the military ramifications of a war with Drug Cartels

[seahawk]

You do not want to protect those who are taking the drugs, but those who are not.

If drugs would only cause harm to the individual taking them, it would not be a problem, but those addicts and the people supplying them commit crimes against society and other people not taking drugs. Be it by driving stoned, stealing or robbing others to pay for the next shots or killing innocents in turf wars.

Edited January 22 by seahawk

[Roman Alymov]

25 minutes ago, seahawk said:

You do not want to protect those who are taking the drugs, but those who are not.

If drugs would only cause harm to the individual taking them, it would not be a problem, but those addicts and the people supplying them commit crimes against society and other people not taking drugs. Be it by driving stoned, stealing or robbing others to pay for the next shots or killing innocents in turf wars.

I'm afraid you are missing my point. Drug addiction is symptom of society problems, not the root of problems. In late USSR drugs were not the problem (luckily) but alcohol increasingly was. All this discussion about drugs, cartels etc. strongly reminds me "Anti-alcohol campaign" of USSR, and entire "MAGA" got some resemblence to "Return to Lenin's principles" declared during early "Perestroyka" years. May be i am just traumatized by USSR implosion....

[urbanoid]

3 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

I'm afraid you are missing my point. Drug addiction is symptom of society problems, not the root of problems. In late USSR drugs were not the problem (luckily) but alcohol increasingly was. All this discussion about drugs, cartels etc. strongly reminds me "Anti-alcohol campaign" of USSR, and entire "MAGA" got some resemblence to "Return to Lenin's principles" declared during early "Perestroyka" years. May be i am just traumatized by USSR implosion....

It can be both.

[Roman Alymov]

18 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

It can be both.

No they can't. Drugs and alcohol are not new for menkind, but for centuries they were not the problem of society, just few individuals. Greeks were almost drinking wine instead of water, but it was not the problem for society. Afgan tribes were living among natural opium fields, but were not drug addicts. 

[seahawk]

32 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

I'm afraid you are missing my point. Drug addiction is symptom of society problems, not the root of problems. In late USSR drugs were not the problem (luckily) but alcohol increasingly was. All this discussion about drugs, cartels etc. strongly reminds me "Anti-alcohol campaign" of USSR, and entire "MAGA" got some resemblence to "Return to Lenin's principles" declared during early "Perestroyka" years. May be i am just traumatized by USSR implosion....

Without a doubt a godless society is more open to drugs than a society in which the word of God is followed. But even in a sound and healthy society it still comes down to a mix of controlling the use of drugs, the access to drugs and also teaching people how to use drugs responsibly. But then wine, is by far not as addicting as crystal...

Edited January 22 by seahawk

[urbanoid]

2 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

No they can't. Drugs and alcohol are not new for menkind, but for centuries they were not the problem of society, just few individuals. Greeks were almost drinking wine instead of water, but it was not the problem for society. Afgan tribes were living among natural opium fields, but were not drug addicts. 

Plenty of people who become addicted simply because of availability of drugs (they want to be 'cool', 'everybody does it' etc.), not because they have some serious problems. That happens to plenty of those from 'good families' as well. 

 

[urbanoid]

Just now, seahawk said:

Without  a doubt a godless society is more open to drugs than a society in which the word of God is followed. But even a sound and healthy society it still comes down to a mix of controlling the use of drug, the access to drugs and also teaching people how to use drugs reasonably. But then wine, is by far not as addicting as crystal...

And generally not as harmful even if you're addicted.

Bonus meme:

[seahawk]

Agreed, wine and Fentanyl are not even in the same ballpark.

[Roman Alymov]

25 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Plenty of people who become addicted simply because of availability of drugs (they want to be 'cool', 'everybody does it' etc.), not because they have some serious problems. That happens to plenty of those from 'good families' as well. 

What you describe is exactly society problems, especially if even people from "good families" are not immune to them.

[bojan]

9 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

...It's also a no-brainer that people are more likely to start doing drugs if they're more accessible. A lot will be drawn in just to see what it's like, and addiction will take a hold on many of these...

