Summary

President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration are debating the extent of potential U.S. military action against Mexican drug cartels.

Options discussed include targeted airstrikes, cyberattacks, covert operations, and “soft invasions” using special forces. Trump has warned Mexico to curb fentanyl trafficking or face military intervention.

His key appointees, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, support some form of military action, framing cartels as terrorist threats.

Critics fear this could escalate tensions with Mexico and spark significant international controversy.

  • dipcart@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    I hate to admit it, but somehow Ben Shapiro was right. He wrote about this in his terrible, awful, no good, very bad book True Allegiance. Although the reason why that invasion started was due to border crossings. And it wasn’t started by the president but by the governor of Texas.

    The book is awful but I recommend listening to Behind the Bastards’ (a podcast) reading of it because it is enlightening.

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Invade Mexico for what? Is this one of those “if we make them part of the country, there won’t be a border to cross” type of things?

    Edit: Haha I didn’t read they wanted to go after the cartels.

  • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    These morons are gonna roll tanks into downtown Santa Fe while a confused crowd gathers for the parade and Trump in a gold John Wayne helmet orders them to open fire.

  • RuBisCO@slrpnk.net
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    1 day ago

    Another source close to Trump describes to Rolling Stone what they call a “soft invasion” of Mexico, in which American special forces — not a large theater deployment — would be sent covertly to assassinate cartel leaders.

    Oh yeah, that went so well previously, why not try again?
    /s

  • baldingpudenda@lemmy.world
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    24 hours ago

    What’s USA’s record against insurgents? I know Trump went to the Taliban to make a deal after more than 2 decades fighting them.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    That’s a real braintrust donvict has going there…JFC. And no wonder, given Junior the cokehead is apparently influencing a lot of picks.

  • penquin@lemm.ee
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    22 hours ago

    Or they could save billions, AND make billions after, just by legalize, tax and regulate it. Once that happens, the cartels will die off on their own. But hey, the defense lobby is really strong… So.

    • stevedice@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      Sorry to break it to you, but cartels are never gonna die off. They’re not something that’s currently happening in Mexico, they’re the backbone of the Mexican economy and have been since the revolution war a hundred years ago.

      More context: Cartels, although they weren’t called that back then, are how the revolution war was financed. They basically rolled up into small towns and took everything that wasn’t nailed down —including women— under the pretext that they needed it to “fight for freedom”. When the revolution ended and they had no excuse to ransack villages anymore, they pivoted onto drugs. If drugs are legalized, they’re just gonna pivot to something else. Right now, there’s cartels who barely sell drugs and make most of their money through kidnappings and extortion.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      Been screaming that for years, now it’s too late. The cartels got wise and diversified their portfolio. We can no longer pull their teeth by legalizing.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Indeed, FFS, just legalize all of it. The WOSD has been far more harmful than the drugs themselves. But moneyed interests definitely want them illegal.

    • Riskable@programming.dev
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      15 minutes ago

      Oh didn’t think for a second he plans to actually go after the real cartels. He just wants an excuse to kill random Mexicans.

      After his orders to kill people we’ll have news reports from actual Mexicans saying the people he order killed weren’t drug dealers. And they’ll be right.