of California – whose governor will refuse such an order – the U.S. military itself) along the U.S. Mexico border to ‘seal’ the border and restrict entry to only those foreign citizens who have official visas to enter the U.S. This is a legitimate national security issue confronting the President of the United States and he has every right to do this. Who in America will object to such action with any veracity?
3. Redouble (re-triple?) the efforts by the U.S. agencies responsible for the interdiction of illegal drugs in such efforts. If Congress refuses to fund such efforts, President Trump should go around them and declare a national emergency and spend whatever it takes to fund these efforts.
LONG TERM:
1. The U.S. government (Executive and Legislative branches) needs to come to grips with the reality that with no demand, there would be no supply of illegal drugs and the cartels would forced to market their products elsewhere. One way of dealing with this is to make the sale and distribution of illegal drugs in the U.S. a felony (not subject to being pleaded down to a misdemeanor by a prosecutor). We are already in the next national election cycle. Let us see those on the political left defend the sale and distribution of illegal drugs with no effective penalty consequence on national TV. Simply put, support for the use of illegal drugs in the U.S. is tantamount to the support of the drug cartels (and their methods) in Mexico.
2. American companies have shown that they either cannot or will not cease to manufacture products in Mexico and bring them in for sale to the United States at the ultimate expense of jobs for Americans. Trump has tried the outmoded concept of ‘moral suasion’ with these companies with no positive result – indeed he has been subjected to public ridicule for it. It’s time for him to once again impose meaningful tariffs on goods brought in from Mexico to the effect of discouraging American companies from manufacturing there. Tariffs DO work (like a sledgehammer driving a nail!), draconian as they may seem by those squinty-eyed economists at Harvard who proclaim from their ivory towers that “this isn’t how we do it anymore.”
3. Going back to ‘AMLO’ and his hand-wringing and ham-handed ways of governing Mexico: If he can’t bring the lawless drug cartels under control with his own law enforcement and military, then he should turn to the U.S. for help (Is there any doubt who would prevail in a gun-fight between some cartel thugs and American military special operators?)
4. China is also part of this problem. Manufacturers of synthetic drugs (Fentanyl, etc.) are partnering with the drug cartels to use their channels of distribution to flood the U.S. with their products. Trump should place this on his punch-list of issues he has with President Xi and move it up in terms of priority. Xi and his dictatorship (BTW, to those still starry-eyed about our relationship with China, that’s what their form of government is) could put a stop to this in a heartbeat if they had the incentive to do so.
5. Finally, the American people (including those on the left who see illegal drug use as a cute, harmless manifestation of a liberal, progressive attitude that somehow sets them apart from the staid old, boring, ‘unwoke’ lifestyle of their conservative counterparts) need to come to the understanding that illegal drug use by their friends and acquaintances – as benign as it may seem at the moment – has consequences that began many miles and passages of time away from that moment. The people who profit from the activities of the cartels are smart and ruthless. They will not stop with controlling the drug trade; they want complete control of the Mexican political and economic apparatus to the end of having control of the activities of all legal businesses (they are now targeting even avocado growers!) in Mexico. How long will it be before the successors to ‘El Chapo’ will be negotiating with Ford and General Motors about the terms and conditions about new manufacturing plants in Mexico? How long will it be before they are occupying the Mexican seat at the U.N. or the Embassy of Mexico in Washington? How long will it be before they have seats on the Board of J.P. Morgan Chase or Bank of America?
There may not have yet been a ‘Pearl Harbor’ type incident (although the survivors of the family killed in Sonora yesterday will see that as such), but Americans must come to the realization that we are at war with insidious outside hostile forces (Mexico, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – all of which are dictatorships), that want to destroy America and its historic values by non-military means if possible. The question for each American is, do we fight back, or simply lie down and take an ass-beating from these people?
I can’t find anything he says to disagree with… And stay the hell out of Mexico. No vacations, no running across the border to shop, zip, nada…