Experience from European countries that have decriminalized drugs says that %/number of addicts did not go either up nor down. IOW, decriminalizing prevented having people's life fucked up by having drugs found on them by police, but it did not influence number of addicted users in any way.

[glenn239]

5 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

No they can't. Drugs and alcohol are not new for menkind, but for centuries they were not the problem of society, just few individuals. 

Urbanoid is right.  Here,

You say drug overdoses are caused by underlying societal factors.  Things didn't get 40 times worse in the USA between the years 2000 and the 2022.  What happened was that in three key categories - opioids, psychostimulants, cocaine - deaths skyrocketed after 2015.  

To me the cocaine data is typically suggestive of the chemical potency of the product being a core problem.  Well, society didn't make cocaine more deadly.  The labs did.  

In 2000 deaths from all forms was about, what, maybe 6,000 on that graph?  In 2022 it looks more like about 150,000.  The object presumably will not be to try and stop drug trafficking in the United States, but rather to cut down on drug usage and premature deaths so that the trends in that graph start to return to the pre-2015 levels.

Edited January 23 by glenn239

[Mighty_Zuk]

4 hours ago, bojan said:

Experience from European countries that have decriminalized drugs says that %/number of addicts did not go either up nor down. IOW, decriminalizing prevented having people's life fucked up by having drugs found on them by police, but it did not influence number of addicted users in any way.

If you're talking about weed, that's irrelevant and I do support decriminalizing its use. Weed is not the type of drug that'll get you killed or threaten your surroundings.

[Ssnake]

...except for those who experience psychotic episodes because of it. Cannabis is not harmless. It may be less destructive than other substances but its effects are not negligible.

[ink]

There are two separate but related problems here, a) the Mexican (and other*) cartels and b) drug addiction in the metropole.

Seems to me, you can't permanently solve either of these with military force. Especially not b. However, if you're willing to expend intelligence and military resources, and particularly if you're willing to kill without due process**, you could very much disrupt a by cracking down on the leaders and organisational nodes of existing networks - preferably in coordination with the countries in which they are located.

So, there is room, imo, for a military effort... Just seems to be a question of whether the powers that be (Trump & friends) see an interest in engaging in one.

 

* Or, if you prefer, the entire web of interconnected criminal organisations trafficking drugs, arms, and people (and engaging in all kinds of nefarious activities across borders).

** If the war on terror has taught us anything - and it probably didn't really teach us a whole lot - it's that, when push comes to shove, the US is willing to take people out extrajudicially when there is a perceived need to do so.

Edited January 23 by ink

[Stuart Galbraith]

The US Army and the CIA have a LONG history of taking out people extrajudicially. Im not so much a prig as to disapprove as its sometimes been necessary. But I struggle to think of an occasion, other than Bin Laden, when it was worth the effort. Even killing Che Guevara did little else than more firmly establish Castro's position.

If you think of how many predator strikes we made in Afghanistan and Pakistan, can anyone honestly say it made any damn difference at all? We still lost.

 

[LeeWalls]

1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

...except for those who experience psychotic episodes because of it. Cannabis is not harmless. It may be less destructive than other substances but its effects are not negligible.

Anyone who has ever experienced the Marijuana Munchies can confirm that the effects of Cannabis are anything but "negligible."

[ink]

41 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

If you think of how many predator strikes we made in Afghanistan and Pakistan, can anyone honestly say it made any damn difference at all? We still lost.

Hard to know, right? If they had dropped bouquets of flowers from those predators, maybe things would be different. I like a good counterfactual as much as the next man, but I wouldn't want to call this one way or the other.

[Stuart Galbraith]

13 minutes ago, ink said:

Hard to know, right? If they had dropped bouquets of flowers from those predators, maybe things would be different. I like a good counterfactual as much as the next man, but I wouldn't want to call this one way or the other.

The point is, we launched those strikes to remove individuals to win the war on terror. We didnt win the war on terror. Ergo we can assume, the strikes were not as successful as we told ourselves they were.

Alright, its not that simple. We chose to leave. It may be that the strikes were the only thing in that war that worked. But without a framework for victory, then it was still pointless looking back on it, because we lost. It may be the sole untarnished cherry on top of the shitcake, but its still a shitcake.

What scares me about these calls for military strikes on South America, its the same vapid 'lets blow the bastards up!' mentality that got us into the war on terror, without stopping to think where the end was. If we cant envisage an end to the drugs trade, you have to question what wasting human lives, not to mention valuable munitions, is for. A photo op? Not good enough.

 

[ink]

36 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

The point is, we launched those strikes to remove individuals to win the war on terror. We didnt win the war on terror. Ergo we can assume, the strikes were not as successful as we told ourselves they were.

Alright, its not that simple. We chose to leave. It may be that the strikes were the only thing in that war that worked. But without a framework for victory, then it was still pointless looking back on it, because we lost. It may be the sole untarnished cherry on top of the shitcake, but its still a shitcake.

What scares me about these calls for military strikes on South America, its the same vapid 'lets blow the bastards up!' mentality that got us into the war on terror, without stopping to think where the end was. If we cant envisage an end to the drugs trade, you have to question what wasting human lives, not to mention valuable munitions, is for. A photo op? Not good enough.

 

Yeah, but, on the other hand, the US military and military industrial complex do need something to do from time to time. Especially if (as unlikely as this sounds from where we're currently sitting) the Ukraine war ends in some not-so-distant future.

And if it also ends up taking out some unsavoury characters and putting a dent in international organised crime in the Americas, then I'm all for it.

Also, part of me kind of hopes that some kind of future US war on organised crime (if that even ends up being a thing at all) accidentally catches some local Balkan crime bosses in its dragnet.

[bojan]

9 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

If you're talking about weed, that's irrelevant and I do support decriminalizing its use. Weed is not the type of drug that'll get you killed or threaten your surroundings.

Not just weed, in at least some countries hard drugs are decriminalized in case of "small doses", IOW  not for sale quantities.

Also today's weed is way stronger, with way more adverse effects than old time one. Difference in strength of weed available here compared to the one from late '90s is staggering.

[Mighty_Zuk]

20 minutes ago, bojan said:

Not just weed, in at least some countries hard drugs are decriminalized in case of "small doses", IOW  not for sale quantities.

Also today's weed is way stronger, with way more adverse effects than old time one. Difference in strength of weed available here compared to the one from late '90s is staggering.

Perhaps. I'm a strong believer in personal responsibility. So if someone is taking drugs and fucks up their own life - that's their choice and they'll live with the consequences.

But if we see something like the cartels - a big juicy target that behaves violently, doesn't pay taxes, and sells a product that's net very harmful, then why not just kill them?

[mandeb48]

You can do it and it will be a nice show but nothing more, because the cartel is only the part subcontracted to the third world of the industry. The banks where money is laundered will be bombed? in the middle of now York?

There is demand, money, there will be suppliers, Mexican cartels or local businessmen.

Edited January 23 by mandeb48

[Mike1158]

There was a kid about my nbrothers age on the estate where we grew up.  His mother was an abuser of heroin and cocaine and who knows what.

 

On his 8th birthday she shot him up with her favourite blend so she would not be 'doing' that crap alone.

 

Problem being that she was genetically predisposed top paranoia etc.  That kid is/was the longest serving resident in Broadmore because he knew what to say when they tried to parole him.  I very much doubt he will ever leave without a straight jacket.

 

WIthout turning off the tap of demand there is not much that will work against the supply and seeing pushers outside our schools will continue.

 

Being somewhat to the right of Ghengis Kahn I know what I woiuyld LIKE| to do but we are unlikely to even approach that level of response.  Sad.

[Tim the Tank Nut]

the general direction of this thread (which should've been the the FFZ after all) is there's nothing that will work and it's all just pointless.  This is exactly the attitude that got us where we are today.  It's disheartening to see all the reasons why, mostly posted by people that should know better.

Still, there it is.

For my part I'm in the kill til the risk/benefit analysis changes camp.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I think the idea I was trying to promote is, it can work, but only within a framework of Foreign and Domestic policies that will make it work. Other than that you are just moving rubble, to ultimately no point.

After Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, i would have believed nobody would believe using the military sans a coherent foreign policy was sensible. But it seems the point has yet to be grasped.